29. Maren
29
Maren
F ingers twisted through my hair, yanking my head to the side. A tongue slid across my neck.
My breath came and went in knots, stuck in my lungs then out in a fevered gush of air. The ship rocked to the side, and I leaned with it, chained with my hands over my head. Waves lashed at the cerlerite, voices tossing shouts and orders from the deck above, muffled through the wood.
Wooden walls on every side, pulsing, shrinking, closing in—
Burian laughed as he patted my cheek. I opened and closed my hands, searching—begging for water to answer my call.
“Burian!” Demyan’s voice came sharp and impatient, thick with his Kravan accent. “Prestaňte hovori? s rybami.”
“Len sa znova spoznáva?,” Burian answered, stroking my hair as he would a dog. He turned away to rejoin them, leaving me bound in the roots of the tree, my heart thrashing in my ears.
Demyan and Burian—that’s who Kye had been fighting when I’d run into Kriska. But they were here. And Kye wasn’t.
Dead, Kriska’s voice echoed in my head.
No. No, no, no—
The three men continued their argument as I slowly spiraled. My imagination tore loose from my control, and visions of Kye stripped me to the core. Laying in the grass, bleeding, unable to walk, light fading from his eyes—
Something between a snarl and a wail ripped from my raw throat. The pirates paused to glance at me, then continued their discussion, their words rapid and agitated. I sat heaving for air, for my heart to slow, for the gnawing pit in my stomach to fill enough for me to think.
The knife Kye had used to cut his yarn was in my boot.
With a stolen glance at the pirates, I shifted to sit on my knees. I could feel it pressing almost painfully into my ankle, but the hard steel remained out of my reach.
The three of them dropped into silence, staring down the ravine. I thrust my weight forward, arching my back, and the cold handle brushed my fingertips. Kriska spat, pointing at the trail. The stretch strained my shoulders, forcing me to grit my teeth. Then, the handle wiggled loose, and I managed to pull it out.
Success.
I sighed a short breath of relief.
Demyan’s eyes cinched to mine as though they’d been tugged by a string. The pirate muttered under his breath, and Burian whipped around to face me. He grinned, and I wrapped my fingers around the knife handle, settling my weight back.
Burian crossed to me in four strides. “ Malá ryba,” he tsked, grabbing the fabric at my chest and yanking me to my feet. “We didn’t check you for weapons.”
He leaned over my shoulder, one hand hard on my wrists as he wrestled the knife out of my grasp. Inches from his chin, I bared my teeth and lunged for him, snapping at dry air.
“Retie her hands to the tree.” Kriska sent the command over his shoulder, not bothering to watch. The world spun, and suddenly I was shoved face-first into rough bark. I growled, rocking back on my heels, striking with whatever I could. A shoulder, an elbow. Burian’s voice laughed in my ear. He pushed his side into my spine, using my own knife to cut my binds.
My skin still burned from the shield weed ash, but the strength in my muscles had returned. Either that, or it was adrenaline coursing through my body that drove my hands as I reached back and raked my nails across his face. He shrieked, stumbling enough that I broke free of his grasp, and my boots pumped over the roots of the tree—until I ran straight into the hard line of Demyan’s body.
“ Hlupák ,” Demyan spat at Burian, grabbing me by the throat. I reached to scratch at his face as well, but someone caught my arms behind my back. Demyan’s fingers tightened, and I sputtered. “More cat than fish,” he drawled, gazing down at me without humor as he walked me backwards, forcing me once more against the tree.
Wooden walls, wooden walls, wooden walls—
I struggled for breath as they tied my hands around the trunk, fixing the rope to opposite branches so taut I thought I might rip in two. My chest pressed into the rough bark, and my knees threatened to give out as I stood gasping for air.
Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking—
The sound of ripping fabric met my ears, the tug and pull of my dress followed by loose slack over my body. Burian cut through my stays with my own moon-forsaken knife. He pulled my homespun dress apart piece by piece, shifting it out from between me and the tree, leaving me to stand in the same satin dress I’d worn while chained to the wall of Darkness’s Hourglass. Hands slid violently down my sides, snaking around my waist to feel across my front, squeezing and prodding.
“I don’t have any other knives, you stupid, moon-damned pirate,” I seethed. He yanked off my boots, feeling his way from my ankle to my thighs. I threw my hips to the side as his hands drifted higher, willing to shred my bare skin against the jagged bark if it meant evading his touch, but Kriska’s voice cut through, interrupting his exploration.
“ Burian ,” the pirate captain snapped. “ Nechajte rybu na pokoji. Vezmi svoj me? a vylez na ten strom.”
Burian stood and ran his hands through my tangled hair, pulling at the strands before stalking away. Heart pounding in my ears, anger pooling from every inch of my skin, I stared hard at the other side of the ravine. Kriska’s face came into view directly in front of me.
“Will he come looking for you?” the captain asked casually, leaning his back into the trunk as he turned my knife in his hands.
I ignored him, though his words repeated in my head, a weight in my chest shifting loose.
Kye was alive.
“Couldn’t manage to kill him? How inconvenient for you,” I ground out through a curled lip, unwilling to even look at him. Was Kye what they were standing around waiting for?
He didn’t face me, anyway. Pressing the center of his back into the tree, he rested against my hand, which was beginning to go numb, and took a bite from an apple I suspected he’d stolen from Sero’s saddle.
Juice flecked my cheek as he chewed. “Will he? We’re close to the mountains. He could just scurry home if he wanted.” Kriska mimicked feet running through the air with his fingers.
Would he? My stomach gave a nervous twist.
Is what a mistake, Leihani?
This. Us.
“Probably,” I snapped, my eyes fixed hard on the bark. “Now that I’m not slowing him down. Why do you care? You talked enough about killing him on the ship. You don’t need him to complete your agreement.”
“Because I don’t need him tracking us back to the ship. And nothing stays where you left it as reliably as a dead body.” Apple crunched in Kriska’s mouth as he stretched it in a slow smile. “When you lie to a man, malá ryba, keep your anger hidden. Conceal it under a face that does not care. You might as well tell me the truth with how skilled you are at hiding your fury. Would you like me to show you?”
I glared into the empty air, and he gathered my long hair in his hand, twisting it around his palm. He adjusted his weight, leaning only his shoulder into the tree and forcing my eyes to meet his.
“Aleksei was my brother,” Kriska said, eyes flashing as his Kravan accent vibrated from the back of his throat. “When you appeared on deck, I sent men down to get him, but he was already dead. Now, what do you think: Am I telling the truth, or lying?”
I simply glared.
Kriska’s mouth parted, tongue calmly prodding his teeth for apple crumbs. “Do you know what it’s like, finding a member of your family butchered?”
I strained to hold my glare, muscles tight.
Kriska let his gaze drift down my shoulder and over my stretched arm. “Business is business, malá ryba . Every honorable pirate deals his fair share in the slave trade. But you killed my brother and sank my father’s ship." He pushed off the tree, voice dropping to a low whisper. “You made it personal.”
Wind whisked my hair and face, forcing me to squint to avoid dust as it flung into my eyes. Kriska dipped his head into the curve of my neck, his breath hot over the shell of my ear. “For a sea witch, you’re a terrible liar. He’ll come looking for you, and when he does, I’ll let you watch as I drain life from his body. Then I’ll sell you like a brood mare and collect my bounty.” He tilted his head to give me a last look, eyes grazing my binds with cruel efficiency, like a mason checking the fit of his stone slabs for errors. Then turned and gave Sero a brutal slap on the hind quarters.
The slap echoed across the ravine. Sero neighed in surprise and shot ahead, disappearing down the trail. The captain watched him go, eyes sharp. From my periphery, the pirates all swung into the leaves of nearby trees, smooth and silent and hidden in the tortured wood like spiders at the edge of their web.
I rested my forehead against the peeling bark.
Bait. He was using me as bait.
It might’ve given me relief—he needed to draw Kye in, which meant Kye was probably unscathed, if his unwelcome appearance threatened the pirates so much they worried he’d follow. But fear coiled in my belly, dark tendrils on a vine. I couldn't move, couldn't call to water, and could only see a narrow section of forest. There’d be no way to warn Kye that Kriska was lying in wait and not simply riding Sero somewhere else.
The pain in my head came and went in waves. Wind throttled my hair, sending sharp bursts down my satin dress and up my shirt like biting fingers, the slit up my side flapping over my hip. Sensation wavered in my arms. My legs began to shake, the uneven roots a poor surface to balance over, and I let myself sag into the tree, eyes closed to shut out the bright sun.
It must’ve been hours later when I snapped awake to find Kriska standing before me, hands on his hips. I caught his scent, tinged with hot metallic frustration. He draped me with his own shadow, the sun’s thin warmth vanishing in an instant.
Maybe Kye was waiting for the sun to set.
Maybe he was too far behind. Kolibri wouldn't let him ride her—if she could walk at all. Maybe she was hurt. Maybe Kye was hurt.
Maybe he wasn't coming.
Swallowing, I lifted my head. It dragged against the tree trunk, too heavy for my neck, and I surveyed Kriska through my lashes. The pirate glanced out towards the sun, now on its way to the western horizon.
Circumspection flickered in his hard gaze as he leaned forward, hooking a finger into my hair and pulling it behind my shoulder, a strange look in his eyes. I knew—before his knuckles connected to my ribs—that the trap he’d set had changed.
If a fish ignores a lure, a fisherman’s only option is to change the bait. To switch it out for something flashier. Brighter. More enticing. Before his arm reeled, before the blur of his fist cracked into my side, before shockwaves penetrated my body—I knew I was about to take a beating for the sake of drawing Kye into the open.
I clamped my teeth together, refusing to make a sound. To shout or cry or beg—or to make any other noise just to lead Kye to us. I’d walk away with every bone broken before I’d let Kriska see fear. To react in any way that might give him an inch of power over me.
And then he hit me.
My diaphragm flattened against knotted wood, lung cavities emptying on impact. I gasped and choked in the absence of air for the second time in hours, eyes welling. His fist snapped back and punched me again, then he kneeled beside me, giving me a moment to catch my breath, one hand patting the side of my arm with cold indifference.
“Scream,” he ordered, eyes scanning the trees.