Chapter 27
ASTOR
W hich of the Sisters I have to thank for the fact that of all the places in the world we chose to dock, it happened to be Narioma, I do not know.
Not that I intend on sending my regards, anyway.
But I’m no fool—there is no such thing as coincidence when the Sisters are involved, so that a little town by the name of Karaki is only half a day’s journey by foot from Narioma does not escape my notice.
Coincidence or not, unsolicited gift from one of the Sisters or not, I find myself at the gates of Karaki, boots muddied from the walk.
I could have rented a horse from one of the many stables in the port town of Narioma, but I wanted to feel the pressure of the wet earth against the soles of my boots.
The portion of me that wishes to be good, inherently changed by the love I have for my wife, would have me believe that I wanted the resistance of the mud to steer me away from my path, wear me down until I turned back around.
I did not turn back around.
Karaki is about how I’ve always imagined it. It’s not a well-known town, more of a small village. In fact, it’s so unremarkable that I might not have bothered to remember its name had I not received intel on who resides here.
The gates are hardly functional. They’re splayed open.
The rust corroding the joints paired with the ivy snaking up the metal bars gives the impression they haven’t been closed in quite some time.
Inside the village, the stone cottages are just as overgrown.
Normally, I find the overgrown look appealing, lived in, but here, it seems more unkempt than anything.
It’s the type of place that would be less sad if it were abandoned.
A few villagers hobble through the streets. Most of them possess some version of a limp, and all carry baskets, the contents of which aren’t exactly overflowing.
They cast me wary looks, and though I tuck my hook into my overcoat, it’s the coat itself—well-oiled and tailored—that seems to give them pause.
A few turns down the snaking cobbled streets leads me to the base of a hill, where the number of cottages dwindles and the overgrown brush characteristic of the town warps into carefully tailored hedges guarding both sides of a neatly lined stone staircase hewn into the side of the hill.
At the top of the hill is a home. A manor, really. It’s nothing in comparison to the mansions I’ve dined in during my time abroad, but compared to the rest of the village, it might as well be a palace.
It’s formed of the same gray bricks. The same ivy curls across its facade. But there’s no crumbling in the mortar, no sense of decay in the foundation. The roof is sturdy and unpatched, and even the ivy seems to follow a predetermined path.
I make my way up the steps, sensing the smell of gardenias in the flower beds, and knock upon the massive oak door.
Taking a step back, so as not to overwhelm the servants with my size, I close my eyes and breathe.
By the time a plump servant woman opens the door, I’ve somehow managed to unclench my jaw.
“Why, hello,” I say, making my best attempt at being cordial.
Apparently, my feigned smile is not quite warm enough, because the wrinkles around her tight mouth deepen at the sight of me.
“Hello there,” she says. “Yer late.”
“My apologies,” I say, too cynical by this point in my life to believe I’ve struck any sort of luck. If the master of this house was expecting a visitor, I imagine such visitor will arrive exactly when it is least convenient.
For now, I’m too numb to care.
The rather hostile servant woman ushers me in with a cluck of her tongue, but I don’t begrudge her for her lack of manners. Not when I know firsthand exactly the type of master she submits to.
The manor is well-kept, impressive, if not a tad on the empty side. There’s a door to the left that the maid hurries to close, but not before I observe that the room itself is completely bare, not a piece of furniture in sight.
I fight the urge to roll my eyes.
“Hurry on, then,” says the maid. “The master doesn’t like to be kept waiting.” Her tone is full of vitriol, though I get the sense it’s less out of a sense of loyalty to her master and more to do with a knowledge that she will likely suffer his moods due to my tardiness.
The staircase creaks as I follow her, her wrinkled hands clinging to the banister. When we reach the upper floor, she leads me down a hall, decorated with ornate wallpaper but lacking portraits, and to a cherry wood door.
The maid knocks, and the voice beckoning us inside raises the hair on the back of my neck.
The door moans open, and the maid introduces me with a name that flees my mind as soon as it reaches my ears.
I can hardly hear her anyway. Not with the roaring in my ears, the boom of thunder fighting with the roll of a tidal wave.
I hardly notice the woman leave us. Hardly notice the click of the door behind me as she pulls it closed.
The man at the desk doesn’t look up from his neatly stacked papers. My first coherent thought is that he’s smaller than I remember. Frail, almost, which seems like it should be impossible.
The office itself is sweltering. That would be due to the fire going in the hearth. The coals in the bottom of the fireplace glow a deep red, daring someone to touch them.
My neck breaks out in a cold sweat, and I fight the urge to loosen my collar.
“I do hope you brought the payment we agreed upon,” says the man, voice as familiar to me as my own, even if his has deteriorated with age. “I’ve been told that you like to barter last-minute, after a deal has already been struck. I think you’ll find attempting as much a waste of both of our time.”
The man behind the desk rifles through his set of papers, taking a quill to the bottom of them. His parchment-colored hands tremble, but there’s no sense of concern on his face as he peers through his spectacles.
The overwhelming urge to fling myself through the door behind me before he glances up and fixes those familiar eyes upon me hits me with a ferocity I’m not prepared for.
Whether it’s him, or the heat of the fireplace, or the sight of the coals, or the knowledge of my fate with the Sister that has the room spinning before me, I don’t know.
What I do know is that I am no longer a child, and I will not allow myself to faint in this man’s presence.
“Are you slow with the tongue, or just the quiet sort?” asks the man, finally dragging his gaze from his papers to fix it on me.
He blinks, though only out of boredom.
“I have no intention of altering any previous arrangements,” I say, careful to keep my voice even.
I wait for the flicker of recognition on the man’s face. The pairing of my voice with my form.
But no such recognition comes.
“Very well, then,” says the man, “I’ll call the servants to bring the goods.” With that, he rings a silver bell on his desk and goes back to his desk work.
Disappointment, slick and nauseating, slips down my throat as I swallow, souring when it reaches my abdomen.
There has always been little satisfaction when I think of meeting this man again. But part of the satisfaction has always been the image of his eyes going wide, his face blanching at the sight of me.
It is not that he doesn’t fear me that twists the knife in my gut.
He doesn’t even recognize me.
Again, the room seems to close in. Perhaps it was a mistake coming here.
I have half a mind to turn around and place my hand on the doorknob.
But what is left for me on the other side of it, except for a life slipping out of my grasp and the promise of shackles so like the ones this man once placed upon me?
“You don’t recognize me,” I say, slowly drawing out my words. “Strange. I would have thought your self-preservation instincts were more honed than that. But I suppose age dulls all things, doesn’t it?”
The quill in the man’s hand goes still. His eyes, glazed over just barely with cataracts, peer over his spectacles. They flicker over to my hook for the first time since I walked into this room.
“Of course I recognize you,” he says, setting the quill back into its ink reservoir. “The famous Captain Nolan Astor is difficult to miss. Once, it would have been the Mark on your hand, but now you’ve practically placed a target on your back with that glass hook of yours.”
His hands are still hidden underneath his glance. If it weren’t for my fae eyesight, I might miss the slight movement of his arm as he reaches for a drawer.
I smile.
A moment later, I’m upon him, my reflexes too quick for him in his old age. I wrench his hand out from under his desk.
“Let me guess,” I say, “there’s an alarm there that sounds if pulled. How many guards do you have at your disposal, and how quickly do you think they would have gotten to you?”
The man’s wrists tense under my grip, but his shoulders slacken, and he leans back against the headrest of his chair.
“Are you here to kill me, boy?”
“Would you be shocked if I was?”
The man cocks his head at me. “Only the timing. After you ran off, I thought for sure you’d be right back.
That I’d one day find a blade in my spine.
And then, when the rumors of a vicious pirate whispered their way over the waters, I waited for a bag over my head and to wake up on your infamous ship.
But after a decade passed, well, I realized you never did have the nerve, no matter what the rumors claimed.
You are what you’ve always been, what you were when your mother cast you out, a scared little boy picking on those smaller than you.
So no, I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that you’ve waited until now to come.
When I’m old and feeble and can’t fight back. ”
Anger spikes in my veins, and I close my hand around his wrist more firmly. “I was the one too small to fight back.”
“Oh, but that’s not true at all,” he says with a sneer. “How many times did you unbutton that shirt of yours, and I didn’t even have to ask.”
Sparks fly in my vision, and so does the warden’s chair. I send it flying across the room, toward the fireplace. He lets out a shriek, but I catch him by the throat the moment before the back of his head slams into the coals at the bottom of the hearth.
“You’re a vile little coward,” I say, spitting in his face.
The spit dribbles on his cheek, mixing with his sweat as his face reddens with heat and the fact that I’m cutting off his airway.
And then I glimpse it—the fear. It peeks through his glazed-over eyes, rolls off in beads of sweat over his forehead. He struggles in my arms, but half-heartedly, knowing the pain that will come if I drop him now.
“Please,” he rasps as I loosen my fist just barely.
“Why would that word mean anything to me coming from your mouth?” I ask.
Something changes in his face. Resignation overcomes it.
“I suppose you’re right. You never were able to curb that violence within you, despite what your poor mother wanted for you.
I would ask what she would think of you now, but I imagine she’s long gone, isn’t she?
Probably for the best, that she never got to see what became of her son. ”
His words are barbs, but I’m prepared for them. Have dreamt of the warden’s espousing abuse more times than I can count. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before in the form of his voice echoing from the dark recesses of my own mind.
I yank him upward, then slam him back down in his chair. Relief washes over his face, and it’s almost amusing. He thinks I’m being merciful.
“No thank you?” I ask with a smirk.
The warden has the audacity to look annoyed. “Thank you,” he says, rather resentfully.
I laugh, and again, unease dampens his expression.
“You’re right, you know. I was too much of a coward to face you when I should have.
But, you see, that is exactly why I won’t be killing you today.
Your punishment has been so delayed, you’ve grown haughty.
” I glance around the ornate office. “Comfortable.
Not the type of life I want for you as you near the end.
You made me suffer. For seven years. And while I doubt you have seven years left in that frail body of yours, I imagine you have a few.
“So know this: I will come back for you. And when I do, I will not grant you the mercy of a swift death. I will lock you up in a cellar and hack you to pieces, little by little. I have several healers at my disposal who know just what will take a life and what will simply maim. And then, after weeks or months or however long I see fit, I’ll allow you death.
I’ll make it a good one, too. How many pieces of flaming coal do you think you can swallow, warden, before you burn and bleed out from the inside? ”
Droplets form at the edges of the warden’s beady eyes as he trembles at my touch. “Please, Nolan, boy. What do you want?”
The laugh that exudes from my chest is dry. “It’s fairly simple, really. I want for you never to have touched me.”
The warden’s face falls, and his eyes go wide. “Surely there’s something. You’re grown now. It was so long ago.”
“So long ago?” I cock my head at the man, marveling at his inability to understand. “You truly don’t comprehend what you did to me, do you? What you did to all of us boys?”
“It was a long time ago,” he repeats again, almost in a whisper.
“No,” I say. “No, I’m afraid it wasn’t.”
When I shove him back into his chair and pace toward the door, I let my hand linger on the lock. “Enjoy the last of your time, warden. I look forward to seeing you again.”
I go to turn the knob, but it twists before I can get to it. In shuffles the maid, her eyes going wide when she sees the disheveled state of the office and warden. Still, she knows better than to challenge me.
“Your cargo, sir,” she says, voice potent with resentment, at which point a child, a boy of about four, peeks out from behind her leg.
My heart turns to lead. “Actually, on second thought,” I say, “there’s one last thing I’d like to discuss with your master.”
My hand trembles on the knob as I lock myself in with the warden.