9
Higher
I froze. “What?”
He released my face and crossed to the other side of the table, rifling through the letters and pages in search of something.
His expression was one of desperate hope, his eyes revealed a hungry shine as if he had been starved for a long time and now had before him a banquet with the best delicacies of all the Four Kingdoms.
“Where?” he said, placing one of the maps on the table in front of me. “Point where.”
It was a map of the Nine Seas with islands that divided the Kingdoms. The Heartbreak Harbor, Widow’s Reef, Swan Rock, Isla Loro, The Raven’s Perch, The End of the World Reef… everything was in here. This was a romantic map. Where did he get it?
“It was your father's ship, you have to know where it is hidden. ”
I shook my head. “They left. I have never seen that ship.”
“They? Who is they ?”
“My father's crew. I lived with them for some years after my father was killed and before I was handed over to The Crown, but I never set foot on that ship. The King gave them his pardon and they were never heard from again.”
He slammed his fist on the table in frustration.
“I have never seen that ship,” I whispered again, as if by stating it many times I made him believe it was true.
“Where is the map Dara gave you?”
“She didn't give me anything.”
“Liar.”
“It's the truth, she didn't tell me about a map.”
He took off his hat and placed it on the table, the movement caused the strands of the fringe of his black hair to fall like rivers of ink over his forehead, stopping just above his eyes, covering the scar.
“Think. She must have said something, think.”
I looked at him confused, not knowing what to do next.
“Don’t let her death be in vain.”
A sudden wave of sadness hit me. She died for this, whatever this cause was, whatever this was. It must have been something big. I refused to believe she died for nothing.
I tried to remember what she last told me, but I couldn’t figure out what it all had to do with a map. “You are destined for more things than you think,” she had said to me just hours ago.
What was it, Dara ?
Captain Pierce kept looking at me like he desperately wanted to see what was going on inside my mind.
I noticed how his hoop earring swayed with the movement of his head, the small white pearl hanging... a pearly white like the color of my wedding dress…
As if on instinct, I looked down at my ruined dress remembering how Dara helped me get dressed that morning. Maybe she hid something in it.
I took off the black coat the captain had previously put on me and began to search with my hands above my dress for any sign of something hidden, a lump, anything.
He looked at me with a raised brow. “Is it in the dress?”
I took off my shoes but there was nothing there. I kept looking and touching my hips, my torso, but I couldn't find the tiniest clue.
Higher, Lady Love.
What?
I went higher, touching my neck, but I wasn't even wearing a necklace.
Higher, Lady Love.
Higher? I touched my hair, which was still tied up despite everything, although some curls had escaped free. And again, I remembered what she told me just this morning, “I really hope I can tame this rebellious long hair of yours today, Lady Love." … “Oh, are you putting my hair up?” ... My hair? ... “This long hair that hides so many secrets under it.”
“My hair,” I said, taking off the little pearls she had put in it.
“Your hair?” the captain asked, confusion in his voice .
I started throwing the pearls at him from across the table. “See if you can find something.”
He began to catch them with his hands as best he could, while he muttered, “From a pearl?”
I kept going and going, until I reached the bottom and touched the shell. “This is my wedding gift for you.” The pink shell.
I took it off and my hair fell all over my back. I put the shell in front of me, up in the light with both hands, and saw something written on the inside.
“Piracy is for lovers,” I said, reading it out loud.
Captain Pierce stared at me stunned and dropped the pearls to the floor. He immediately walked around the table and took the shell out of my hand with an incredulous laugh.
“What. What does it mean?” I asked, excited, as if I had been part of the mystery. As if I were now part of the adventure too. Part of Dara's plan.
“Just something Dara used to say.” He chuckled, his voice carrying a hint of sadness. “She’d tease us, saying pirates are the only ones foolish enough to believe in the impossible. That we guard the myths, embrace the incredible, and keep history alive—passing it from mouth to mouth, weaving our exploits into songs and legends. She always said that to truly follow your heart is the bravest act of all. And that, in her eyes, made you one of three things: a madman, a romantic, or a pirate.” He paused, looked at me with a grin, and then added softly, “Or all of them at once. ”
I was looking at him in complete wonder, with unmeasured happiness thinking that they also met the same Dara that I knew. That her memory was not only safe with me, but with them too.
“It means, that every pirate follows what their heart desires most. And what a pirate craves most is absolute command over the seas. And such power can only be granted by a specific Goddess, on a certain island—one from which only a single pirate ever returned. And only one ship in all the Nine Seas knows the secret of the round trip.”
He smiled, gentle and brief, like the caress of a morning breeze over the waves. “It means that The Vile Phantom has returned to The Heartbreak Harbor.”
“Is that why you wanted to know where the ship was? Because it is the only one who knows how to get there and leave unscathed?” I asked.
“I couldn't care less about dominating the seas.” He took the hat from the table and put it on his head again. “There is one other thing commonly desired by a pirate.”
I watched him slip the shell into his pocket, his voice turning serious as he said, “Revenge. And that is the only thing I seek.”