Chapter 20
AS I STAGGER BACK into camp, I can’t look away from Kearan. He retrieves the wood he dropped, places it near the closest fire, and brushes wood chips from his gloves and clothes. He lays the ax to the side methodically, as though he’s being extra careful with his movements. As if he knows I’m watching him.
And not just me.
But Threydan, too, through the eyes of the undead.
After a moment of stillness, Kearan takes off toward the other end of camp.
“Kearan?” Enwen asks. “What’s wrong?”
Kearan doesn’t answer as he leaves, barreling into the woods and out of sight. Enwen follows after him, calling his name as he goes.
Is he angry? Is he angry with me?
What is happening?
I’m torn between following and staying right where I am. I want to follow, to demand answers of him, but if Threydan is watching, that is the last thing I should do.
I try to distract myself by focusing on what’s in front of me. The girls are integrating with the crew of the Wanderer , getting to know them.
Shura hugs Visylla. They must have known each other before, and the two are immediately swept into conversation. Dimella tries to get a word out of Captain Warran, but he won’t even look at her. He stands by another one of the fires to warm his hands, glowering at anyone who dares come near.
“Captain Warran, you will be civil to my crew, or I will ensure that you remain on this island forever,” I snap, showing a burst of anger that is uncommon for me. “Is that understood?”
His eyes land on me, and something he sees there has his posture relaxing. “Aye, Captain.”
“Good.”
Now where did Roslyn go off to? I need someone who isn’t confusing as hell to be around.
I RISE IN THE wee hours of dawn, having gone to bed supremely early. I gather snow into a pot and set it by one of the fires. Once it’s melted, I wash myself as best I can with a rag and don fresh clothes. I stay close to the flames, watching them flicker. I may not feel the heat or cold, but I have no interest in letting my wet hair freeze to my skin again. I keep my damp locks positioned near the fire while I wait for everyone else to wake.
I need to have a plan ready for them. My return, as well as the presence of the missing crew we were sent to find, has bolstered their spirits. But my victories feel … cheapened.
For it wasn’t me who found Alosa’s crew. Threydan did with his undead. He only handed them over to me because he wants something from me. It was a show of good faith. Something that he can retract at any moment with his hordes of undead. In fact, I wouldn’t be surprised if he was in the process of growing his numbers by causing fights with the Drifta. What else has he to occupy himself with in that lonely stone house? Thoughts of revenge do not keep a body idle. They demand movement. Preparation. I well know this.
We need to leave before we’re even more outnumbered. Otherwise, we won’t last until Alosa arrives. Not without me agreeing to Threydan’s terms. And if Alosa arrives, some of her pirates will surely die and join the undead before we manage to put Threydan back to sleep. Her voice alone will not be enough. She is but half siren. We need a full siren to keep him asleep for a significant amount of time. She will have to call on aid from her mother, and who knows how long that will take?
I cannot allow us to wait. It is not enough to constantly move camp and do nothing. Besides, we cannot stay hidden long. Not with hundreds of undead able to scour the wilderness without need of food or rest. Threydan will catch me.
Yet what other choice do we have? We have no ship. A large crew. Angry Drifta. Untiring undead. And one immortal man with powers over life and death.
I feel so small. So … insufficient.
And then I remember—
At the barest sound of movement behind me, I turn, expecting the worst.
And it is the worst. Kearan stomps into camp. He makes it clear to the fire I’m occupying before he notices me. Normally, I swear he senses me, but he is clearly distracted right now.
“Were you out all night?” I ask him.
“Aye.”
“Where’s Enwen?”
“He turned in with everyone else. I wanted time alone.”
I flip my braids to the right, letting the underside catch the heat of the fire better. “Now you will be unfit for today’s activities.”
“And what would those be?”
I lower my voice so any listening undead cannot hear.
“Stealing a ship.”
“The Drifta’s galleon? The one that sank us? You mean to take it?”
“Aye. We’ve now enough crew to man it. If necessary, I will of course stay behind so everyone can escape. But if it’s possible for us all to get away together, I would prefer that.”
“We won’t leave without our captain.”
“You will if I command it.”
“Aye,” he says, his voice growing husky. “I will, and when I get everyone to safety, I’ll come right back for you. Even if I have to do it in a rowboat all by myself.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I am utterly serious.”
“You’re fatigued, Kearan. You best get some sleep while you can.”
“I have never been more awake.”
“Well—good, then. We will need all hands for the task ahead.”
He doesn’t move any closer to the tents, and I don’t leave my seat by the fire. His breath fogs into the air, while mine remains invisible. I’m glad for it. He can’t tell just how much faster I’m breathing.
You can’t be afraid of the dark when you’re the monster lurking in the shadows.
I am no such thing right now. Not with him. Not for some time.
And I don’t know why or what that means.
“You’ve thought yourself a poor captain for this journey,” Kearan says, pulling me from my thoughts. “Let me point out that time and time again, you’ve put the crew before yourself. Even me. You’ve put me above you when you never should have. Do you still think of everything that’s happened as your failings? Is that why you are out here alone?”
I cannot speak for a moment. “That is what you think I’m stuck on? My failings as a captain? Kearan, there is no doubt in my mind that another captain could have done a better job, but that is not what keeps me up at night.”
“Then what is it? What troubles can I ease?”
My heart picks up like it does before I’m about to make the kill. Only this time, that is not what is happening.
I do not fear this man in the usual way. I do not fear his height or his bearing. I do not fear his mind or his words. It is his heart that terrifies me, and the few times that I have been afraid of something, it has always been remedied with some quick knifework so it can trouble me no more.
But blades are not the only way to kill something. Sharp words can make feelings die.
“What you said to me yesterday,” I say, keeping my face neutral. I am in control of this conversation. It will not go anywhere that I do not allow, and I am sick of fearing it.
“Mmmm” is the only response he makes.
“Well?” I demand.
“What?” he asks, exasperation tingeing his tone.
I lower my voice again. “You said you would never lie to me. You said you didn’t want anything between us. You said that by agreeing to Threydan’s terms, you would be lying. All three can’t be true.”
“Can’t they?”
At that, my look turns chilling. “Kearan Erroth, stop talking in questions and speak plainly.”
“What’s the point of that? No good will come of it.”
“The point is that I cannot make sense of you, and I want to understand what you meant.”
“No, you don’t.”
My hand goes for a knife. I pull it from a sheath in my boot and twirl it between my fingers. I need a means to occupy myself. And perhaps he’ll be more forthcoming if I have something sharp in my hands.
“You don’t want the truth, Sorinda,” he continues, moving closer so I can hear his lowered words. “You want what will make you feel in control. Believing I want nothing from you makes you feel in control. Unthreatened. It doesn’t force you to make decisions or think about me the way I want you to think about me. You want what’s easy. You need it. Because what you’re doing, all these external pressures of being stranded in a foreign land and looking after so many individuals—these trials would be difficult for anyone. You don’t need my feelings and thoughts making things harder. Besides, if I showed you exactly how much I want you, you would only distance yourself further from me. This way, I could help. This way, I could be your sailing master for the voyage. Your confidant. Your friend. I couldn’t have become any of those things if you thought I wanted even more.”
My knuckles turn white on the knife. “So you did lie to me.”
“I said I didn’t want anything from you. And that’s true. I don’t want just anything. Sorinda, I want everything with you.”
My gaze leaves the knife I’m holding and latches on to his face.
Everything? “What does that entail?”
“Does it matter?” he asks. He looks furious.
“If it didn’t, I wouldn’t ask.”
“Fine. Everything entails trust, honesty, friendship, love. A lifetime of all of it.”
“Oh, is that all?” I ask to be difficult. My fury rises to match his, but I refuse to raise my voice. Not when his life still hangs in the balance.
He has wanted me from the beginning and led me to believe otherwise. For my own good, no less, he proclaims.
So I would let down my guard. So I wouldn’t push him away so readily.
“You tried to trick me into liking you, is that it?” I ask, my voice going deadly.
“I wasn’t trying to trick you into anything. I was making this journey better for the both of us.”
“By playing with your words. Lying but not lying? You think you’re clever?”
“I think that, even now, you’d rather fight than be truthful with me. You’d rather stick that knife through my gut than tell me that you like me the smallest bit, even if it’s true.”
I toss the knife to my left hand, let my right index finger trace the indent of the fuller. “Truth? That’s what you want from me? You think if I tell you the truth we’ll live happily ever after?”
“Ever after is uncertain, but it looks a lot more hopeful when you have someone to share it with.”
Hope. Is that what he wants? Then I’ll just dash his hopes right now so he’ll finally see me for what I really am.
“All right,” I say quietly, twirling the knife in the air and catching it. “I’ll tell you the truth.”
And then he’ll leave me be, and I can focus on the problems at hand without his constant attention and nagging.
“You were right,” I say. “I did lie to you about what happened the night I lost my family.”
Kearan shakes his head abruptly. “No. We don’t need to do this now.”
“We do,” I disagree. Clearly he needs to see me as I really am.
“Sorinda—”
“Be quiet.”
He slams his lips closed.
“The beginning happened as I said. Samvin Carroter killed my family one by one. I did hide in the shadows as it happened, too overcome by fear to do anything more than watch and be still.” I shut my eyes as those images, forever burned into my memory, try to come to the surface. “He drowned my mother and sisters in that tub. And he knew there was one daughter left. Some of the servants were in the room with us. One, a maid, had a daughter my age. She was there. We’d been playing dress-up earlier that day and switched clothes. She was in my fine dress while I wore servant’s garb.”
I turn the knife in my hand around so I’m gripping the blade instead of the hilt. It’s the only way to keep my muscles from tensing. “She screamed so much louder than my sisters. She tried to say she wasn’t me. She begged for her life. And what did I do? I stayed right where I was. Hiding. I watched as he drowned that little girl in my stead. I let her die for me. I did nothing.” Tears slide down my cheeks silently, and I brush them away with closed fists. The knife I’m holding pinches my skin, and I drop it before I can do myself any damage.
I look back up at Kearan, who is back to his unmoving self. “Now you see. It was one thing to stand by and silently watch as my sisters died. It is as you said. There’s nothing I could have done to save them. I was too small. Too powerless. But the other girl? Sleina? I could have saved her. All I had to do was tell the truth. Reveal my hiding place. I would have died, and she would have lived. Then I would shine in the night sky with my family, and she would have been able to live the life she was meant to lead.”
I feel hollow as that memory finally breaks free. I’ve carried it for so long, never telling a single soul. Threydan stole it from me, but Kearan—I gave it to Kearan.
I swallow down the ache in my throat. “There. You’re set free.”
“Set free?” he asks.
“Yes. This delusion you have that you want anything from me. You don’t have to carry it anymore.”
He blinks. “Why is that?”
“Because I’m not who you thought I was. I may be a lot of things. I’m fierce. I’m talented. I’m smart. I’m capable. But my sins are so much greater than my strengths. They are a shadow that follows me wherever I go. I do my best by serving Alosa and doing good, but I know I can never make up for taking the life of that little girl. The only innocent I ever killed. She is a stain that will never wash free from my hands.”
Kearan moves then; he marches right up to where I sit on the snow-covered log by the fire. He kneels on the ground in front of me, heedless of the cold that must be seeping in through his pants.
“You listen to me, Sorinda Veshtas, and you listen well,” he says. He places his hands on either side of the log where I sit. “You were a child. Children are blameless. Children cannot sin. You were five . You were in shock. You were traumatized by the horrors you had witnessed. You were acting on instinct, driven to mere impulses, no longer in control. You are no more responsible for that little girl’s death than I am. That man? That murdering bastard? He killed her just as he did your family. You did not do any of it.”
How is he still not listening to me? “But I could have stopped it! I could have saved her. I could have, and I chose not to.”
“You could not have stopped any of it. Tell me, did any of the servants make it out alive?”
I shake my head frantically. Though it’s the correct response to his question, I think it might be a response to the way he’s reacting.
“That girl would have died whether you came forward or not. Do you think he would have spared her? Do you think he wouldn’t have killed you both just to be sure he got the right heir? Do you think he wanted any soul in that building alive to tell the tale of what happened? Justice happened because you survived. You lived to make it right.”
“It doesn’t matter. What matters is the choice I made.”
“It doesn’t matter to me.”
“How can it not?” I nigh scream the words before I remember myself. “Look at little Roslyn. She was ready to give her life for me when Threydan came for me. She’s seven, and she was prepared to die. She wanted to save me. You can’t tell me children aren’t capable of making difficult choices.”
Kearan leans forward. “And would you have had her die for you?”
“Never.”
“Your life was not any less important than little Sleina, who died in your stead. You must see that. And is it the right choice for Roslyn to throw her life away like that?”
“You’re trying to talk me into a corner.”
“I’m trying to show you.” He reaches forward, places his large hands on either side of my face, and I go utterly still. “You are worthy of saving. You are worthy of life. You are not that little girl anymore. You have given your life time and time again for this crew. You have risked that precious life a hundred times over for Alosa. For others. You are good. You are capable. You are worthy of love, Sorinda. You are worthy of my love.”
I’m crying again. I hate crying. And Kearan is there to wipe away my tears before I can.
“I expect nothing from you,” he continues. “But do not ask that I stop caring for you because of this sin you think you have committed. It won’t work.”
I am so raw and exposed, yet his words are just what I need to hear. I feel myself leaning into his touch. I place my hands over his as I cry.
Because if the person in front of me can see good within me, then maybe it’s okay for me to see it, too. Maybe every day doesn’t have to feel like I’m making up for past crimes.
Maybe I can just live.
“I’m sorry, Sleina,” I say as I turn my face toward the sky. “I’m so sorry.”
I cry for her. I cry for me. I cry for everything that should have been.
Kearan moves to the log to sit beside me and enfolds me in his arms. It is a touch I have not welcomed in thirteen years. But today I am desperate for it.
Even if I cannot feel the warmth of that touch.
Because I know what it means.
It means someone cares.
And that is what is most important.