Chapter 22 A Traitor In Our Midst #2
Rhyland looks to Sabre, waiting for her to answer my question.
I'm surprised to find the faintest hint of pink dust her cheeks, but she holds his gaze.
“No. She was bunked with me as she felt nervous sleeping without the nymph. Not the target at all. But it seems the boy had every intention of leaving the box in here for the serpent to slither out and strike the next person to settle within it.”
Me. Or Rhyland. Or both of us.
Sabre clears her throat, continuing. “He wouldn't confess to anything. Won't speak at all—has no tongue. Finch tried getting him to sign with no luck. Still, I think we've found the traitor in our ranks.”
Rhyland draws in a slow breath before pushing the dark hair off of his forehead. “He was among the men clearing the room? Moving things around?”
“I can’t be sure. It was late. We were all well into our cups and trying to be quick about it, but it’s likely.”
“When you told the men of their task, did you specify that the nymph would be moving into the cabin with me?”
Sabre shakes her head, slowly, and squints as though raking drunken memories from her skull. “No, I figured they’d assume the newly weds would want to cozy up.”
She shoots me a wink that feels malicious but then straightens her face at the look the Pirate gives her.
I didn’t realize Rhyland’s expression could grow any darker until it does. “He was going to kill her.”
The way he says it rings with a strange certainty and an undercurrent of rage so potent I can feel it bleed off of him.
I sit straighter in the soft chair. “This doesn't make sense. He's been holding onto the snake this whole time? Why target me? If the Black family wanted anyone dead, wouldn't it be you, Pirate? You sleep in here, too.”
“He could have picked the serpent up any time after the fighting in the cove. Killing you, Nymph, ensures you can't lead me to the crown piece. Even the lowest on my crew know a simple serpent wouldn’t kill me.”
A tired groan escapes me. Is it possible to miss Elaris before officially leaving it?
“Assuming I knew where it was, how would he know I hadn’t already told you of its location?
Killing me would be pointless then.” Unless Harlow got to him and it was about revenge on me more than anything else.
But that seems a far stretch. When would they have spoken?
Harlow went for Helgate. Rhyland’s crew headed in the opposite direction.
There wouldn’t have been enough time for him to catch back up.
They'd need other means of communication. None of it makes sense.
I can see that Rhyland is coming to similar conclusions, but he only shakes his head. “How indeed.”
He turns to Sabre then, eyes full of simmering anger. “I’ll need to speak to you and Briggs alone. Find him. Direct the men to drop the anchor. Leave her with Reave or one of the twins.”
Sabre nods and tugs me quickly to my feet before I can gather so much as a protest. We push back out of his massive door onto the quarterdeck which is still alive with crewmen hustling to and fro, heaving on lines, climbing the masts and ratlines that’ve since been repaired from the kepra’s attack.
We find Reave first, leaning lazily against the gunwale with a misty gaze toward Elaris. I wonder if he’s thinking about Sora. Or the food and whiskey. Maybe all three.
“Talon says watch her. Don’t let her out of your sight.”
She murmurs something more under her breath but I don’t catch it before she’s already hurrying off toward Briggs’ hulking outline. Reave smirks toward me, his strange eyes catching the light off the horizon. “Something the matter?”
“Depends on who you ask. Why aren’t you helping the crew get the ship underway?”
Reave props his elbow against the smooth railing, a curious breeze scattering the jaw length black hair that’s come loose from his topknot.
“We all have our specialties here. Getting the ship underway is not one of mine.” As though to remind me, he lifts his hand and the shadows around us shift like puppets tethered to a string.
“You’re demi-god, aren’t you?” It’s really not my business but I can’t help but ask. And wonder why Rhyland Crow would keep such a potential threat so near.
Reave’s smirk broadens but then he yawns and dusts the shadows away from his fingers without answering.
I turn, annoyed, and find that the men have ceased their scrambling. The Nightingale’s come to a rest on the water a league or so from Elaris’s rocky coast. Not quite outside of Mór’s mist, but almost.
Through the close knit bodies of the crew, I spot a flash of long, auburn red hair and start to move toward it before Reave catches my wrist. “Now, now, you heard the first mate. She's terrifying when angered. Stay put.”
I consider a knee to his groin but ultimately decide it might be better to have him as a friend rather than an enemy. My free hand lifts to wave Rowan down and she catches sight of it, rushing toward us.
How on earth could a few days have changed her so much?
Her hollow frame already looks fuller. The freckles on her face stand out more starkly than ever after her time spent under the sun.
Dried paint still flecks places on her hands and arms. She’s in a soft blouse with a deep brown vest tucked around it and a flowing green skirt that almost brushes the ship deck.
“Vale?” She lifts her arched brow and tucks a long strand of hair behind her ear when she reaches me. “What’s happening?”
I’m not sure I want to tell her the truth.
Knowing she was simply a stroke of luck away from a swift, painful death might dampen the new found glow clinging to her skin.
Shatter any sense of safety she’s developed.
But the foundation of our friendship has always been built on honesty.
Telling hard truths and being there for whatever fallout follows.
I take her hand and pull her in close so she’ll hear my whispers over the murmur of confused men who’ve halted their work. I give her short and honest details of what happened the night before and feel her stiffen at the words. She pulls away, her doe eyes blinking slowly as the news settles in.
“What will the captain do to the boy?” she whispers.
“Does it matter? He tried to kill us.” I say it before I remember who I’m talking to.
The kindest, most forgiving soul in all of Hlódyn.
My mouth opens, prepared to soften the blow with placations, urges of understanding, but Rhyland’s door swings open first. The sound of it slamming into the wall behind silences the crew who turn to watch him emerge, followed by Briggs and Sabre.
I notice the raven perched on Sabre’s shoulder, the flash of white tethered to its leg before she urges it to take flight.
The creature flaps off toward Mór’s isle but no one else pays it much attention at all, instead intent on their captain and quartermaster.
Curious, likely, to know why their efforts to get us moving have been stopped.
Briggs leans down to murmur something to the twins, Aizen and Archer, who are hovering nearby. They nod and make for the trap door that leads below deck. I shift in my stance, as curious as the rest of them to know what’s about to happen.
Rhyland moves forward. He’s more composed than he was in his cabin—and almost too striking to tolerate.
The last thing I want is to be caught staring at him so I look away, but startle to find Cyprian watching me from his perch near the foremast. There’s worry in his expression, as though he’s concerned about what will come next and my reaction to it.
I blink away from him.
“It’s come to my attention that one among you turned traitor, leaking information to the Black family of our whereabouts.
Our business.” He pauses, his gravely, deep voice echoing across the water.
“It was a grievous error on my part, waiting until now to root this traitor out and deal with him. That error nearly cost the life of my new bride.”
Their stares skirt toward me and I wish I could scrape the feel of them from my skin. Crawl into myself and disappear. Moments later the latticed door is slamming open. The twins emerge, heaving a stringy figure up after them who struggles wildly in their hold.
Sabre wasn’t kidding when she described him as a boy. No older than eighteen, a generous guess, with tangled brown hair and a torn shirt. His mouth opens and closes in soundless protest. No tongue, I remember, and shiver at the thought.
Rhyland steps closer, studying the boy with such disdain I’m surprised he doesn’t wither in place.
“Many of you have earned your spot on this crew. Worked hard, reaped rewards and plunder for it. Still, there are those untested. Those who’ve never bled for the cause. Who may not understand the consequences of being anything but loyal and disciplined.”
The sound of his boots treading along the wood are stutters in the pauses of my heartbeat. Rowan’s fingers twitch around mine, her gaze fixed on the struggling boy, full of pity and fear.
“Finch?” Rhyland’s voice turns lower.
A boy steps from the gathered men, younger still. Twelve? Thirteen? Hardly more than a child. He has round cheeks and curly blond hair. Straight and attentive, he stands before the captain, awaiting an order.
“Sign to this young man. Tell him he has one more chance to tell us the truth or he faces consequences of the most severe making.”
Finch nods and turns to the boy, who doesn’t cease his struggling, even as the younger one makes quick, distinctive movements with his hands. A language, I realize, for the deaf and mute.
“Finchy’s mother was mute,” Reave whispers from behind me, as if I asked aloud.
“She taught him how to speak in her way before she succumbed to the pox. His father sold him to our crew for a few copper eyrir and a mug of ale a year later. It’s lucky Briggs was there to outbid the opium pimp set on purchasing him. ”