Chapter 19
Chapter
Nineteen
Soon. Soon. Soon.
Selene’s heart chiseled that one word into her breastbone.
The sound warred with the raucous baritone and tenors from the makeshift tables.
Cups of ale clapped together, sloshing the liquid everywhere and igniting bursts of rough laughter.
The soft golden lantern light highlighted the tiny rain puddles on the main deck, where the crew had gathered in wait for their evening meal.
The light, however, did nothing to puncture the thick blackness over the Paraneau Sea and the Trayterre Isles. But Selene knew they were there; that was all that mattered.
Selene poured the last of the ale into an outstretched cup, the man’s attention still enthralled in his loud friend’s bawdy tale. Typical pirates—always exaggerating their time on land with stray wives and angry husbands.
The important thing was that, for the first time, her presence wasn’t a concern. No one watched her. No one paused their conversation around her. The rigging race had all but made her and Petrina one of them. They were just another member of the crew.
As Selene turned away from the table, one man shouted down at her. “Where’s our grub, wench?”
Laughter erupted, followed by the pounding of fists on the tables.
Her knuckles whitened around the pitcher handle. She used to be so good at blocking such things out—turning it into a drop of water and letting it slide off her skin.
“It’s for them, my light,” her mother used to say with her soft smile. “It isn’t personal.”
She’d advised Selene to remain impersonal. Distant. Turn off the things she heard and felt until it was safe, especially during her years with Alexandra. It’s how she’d survived as long as she had.
Since Augustus entered her world, Selene found strength in her words and actions. He’d appeared, and everything she’d ever needed to say exploded out of her. Now, she had fewer ways of containing herself.
“Now, now.” Thorne’s voice crooned from over her shoulder. He came around with a smirk on his face. “They may have orders to keep you alive, but I never said anything about keeping you unharmed.” He glanced at his crew. “I’d be careful with whatever actions you’re about to take.”
“I’m not— There’s no—”
“It’s all over your face.” His brows jumped up as he smiled. “I thought you had thicker skin than that, Selene. It’s all in good fun.”
Selene threw on a smile. “I’m fine, Captain. Your crew is safe from my temporary urges.”
Thorne barked a laugh and gave the chain between her cuffs a slight tug. “As if there was ever any doubt.”
He climbed to the forecastle without a single glance back. Unhurried. Unworried.
Good.
Below deck, the oppressive heat of the galley hugged her with sticky fingers. The room was cramped and dimly lit, made worse by the cling of her own body heat.
Petrina stood over a loaf of hard bread, breaking it into pieces and tossing it into a basket, her nostrils flaring with every breath. She hated being the one who was stuck in the galley.
Selene’s quiet and aloof guard, Jesper, helped Manuel, the cook, with the final meal preparations. He hadn’t bothered to follow her to the main decks during either of her trips, and not even Thorne had seemed to care. Another bonus of their rigging race.
Petrina’s guard, an older man named Sebastian with dark brown skin and one-and-a-half eyes, was squeezed into a corner with folded arms and a rolled smoke dangling from his lips.
As if sensing her attention, Sebastian turned that dead, white eye her way.
A thick scar ran from his forehead, through that eye, and down his cheek.
Selene’s stomach swayed in the opposite direction of the rocking ship. “The crew is getting restless,” she told Manuel.
The cook motioned for her to take over the large pot of stew bubbling over hot coals.
Selene stared over the rim at what resembled bubbling tar, a churn of meat and root vegetables barely clinging to shape. The smell was worse than previous nights—it would take a lot more spices than usual to cover the taste of rot.
Petrina shot a pointed but questioning glance at Selene’s sleeve.
The glass vial beneath her sleeve, hidden against her inner wrist, suddenly felt like a burning weight. Petrina had a second one tucked into her sash. Neither could know ahead of time which would have the better access to the stew, and Selene thought she’d be prepared.
Now that it was time, it felt like the three crewmen in this room watched her every move. Even though common sense told her Jesper was focused on helping Manuel, and Sebastian, whose dead eye wouldn’t see her in his peripheral, was busy picking his nails.
Petrina cleared her throat and tossed the final chunk of bread into the basket. The men glanced her way, and she shifted under the weight of their attention. “Finished. I’m just going to help Selene.”
They looked away in response.
“You look green,” Petrina whispered, setting a stack of bowls down by the pot. “Get it together.” Then, louder, she said, “You need to add the seasoning.”
Manuel passed over a prepared bowl of dried herbs and ground salts, grunting for her to take it.
Selene hovered over the bubbling stew with the season and worked the vial of jellyfish venom into her palm. Petrina had spent many nights squeezing the murky, pale yellow into the vials. It wouldn’t kill anyone—only paralyze them. That was the hope, at least.
And since it wouldn’t kill them…that gave her just enough nerve to do it.
“Give me yours, too,” Selene whispered and flicked her gaze up to find Petrina’s brows knitted. “It’s a really big pot.”
Petrina swallowed. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”
Maybe it was the memory of Thorne’s arrow, or the way his men laughed at her afterward, but something in her had snapped. If this plan went wrong—if they waited too long—she wouldn’t be alive long enough to regret it.
Selene palmed the second vile and used the upended spice bowl to hide the spill of venom from any wondering eyes.
Jesper shifted beside her.
Selene tensed, expecting a question, a glance, a demand for the spice bowl back. For a moment, she imagined everything unraveling with one careless glance.
He only scratched his shoulder and turned away again.
And just like that, it was done. The invisible straps around Selene’s chest loosened, and she took her first deep breath in a long time.
Petrina released a long, slow breath. “And now we wait.”
Selene nodded, but her grip didn’t loosen. She couldn’t stop watching the pot.
Waiting for it to bubble over.
The minutes stretched by like hours as Selene and Petrina stood by, watching the scene unfold.
They’d served the tables of rowdy, brash pirates, ignoring their usual jibes and those probing, appreciative glances along their bodies.
Thorne and his lieutenants sat away from the rest and leaned forward to whisper across the table. Thorne sat at the head, angled slightly away with an ankle across a knee and a fingertip rhythmically tapping the tabletop near his bowl as he listened.
Selene, a pitcher of ale in hand, strode by Petrina, who was also refilling cups. “They’re not eating.”
Petrina followed Selene’s line of sight past the pirates shoveling spoons into their mouths. Whatever Thorne and his lieutenants discussed was more important than filling their bellies. This wasn’t good.
“What do we do?” Selene asked, her heart racing. The venom should have hit by now.
“Keep pouring.” She looked Selene dead in her eyes. “And pray to your gods.”
Selene strolled past the tables, tuning them out—until one name caught her ear. She stopped and poured ale into cups that didn’t need it.
One of the men responded to another, saying, “Phya’s coin keeps the sails up, no question.”
Phya.
The name landed like a dropped coin on stone.
She knew that name.
Months ago in Sedal, Augustus and his parents had terse words over a shipment of stolen ioprese steel.
Augustus had lost a third of it in the Kirrane Mountains when it toppled during an oxbeast attack.
Cassia and Mettius had sent the remainder, plus one of their ships, to Warian Bay in hopes the ship would fulfill a contract… with a man named Taran Phya.
It had seemed important not to cross the man.
Selene lingered, hoping they’d say more. Why was Phya funding Thorne’s endeavors? Were they partners in this war? Why? Augustus had made Phya sound like a man who didn’t involve himself in pirate politics. He was a money man. He discreetly moved stolen products in and out through Warian Bay.
“I don’t feel so good,” a woman said nearby. Her spoon quivered in her hand.
A spoon hit the tabletop at the other table, and the man’s hand shook as he retrieved it.
Selene caught Petrina’s gaze, then speared Thorne’s because, of course, he’d noticed.
They should have spiked the ale, too.
Thorne stood, and his lieutenants followed suit. Jaw muscles flared, he gripped the pommel of his sword, and gave his crew a quick scan—they all showed signs of sluggish moves. Their previous humor and discussion turned into wondering murmurs.
Thorne’s teeth flashed with menace. “Clever girl.”
She saw it in his eyes then, the true danger he posed. The ways in which he’d keep her alive. She’d seen those ways once before, on Mihail Vidaltos. Tristan Thorne only cared that she breathed. That he could dangle her out in front like a lure for a much bigger fish: Augustus.
Petrina, however, was another matter altogether. She, he could—and would—kill. After all, she’d only been kept around to keep Selene in line. After this, Petrina was more of a liability.
Thorne unsheathed his cutlass, and a cold chill swept across Selene’s skin.
“Seize the prisoners!” he shouted.
A man’s slow, reaching hand clawed toward her—
She swung the pitcher at his head and struck. The man passed out immediately.
Others tried getting up but fell as their legs gave out.
At the other table, Petrina—even bound by cuffs—made easy work of her attackers. Thorne’s crew was dropping and slouching everywhere. Spoons clattered to the deck. Ale sloshed. The ship became a sea of limbs and overturned bowls.
“Poison!” someone shouted in a panicked tone. “We’re dead!”
Thorne and his able-bodied lieutenants worked around the toppling crew, more focused on Selene and Petrina than their own people.
“Selene!” Petrina shouted. “Move!”
She startled out of her frozen state and dropped the pitcher.
The plan.
Follow the plan.
Get the keys, get in a rowboat, and sail away.
But as Thorne and his lieutenants closed in, the time they had to do any of that diminished. They were supposed to be down with the rest. They were supposed to eat.
“You failed,” Thorne said to Selene. Lantern light glinted off the edge of his sword as he stalked closer, calm and furious.
Selene backed down along the table, pulling a sword from someone’s hip on the way.
One of the lieutenants paused over a slumped body. “He’s breathing—it’s shallow, but he’s alive.” He looked further around. “They’re all alive, Captain.”
In Selene’s peripheral, Petrina bent over her guard, Sebastian, and picked through his keyring.
A dark laugh jumped out of Thorne’s chest. “Sparing lives? You’re always surprising me, Selene.”
“You know what your problem is, Thorne? You always expect me to think like a pirate.”
He gave a single nod. “True. I expected you to pick up your lover’s habits and traits in those months you spent together, but you’re not like him, are you?”
“No. I’m not.”
Her steps backed toward the edge of the table, and just as she turned to run, the men sprinted for her.
Petrina, free of her shackles, swung a sword down on some ropes pulled taut over the side of the ship’s railing. A splash sounded below, almost undetectable under the waves crashing against the hull.
Selene sprinted to the nearest oil lamp and yanked it off the peg. She spun and hurled it at the deck between her and her captors. The oil spread, and a fire sprang up. The men jerked to a stop, arms up, as the wall of heat hit them.
“I think like a survivor,” Selene said to Thorne through the licking flames and smoke.
Snarling, Thorne jumped atop a table to bypass the flames. “If you’re under the impression I won’t follow you into that water, think again.”
“You could, except…” She backed toward Petrina, who knelt in wait on the railing. “I’m surprised you haven’t already guessed. Augustus would have realized the heaviness of his hull a while ago.”
Thorne’s gaze darted across the deck, then pinned to Selene. “What did you do?”
“Her? Nothing. Me?” Petrina shrugged. “Those bilge pumps can be quite tricky, you know? One wrong move, and you might accidentally reverse the water flow.”
It had been hours since Petrina left the bilge, reversing the seawater flow on her way out.
Selene threw another lantern between her, Petrina, and the men. “You should probably see to your ship, Captain.”
Petrina grinned. “Better hurry. Your crew’ll either drown or roast, and neither of those leaves many hands for rowing.”
Thorne straightened, and his sword lowered to the length of his leg. “We’re not finished, you and I.”
He didn’t shout. He didn’t curse. He simply watched her climb the railing, calculating.
Selene, sea spray stinging her face, the wind wrapping her in an embrace, smiled. “Until next time.”
She gave him a mock salute, then she and Petrina stepped off the ship.