Chapter 40
Amaris
The ship was worse than Amaris expected. Her imagination rallied with what she’d seen in movies, but nothing compared to the ominous gloom shrouding the ship in darkness. It reeked of damp mold and decaying fish.
Rain continued to pelt against the hull, and some trickled through the floorboards overhead. The continuous bounding of feet and the drop of cannonballs above had her skin prickling and her mind on alert. With her luck, a cannonball would break through the floorboards and hit her on the head.
Amaris stumbled through the dark, her hand sliding over the wooden wall as she snuck deeper into the ship.
If those drag marks were Adelaide’s, Amaris thought she’d likely be taken to the brig.
At least that’s what happened in the movies.
She hadn’t come across Adelaide dead in the sand, so she was hopeful she was alive.
A rickety ladder held together with rope and twine bore her weight as she descended further. Running on a sheer whim, she kept moving. A creak of the ladder had her halting as she clung to the death trap.
This is crazy, she laughed to herself. She was running after Adelaide and was probably going to get herself killed.
She released a shaky breath, steadying her hands against the rail of the ladder.
With a few more rungs, her feet touched solid ground.
Even with her eyes open, the world was cascaded in darkness.
She was used to it. At work, she moved through thick smoke, unable to even see her glove in front of her face.
She released her hold on the ladder and allowed her hands to reach for the walls.
Her fingers slipped from plank to plank, following their warped nature.
Her feet shuffled across the ground, feeling for furniture or holes in the floor.
This was what she’d trained for, moving through deadly, blackout conditions.
Her hand slid off the wall and met the soft, mesh fabric of a hammock. She kept moving, feeling where one ended and the next began. Counting each step, she knew she’d only have to turn around to find her exit.
The ship rocked as a wave crashed against the hull, dropping her to her knees.
With her pulse climbing, she latched onto a post. The ship teetered back and forth, but Amaris gripped tighter to keep herself from being flung across the room.
She dug her nails into the wood, begging for the ship to right itself.
She’d managed to row an excruciatingly tough boat all the way to the ship and scale the deadly ropes. She wasn’t going to lose whatever was left in her stomach to the rocking of the ship.
The teetering stilled, and she released her claws from the post. She pushed farther, moving at a quicker pace. She had to find Adelaide before the fight ended and they were both stuck here.
Her foot left solid ground. She gripped the last hammock, ripping the fabric as she danged over a hole. Flailing like a maniac, she found a ladder.
More darkness consumed her, gobbling her up like that fire almost had.
She landed, but a single lantern hung in the distance.
It swayed over a table with several weapons littered on it.
The ship rocked again, but Amaris was too slow to grab a hold of anything.
She flew to the side, smacking into iron bars.
She cradled the back of her head, waiting for the nauseating swaying to end.
“Who’s there?” a vengeful voice hissed in the darkness.
Amaris was on her feet and reaching for her knife. She displayed the weapon as she stepped closer to the voice, readying her stance as she waited for something to jump out of the shadows.
“Who’s asking?” Amaris threw out.
“Amaris?” Adelaide’s once dark hiss turned to startling relief.
Amaris ran toward it, grabbing a hold of the single lantern to begin checking through the bars.
“Over here.”
Amaris spun around, thrusting the lantern through the bars to spy Adelaide leaning against the back wall, holding her side, as blood leaked from a cut on her temple and dripped from her nose. Dropping to her knees, dread filled Amaris as she took in Adelaide’s injuries.
“What hurts?” she asked.
Adelaide winced as she made small movements closer to the door. “Is everything an option?”
Amaris sat back on her heels, her hand gripping the metal bar as rust smeared in her palm. “Yes.” She nearly laughed, but the muscles around her chin tightened. Adelaide was alive.
“How did you find me?”
“Later,” Amaris muttered. “First, we’re getting you out of here.”
“Do you have the key?” Adelaide rolled to her side, attempting to get her feet beneath her.
“No, but do you know where it might be? Who locked you in?”
“A woman. I think she’s the captain,” she said. “They nabbed me on the beach and dragged me down here. The key is probably with her.”
Amaris prevented Adelaide from seeing the twitch of her eye. Great, now the captain was thrown into the mix. But with her knife still in hand, she assessed the lock. Maybe she wouldn’t have to track her down. She slid it into the hole, twisting and listening for the tumbler.
“Amaris, I don’t—”
“It’ll work,” Amaris said, wiping a bead of sweat from her nose.
It had to. She couldn’t face a soldier, let alone the captain.
Twisting her knife, she prayed. Amaris hadn’t been one to take part in religions after Gran had passed, but apparently, Magoria would make a churchgoer out of her again. She had to get Adelaide out of there.
“Is that how you got out before?”
Amaris gave Adelaide a shrug and a small smirk. “No one ever checked my boots for weapons.”
“It won’t work here.”
“It has to.”
“But it won’t!” Adelaide snapped, dropping back on her heels. “You need the key.”
Amaris slid down the bars in defeat. Adelaide was right. The lock was too complex. “I’ll find it.”
“How?”
Amaris gripped the bars. “I’ll come back for you.”
“You better.” Adelaide dragged the back of her hand under her nose, smearing the blood across her face. “Gods, I spent my whole life training, only to be bested on my own beach. How humiliating.”
Amaris pried herself from the cell, leaving the lantern by Adelaide’s side as she raced toward the ladder.
Gripping the rung, she flinched. A frustrated scream erupted behind her, and Adelaide pounded against the bars.
There was no questioning. Amaris would either find that damn key or end up next to Adelaide.
She scaled the ladder, counting as she retraced her steps with the imaginary map she’d configured in her mind.
She took each turn faster than she should’ve, running toward the sounds, the fighting, the screams. She reached the deck housing the cannons, stopping only a brief moment to catch her breath.
The soldiers’ laughs infuriated her as they lit the fuses and watched as they fired on the manor.
She tried prying into their shouting matches, but they were speaking a language she couldn’t understand.
That was until she heard someone whispering ahead of her.
Slinking through the shadows of the ship, she forced herself to shrink behind a barrel of gunpowder.
“This is getting out of hand. Why are we taking orders from a filthy pirate.” A dark voice sounded ahead of her.
Amaris’s eyes grew wide as she gripped the edge of the barrel. Pirate?
“Shut it, Tedric, or she’ll hear you,” a deep voice said, his accent thick.
She? Amaris leaned closer, maintaining her stance in the shadows.
“Without us, she has no ship,” Tedric snipped. “The captain never should’ve given her command.”
“Now that our end of the bargain is complete, he’ll resume control when we return.”
With her pulse escalating, she followed the voices as they moved down the hall and kept in time with the heavy steps of their boots.
They climbed to the next deck while she sat at the bottom of the ladder, waiting for their footsteps to fade.
She released a breath and poked her head up. Their shadows turned down the hall.
What if the woman who locked Adelaide up is this pirate?
Amaris stifled her groan. Not only was she crazy for boarding the ship, but now she had to find a deadly pirate.
They were a thing of cinema or olden sailors swindling merchants for their own gain.
She didn’t want to know what pirates from Magoria implied.
She peered around the corner as their shadows disappeared into a brightly illuminated room.
“How much longer?” the deep voice asked.
“You ask as if you have somewhere more important to be,” a woman spoke.
“No,” he stammered. “It’s only we’ve suffered heavy losses, and a retreat would be ideal—”
“These casualties are only the beginning. I’m your captain tonight, and you all have your orders.” Her voice carried into the hall.
“Captain Hornley may have given you command of his ship for your crusade, but he’s my captain, not you,” Tedric’s voice cut in.
A shuffling of steps pursued. “You’re a sailor on this ship, are you not?”
“Yes—”
“Then you are under my command,” the woman said, her voice stern. “And if you ever wish to sail these waters without a storm at your back, then you’ll heed my orders.”
There was a long and foreboding silence, but Tedric answered with a gruff, “What are your next orders then?”
“We have what I want. Start sending the word for a retreat.”
Feet shuffled toward the door. Amaris dove for the first open room, sliding under a desk. Several men stepped from her office and disappeared down the ladder.
Amaris crawled from her hiding place and checked both ends of the hall. Inadequate was a complete understatement for her attempted rescue, and she was running out of time. Holding her breath, she forced her heart to calm before she crept up to the door frame.
A woman with brunette hair stood facing the square windows overlooking the open ocean. Her long red nails drummed against her hips. They were a match for the red leather jacket draping her shoulders.