Chapter 42
Theo
“So rin esdil id uldo bere bre flon lod cha ca clol bre cod.” Theo seethed Tendasy in the assailant’s ear, threatening to drag his dagger across their throat if they didn’t hold their tongue. If he couldn’t find Amaris and Adelaide, then he’d need someone to drag along to show them.
“Please,” they begged.
“You speak Akaric?”
“Theodoric?”
Theo pulled back his blade. Everything ceased its spinning, and the face came into focus as his eyes adjusted.
Amaris stood with wide eyes and her brown, frizzy locks.
He didn’t care if she didn’t remember their kiss.
His arms wrapped around her. Her heart beat ferociously against his, but she didn’t embrace him back.
Her arms dangled at her sides, trembling.
He peeled away, assessing the shaking of her limbs. Tears spilled from her eyes, and her breaths came out as small gulps.
He sheathed his dagger and scanned her neck to be sure he hadn’t cut her. “What in the realm were you thinking?”
Amaris grasped her arms and gazed up the ladder into the dim passage above. “Adelaide needed our help,” she said softly.
Where is her fiery spirit? Theo’s hands curled into fists.
“Did you really think you’d stand against soldiers?” Esaias snapped, leaning against the ladder and releasing an exhausted breath as he wiped more blood from his eye.
Amaris narrowed her gaze at him. “What happened to you?”
“A story for later.”
“We have to go—”
Amaris was silenced as footsteps carried from above. She shoved them against the wall. Her breaths were ragged beside Theo. She bent down, pulling something from her boot and thrusting it into his hands. It was a leather necklace with a key.
“I swiped it from the…captain.”
More footsteps echoed. Theo grabbed Amaris and Esaias, and they moved deeper into the darkness, allowing it to swallow them in its infinite shadows.
“We need to go this way.” Amaris pointed toward a ladder heading below deck and didn’t look at Theo or Esaias before she scurried down to the next level.
Theo grabbed a lantern hanging several paces away. He and Esaias followed her, each turn quick and methodical. She’d gotten herself lost in the manor daily, but now she was able to direct them without hesitation through the ship. Interesting was hardly able to describe the kind of woman she was.
“Where’s the brig?” Theo asked.
Amaris jumped off the ladder, stepping out of sight. Theo lifted the lantern. Hammocks hung around them.
“One more deck down,” she said.
“Why did you think it was a good idea to go after Adelaide?” Esaias asked. “You aren’t even trained. What if someone attacked you?”
Amaris grimaced. “Why are you here?”
“Obviously someone needed to rescue you two.”
“I was doing fine on my own,” she lied, biting her lip. Her teeth released their hold, and her nostrils flared as she caught sight of Theo eyeing her tell. Someone was chasing after her.
“How were you planning to get off the ship?” Esaias asked.
“I was figuring it out.”
“Sure,” Esaias scoffed.
Amaris pushed farther, pulling away from the light, from Theo. He wanted to grasp her hand and hold it to his heart so she could feel how it raced within his chest and know she wasn’t alone.
“You did that on purpose!” Esaias shouted, crashing to the ground.
Theo quickened his pace, finding Esaias twisted in a hammock.
“You’ll be fine, you big baby,” she spat.
“Amaris, I can barely see a fucking thing,” he seethed, untangling himself and ripping the hammock from where it hung.
She turned on him, grabbing his cheeks and assessing his cut.
He winced at her touch. “Stop squirming.” Amaris wiped the blood running down his brow and prodded at the swelling around his other eye.
“The swelling will go down.” She pulled out a roll of cloth from her satchel and wrapped the bandage around his head. “That should hold for now.”
“How much farther?” Theo asked.
“It shouldn’t be far.” Amaris reached out, feeling with the tips of her toes as she walked and sliding her hands along the edges of the hammocks.
Esaias glared at Theo, his eyes swinging between them like a pendulum. Theo crinkled his lips into a snarl. Esaias could believe whatever he wanted to about love, but Theo refused to feed into his delusions that love wasn’t worth it.
“Last time—” Before Amaris could get out another word, she and Esaias fell through a hole in the floor with a loud thud.
“Are you alright?” Theo swung the lantern out, feeling with his foot for the ladder.
“Yes.”
“No,” Esaias whined. “She’s sitting on me.”
“You’re sitting on me!”
Theo found them in a tangle on the floor with Amaris seething as she shoved Esaias off her. Pulling from their bickering, Theo’s chest stilled at the sight of the cells around them.
“Amaris?”
“Adelaide?” Theo called out. He limped toward the sound of his sister’s voice, toward the dying lantern of the farthest cell. He begged for his body to hold out for a little while longer so he wouldn’t be forced to unleash the beast within him.
Adelaide leaned back on her hands, blood spilling from her nose and temple. Her skin was a shade paler than normal, but Theo’s breath halted as the light reflected small white scars on her arms.
“Adelaide,” he whispered. “What have they done to you, and what are these?” He grasped her forearm through the bars, rubbing his thumb over a small scar. She hadn’t had them when he left three years ago.
“You should see them.” Adelaide pulled from his grip. “You look like shit, Esaias.”
“I could say the same for you.” Esaias leaned against the cell across from Adelaide’s. In the small bit of light, his cheeks appeared sunken with shadows, and his skin resembled a spirit’s.
Theo retrieved the key, and Amaris was beside Adelaide the moment he opened the door. They whispered, quickly assessing the state of her injuries.
“She likely has a bruised or broken rib, but I need to get her to the manor to further assess her,” Amaris stated plainly. The once-fragile composure was gone, and not a single tear welled in her eyes.
“Then let’s go,” Esaias answered for everyone, his voice coming in an airy pant as his hand trembled around his sword.
“Esaias, how are you feeling?” Theo asked, stepping toward him.
Amaris’s head snapped up from Adelaide, and she eyed Esaias as he started sliding down the bars. Theo rushed to his side, catching him under the arm before he hit the ground.
“Esaias has—”
“Mamat, I know.” Amaris took hold of Esaias’s chin, bringing his eyes to meet hers. “Are you trying to die tonight?”
His answer was a scoff and a roll of his eyes as his body grew heavy against Theo.
“I have to bear his weight.” He handed Amaris the lantern.
She snatched a sword from a table littered with discarded weapons and kneeled before Adelaide to offer it to her.
Adelaide brushed her fingers over the braided leather of his old sword before winding them tight and gritting her teeth.
She stood, wincing and grabbing a hold of her side.
Theo reached for her waist, but she held up a hand.
“I can walk.”
With the lantern in hand, Amaris led the way. Adelaide followed, and Theo gripped Esaias’s waist, assisting him as they made their way through the ship. Adelaide attempted to stand strong, raising her sword at each corner they came upon, but he saw the winces and heard her grunts.
As they climbed the next ladder, Esaias further leaned into Theo. “I...need to...eat something.”
“I know,” Theo whispered, hefting him up to the next deck. “Just a little longer.”
Farther on, Theo leaned closer to Adelaide. “What happened?”
“I was waiting for Amaris and Esaias—”
“Not on the beach. Your arms,” Theo demanded.
She stalled on the ladder. “A few soldiers jumped me,” she continued, ignoring him.
When it was all over, she would have to tell him who hurt her, who cut up her arms and scarred her.
“I don’t know how it was possible, but the longboats pulled into the bay without a sound.
They thumped me on the back of the head.
They thought they knocked me out, but I faked it and managed to knock out two of theirs.
One of them got a good shot at my nose before he fell. ”
“What about your ribs?”
“Courtesy of their friends. They didn’t appreciate how I outsmarted them and threw me in that cell and got a good kick to my side. They only stopped because she ordered them to.”
“Who?”
“The captain,” she snipped before ascending to the next deck.
Esaias struggled against Theo as he attempted to get him up the ladder. He often grew angry when he hadn’t eaten in a while. They moved faster, pausing around each corner, ducking behind barrels to avoid a fight.
“One more and we’ll be on the main deck,” Amaris whispered to them.
Esaias slowly lifted his brows, giving Theo a dazed look before his head rolled onto his shoulder. With Amaris’s and Adelaide’s assistance, they got Esaias up the ladder and laid him on the deck.
Theo kneeled beside him, attempting to rouse him for the last few minutes of their escape, but he only groaned as Theo pinched his shoulder.
“Watch out!”
Theo whirled, but a boot kicked him in the chest. He hit the deck hard.
A blade was drawn, and he rolled, narrowly missing its vicious swipe.
He wiped the rain from his eyes. Adelaide drew her sword against Sephardi, who spun hers then lunged with a fury.
A second sword was strapped to her back, and her twin pistols were sheathed at her sides.
Theo startled. What was Sephardi doing?
Adelaide strained against her attacks, but she blocked each of her hits. The clash of their blades rivaled the thunder’s call. Not only was Adelaide defending herself against one of Theo’s most-skilled soldiers, but she did so with a smug persistence. Theo could’ve sworn a smirk graced her lips.