Chapter 10
Ridge and Corsair had kept Amaya in the brig for two days. Lord Lexington left her there for three. All alone in the dark, fear and fury swirled together in her mind, insidious and dreadful.
The only bright spots were Serena and Mouse, who sometimes ventured down to chat. The engineer had also taken the liberty of offering Amaya some creature comforts like a blanket, a pillow, and an extra lantern so the darkness didn’t swallow her whole.
But Amaya was not cut out to be a prisoner. She could feel her sanity slipping.
Serena came downstairs the morning of the third day with a cup of hot coffee and breakfast. Having decided to stay a while, she now sat with her legs crossed outside the cell, hands wrapped around her own coffee mug.
“Has he mentioned letting me out?” Amaya asked, almost afraid to hear the answer. He’d said until she “learned her place,” but those weren’t exactly clear parameters.
Serena shook her head. “No. Sorry.”
Groaning, Amaya leaned her head against the back wall. “He’s acting like a baby.”
“He’s a man,” Serena said with a laugh, sipping at her coffee. “I’m not sure what you expect. You ever seen one with a cold?”
Despite her current state of misery, Amaya couldn’t help snorting out a laugh at that.
She’d watched her mother battle consumption for three years, and never once had her strength faltered.
At least, not in front of her daughter. But even Camden had been intolerable to be around when he had so much as a cough.
“You could try apologizing. Will might give you your room back if you make a good enough show of it,” Serena suggested.
“I’m not apologizing. I didn’t do anything wrong.” Amaya pursed her lips. “Besides, he doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.”
“Technically, you did disobey orders. You realize most other Sky Lords would have thrown you overboard for that, right?”
Amaya blinked down at her coffee, then glanced up at Serena. “He doesn’t actually do that, does he? Throw people overboard?”
“I mean, no, I think he prefers killing with his sword. But there was a mutiny a few years back when Will took over command. More than a few went overboard then. And a couple years ago, we hired a grunt who wouldn’t leave me alone.
He got one warning. Then”—Serena clicked her tongue and jerked her thumb back over her shoulder—“goner.”
“Damn.”
Amaya tried to picture it. What would it be like to fall through the clouds for however long it took to hit the ground, with nothing to do but contemplate one’s own imminent death?
“Maybe he would have thrown me off if I hadn’t accidentally proved I was useful,” she muttered.
Amaya was sorry for taking the necklace, but not because she’d disobeyed the captain. She was sorry because, for some reason she still couldn’t comprehend, her touch had activated the mythical Skystone.
But why here? Why now? Why her?
Transitioning her mug to one hand, Amaya slipped her free hand into her pocket and ran her fingers along the edges of her and her mother’s photo.
It was all that kept her tethered to reality while she was isolated down here.
All that reminded her there was more than this darkness, this loneliness—and she wanted it.
“I just want to go home,” Amaya heard herself say.
She missed her father’s quiet, confident presence and Daisy’s cuddles.
She longed to hide in her bedroom and let herself shatter, safe from prying eyes.
Yearned for her piano to whisk her away to a world where Camden was alive and well, waiting for her to come home and promise they’d never be separated again.
Serena offered a sympathetic smile. “I know, hun. But I’ll be real with you: that’s not happening anytime soon. My best advice is to apologize to Will, avoid crossing him again, and make this a little less miserable for yourself.”
Amaya turned up her nose at the idea, stubbornly standing by her claim of innocence.
“Why do you call him Will and not Captain?” she asked instead, recalling how insistent he’d been that she use his official titles.
Serena grinned. “I’ve known him since I was eight. He’s like . . . my second brother.”
“And has he always been this obstinate?”
“Actually, no. He was a lot more like Mouse as a kid.”
“I don’t believe you,” Amaya said, frowning. She couldn’t picture it. Mouse was sweet, earnest, and wore his heart on his sleeve. Lexington seemed to have locked his heart in a box and thrown away the key.
Serena chuckled. “No, really. But being soft made him easy to hurt. I think it’s why he’s so hard on the poor kid.”
“Who hurt him?”
“Graven.”
Amaya’s lips parted in surprise. “Graven? How?”
Serena took a deep breath. “So, Sky Lords are supposed to have one Class Four relic each, right?”
“Sure.” Mouse had probably mentioned that at some point.
“Graven has two. His first one, Nightmare, he’s had forever. But his second one, Stormfist, fell out of the Sky Lords’ hands decades ago and wound up in Percival. Will’s father was a relic smuggler—a titan of the black market, if you will. And he got his hands on it.”
“Wait, wait.” Amaya held up a hand. “His father was a smuggler? And he turned around and became a pirate?”
The Sky Lords were infamous for targeting epicenters of the relic black market in Veridian and hunting down the smugglers who poached relics from the sky cities. People died in those raids; entire communities were destroyed. Amaya knew from school that Percival itself was a ruin.
How could Lexington have switched sides so completely?
“He didn’t have much of a choice,” Serena said. “Graven killed his parents and abducted him. He doesn’t like talking about it, but he lived on the Baroness for over a decade before joining up with us. Somewhere in there is when he learned to be an asshole, and really, can you blame him?”
Amaya wrinkled her nose. “He was a member of Graven’s crew?”
Serena grimaced. “It’s complicated—he hates Graven more than any of us. But yes, he was.”
Amaya tapped her fingernail against her coffee mug, trying to comprehend all of it. Trying to arrange the scattered facts she knew about Graven, Lexington, Ronan Pearce, and the Skystone into something actionable for herself.
“Corsair said they think Ronan Pearce is inside the vault with a Class Four called Genesis,” Amaya said slowly.
“Yes.”
“Will—I mean, the captain—isn’t going to let Graven get him. It. Whatever.”
“Not if he can help it.”
“This is personal to him.”
“Kind of, yeah.”
Amaya was still pondering the implications of that when Serena heaved a sigh, dragging herself to her feet.
“I’d better head back up.”
Amaya stood as well, moving to pass her emptied mug through the bars. The impending reality of spending another day and night stuck down here, alone, was almost enough for her to swallow her pride and ask Serena to set up that apology.
If not for her mother’s photo in her pocket, she might have. But Marjorie Sinclair would have never apologized just to appease a man’s ego, and neither would Amaya.
Another day in the dark it was.
“Serena!” The hatch tore open, and heavy footsteps pounded on the wooden stairs until Sebastian’s broad silhouette was visible. Amaya squinted, holding up a hand to block the light stinging her eyes.
“It’s the Stormrunner,” Sebastian said, locking eyes with Serena. She swore under her breath.
“Serena!” Amaya called as the engineer raced up the stairs with her brother. “What’s happening? What’s the Stormrunner?”
She paused, turning back with a grim, humorless smile. “We’re under attack. Stay put, princess.”
As if Amaya had a choice.
Serena disappeared, leaving Amaya alone in the belly of the ship. Her palms were sweaty, loosening her grip on the bars, and her heartbeat roared in her ears.
Under attack.
By one of Graven’s ships?
She had predicted something like this might happen, but that didn’t make it less scary. Being stuck with nowhere to run made it even worse. It was like being trapped in the moving car with Camden again, only there was no Camden to comfort her now.
Their attackers were surely here for her, and there wasn’t a damn thing she could do about it.
Cannon fire exploded from outside, impacting the ship and knocking Amaya off her feet. She fell to the floor, groaning as pain radiated through her already aching body.
“That was a warning,” a booming voice called. It was muffled by layers of wood and steel, but was still loud enough for Amaya to hear. The pirate’s words injected ice-cold terror into her bones. “Hand over the Skystone and the girl, and no one dies today.”