Chapter 14
Chapter Fourteen
Amalya fluffed her skirts as she sat down on my bed. She crossed her legs, pushed her chest out provocatively, and smoothed the sheets with her hands.
“Care for a sit?” she crooned with a sugar-sweet smile.
“I’m fine.” I crossed the room to my desk, careful to give her a wide berth. I had no intention of fucking her or any of her kind.
“Okay,” she drew out. “Business first, if we must. But afterward…” Her croon made my skin crawl.
Of all the memories I know I had lost over the years, Amalya was never one of them.
Each time I woke up on shore, she was there beside me.
Whether to taunt or to tempt, I had no clue.
“Are you ready to lift the curse you cast on me?” That was the only reason I could think of for her being there: admiring her handiwork.
She answered, “You know I didn’t cast that curse upon you.”
“Then who did, witch?”
“It wouldn't matter if I told you,” she said. “Your fate would still be the same.”
Fucking witch.
I turned away and poured some rum from a decanter.
“Well, do you mind telling me how to break it?” I took a sip, counting on it to keep me level-headed.
“You already know how.”
She fixed me with a pointed gaze that seared my back, sending a wave of fire over the scars. I looked then to the scratchings on my desk and the ornaments I knew were hidden in a lockbox. Stella Mortis, it read.
Scars.
A carving.
Sea glass.
The only three things I had to help me break this damned curse.
“You're no fucking help.” I took another sip of rum before returning to the table to fill another glass.
“Then tell me why I’m here. Did you want some company after all?” Amalya crawled to the edge of the bed and untied the front of her dress, loosening it until her tits popped free.
“Put those fucking things away.” The decanter hit the desk hard enough to crack. How many times had this woman tried to force herself upon me? After years of no, why did she think that tonight would be the night I conceded? I hated witches and she knew it. “Cover yourself, Amalya.”
“Then what can I do for you, pirate?” she clipped out. The air chilled.
“I've found something… familiar, and I have questions."
“Familiar should be an unknown word to you, cursed one.”
“And yet here I stand,” I argued, temper flaring, “with an item that I know I've seen before.”
I paced a few steps, drink in hand, before pulling the journal out of my pocket. I set it on the bed beside her without a word.
Though she looked at it intently, she didn't touch it. Her hands curled into fists. The stillness that settled over her told me more than if she'd snatched it up immediately.
The journal was rudimentary in its craftsmanship, the leather cover almost too small to wrap the bound pages properly, worn soft at the corners from years of being taken out and put back again. Raised texture dotted the front, connected by ink into a constellation I couldn't name.
Amalya looked up from the journal with those electric amber eyes.
“Pick it up.” I crossed my arms.
“I don't need to pick it up,” she said, keeping her expression reserved even as her shoulders tensed.
“Then tell me what you know about it.”
She looked away and was quiet for long enough that I was sure she wouldn't speak. Just when I went to encourage her to answer, she flicked her eyes back to mine and asked, “Where did you get this?”
“The girl had it.”
“And before the girl?” Her eyes narrowed.
“I don’t know.”
Hesitantly, Amalya traced the constellation on the cover, one finger following the raised dots as if she were inking them herself. Like she, too, recognized its familiarity, reacquainting herself with something she’d thought long forgotten.
“Some things, Silas Draven,” she whispered, “are not mine to tell. If you’re caught in a cycle, then you must break it on your own.
” Amalya looked back up at me, and something like pity glinted in her eyes.
“Most sincerely, I am sorry. Whoever cursed you was angry, and whatever harm you did them will not so easily be forgiven. It is up to you to figure out how to earn great enough forgiveness to break it.”
“Oh, don’t feed me that bullshit, Amalya,” I spat, sick and tired of the constant lies that spewed from her mouth. “I don’t know why I keep coming back to you. And, for that matter, why you keep coming back to me.”
“Ask me something I can actually answer, and I will be glad to help.”
I picked the journal back up and turned it over in my hands. I'd asked her hundreds of questions over hundreds of years and she had yet to give me a simple answer to any of them. But, just as before, I couldn't stop trying. I had to break this curse.
“The Stella Mortis. Can you tell me what it is?”
“No,” she answered simply.
I sighed in a feeble attempt to remain calm. “Then what can you tell me?” I asked through gritted teeth.
“I can tell you what it requires.”
I snapped my head up. Our gazes met. For a long moment she just looked at me, with eyes so ancient they'd probably seen the sun rise and set a million times.
“A sacrifice. Something freely given, that costs the giver more than they have ever been willing to pay. That is, after all, the nature of breaking something that was never meant to be in the first place.”
I took a swig of rum to warm the ball of ice forming in my chest.
What did I have left to give? I had no life, no love, not even a death to be had.
I looked again at the journal, at the worn leather corners, the constellation dotting the front, and the weight of it in my hands. I flipped open its pages and studied the notes written in her careful hand, pages upon pages of a story written down because she had no one to tell it to.
“How?” I asked.
“That,” she smiled, and I knew I was going to loathe whatever she said next, “is not my answer to give. Now, the true fun can begin if you wish? I’ve places to be if not.”
“Curses to cast, I imagine,” I grumbled under my breath.
“Careful, Silas.” Amalya stood and ran her fingers down my arm and as she smiled again, her pupils narrowed to slits. “You’d hate to break one curse just to be caught in another.” She reached up and kissed me on the cheek, sending a shiver down my undead spine.
I watched the door close without a sound behind her before sitting at my desk. My rum was gone, my patience was thin, and I was still just as fucking clueless as I’d been before I dragged her onto my ship.
“Sacrifice,” I muttered.
The word echoed in my mind. What could it mean? I went over all the things I had to sacrifice. Gold? Jewels?
“Something given willingly, that costs the giver more than they have ever been willing to pay.”
There was nothing on land or sea that I wouldn’t give to break this curse. But an idea occurred to me. What was the one thing I needed more than anything right now? Something I wouldn’t be willing to give up unless it was to break the curse?
The answer was easy: Corynne. I’d slaughter any man who tried to take her from me. She was the only one who could read the map.
Sacrifice.
“Corynne. I have to sacrifice Corynne to the Stella Mortis.”
I set the journal down and stood, crossing to the porthole.
The dock lights of Deadveil smeared gold across the dark water below, and the noise of the port filtered through the glass.
I rubbed at the small ache of loneliness in my chest, wishing I could be there with my crew, enjoying food and drink for the night.
But I had to stay out at sea. I couldn't risk losing any more memories.
Especially now that I had Corynne, now that I was so close to discovery.
I hadn't intended to kill her.
When I'd taken her off August's ship, I told myself it didn't matter what happened to her after she served her purpose. I believed it, too, but I wasn't sure I believed it anymore. I didn't wish for her death. If it had to be done to break this curse, though, I would see it through.
“Damn.” I needed a drink. I crossed to the decanter once more and grumbled when I found it still empty.
I stood with it in my hand, picturing the woman who argued with me about everything including the direction of the wind, and who coughed blood into her palm before hiding it behind her back because she'd rather die than let me see her struggle.
Guilt drove me forward.
I strode through my cabin door and out to the deck, lifted the hatch, and quickly made my way to the belly of the ship.
I wasn't checking on her because I'd changed my mind about anything.
She was useless to me dead, I reasoned, and Finch had yet to return with a physician to help her.
The least I could do was check the merchandise to make sure it was breathing.
“Miss Godwin?” I called out when I reached the door. There was no answer, though I wasn’t sure why I expected one. She was likely behind the door waiting silently, ready to whack me with iron and escape one it opened.
I turned the key and pushed open the door. The bed was empty. A cool breeze wafted the salty tang of the sea in through the open window. I crossed the room and looked down to the blackened sea below.
“Bloody woman,” I whispered.
“Cap’n.” Finch appeared in the doorway, with a man standing behind him grasping a doctor's bag. He glanced at me and then at the empty room. “Ah.”
“Ready the dinghy.”
“Cap’n, you know what it costs you to step upon land—”
“Ready the godsdamned dinghy, Finch!” I pointed at the doctor as Finch scurried away. “You. Stay here. I’ll pay extra.”
I turned and left without waiting for his reply.
Finch was already on the deck above, readying the ropes and hoisting the small boat over the side of the ship.
I strode through the cold night air without stopping to think about what would happen next.
Corynne was out there, alone in a pirate port that destroyed people like her in a matter of minutes. And for gods knew how long.
The dinghy wobbled as I grabbed a hanging rope and leapt over into it. I took the oars from Finch and plunged them into the water.
“When I get my hands on you, Beastie,” I vowed as I started rowing, “my hand is going to leave a permanent mark on your ass.”