Chapter 15
Chapter Fifteen
“Filthy p-pirate,” I spat through shivers.
A crisp breeze rolled off the sea over Deadveil, chilling my skin beneath the sopping-wet skirts bundled around my ankles. Looking at myself in the water, I found reflected back at me blue-tinged lips and bruised circles beneath my eyes, both from the moonlit swim I’d just been forced to take.
I wrung out the hem of my skirts as best I could and shook the water from my brown locks. The shivering was manageable, I lied to myself. Otherwise I might’ve set a nearby ship on fire to keep warm.
“Preferably one ship in particular,” I grumbled under my breath as I rubbed my shoulder.
The swim had turned the ache into a deep, grinding protest that radiated from my elbow to my neck.
Considering it had already been set back into place, this was bad.
Gods, I hoped there was no lasting damage there, all because of—
Sacrifice, my mind supplied.
His conversation with Amayla, either a witch by attitude or trade I didn’t know, rang through my mind.
I’d been able to catch flashes of her green skirts and blonde hair through the floorboards and strained my ear so hard to hear the hushed murmurs from above.
I hadn’t gotten all of them, but I’d gotten enough to put a few things together.
One, Silas was familiar with my journal. It was no wonder why he hadn’t given it back. What was so important in there that he needed to keep it? I knew I was there to decipher his map. Did he think I was keeping something from him? Some sort of knowledge I’d not yet shared?
Second, the talk of sacrifice and the one blazing revelation that he’d said aloud.
I was to be sacrificed to the Stella Mortis when we arrived.
I wouldn’t be surprised if he and Amalya had very loud, very disgusting sex after they’d decided on murder. I’d decided not to stick around to find out. If it was between listening to that and facing possible death by traversing the dark ocean to shore, I’d choose death a thousand times.
“Ugh! Filthy pirates!”
My shout echoed through the port, and a few of said filthy pirates turned to face me with curious expressions. I pulled my hood up, for all the good it did dripping wet, and walked.
Deadveil sprawled along the waterfront as if it was developed along the coast out of laziness rather than a true plan for functionality.
Pirates, just as lazy as they were filthy, it would appear.
Was it men in general or just pirates? I thought of August then and decided it was men in general.
Buildings leaned into each other at odd angles, their torchlight bleeding from open doorways out onto dock boards worn smooth by years of boots and tides.
Smells hit me in layers as I moved off the docks and deeper into the island.
The tinge of brine morphed into the burn of smoke, and underneath it was the sweetness of the rum I imagined had spilled so many times it permeated the wood and earth below it.
Raucous laughter erupted from somewhere off in the distance.
Shouts and jeers rang out in every direction.
It was, objectively, a terrible place for a soaking wet woman with a stolen coin purse to be alone.
A plan. That was what I needed. Although I could hardly plan while I was also soaked, cold, in pain, and starving.
“Well,” I sighed. “Best to address those things first.”
The streets weren’t as rowdy as the inside of the taverns seemed to be, and that was fine by me. I’d hate to run into one of the Mourning Star’s crewmen and get dragged back onto her deck. Not when I’d worked so hard to stay to escape it.
There were a lot of smells to sort through on the island, but I eventually caught a whiff of food.
The market materialized in the heavy glow of torchlight, a narrow lane of vendors operating on either side.
Even though it had to be well past midnight, they still held a cheery disposition that felt sinful for the hour.
Only pirates would find their peak at midnight.
Well, it was the best time to chart the stars… And I had been known to chase the sun on more than one occasion…
It was no matter. I had class, and that made me different.
I waded into the press of bodies, trying to keep my head down and my steps purposeful.
Trinkets dangled from makeshift roofing atop the stalls, refracting jewel-tones across the dirt in a myriad of shades.
I slowed despite myself, caught up in the patterns that shifted as the sea breeze moved through them, blue bleeding into green that deepened to gold and, for a moment, the ground beneath my feet swirled like water in a tide pool.
“It’s sea glass, miss,” came a small voice from behind the stall. I peeked around the beautiful strands to a little girl staring at me with big, round cerulean eyes. She couldn’t have been more than ten, with stringy blonde hair and a shy smile.
“I’m sorry?” I asked, my mind still catching up with her words. “Did you say sea glass?”
“Mhmm,” she answered and pulled a strand out from under the makeshift countertop. “Of many shapes and colors, miss.”
“Oh, I see.” I took the strand she offered.
The glass was incredibly smooth under my touch despite its jagged shape.
At least twenty beads were looped on each strand, each unique in its own way.
“Marvelous. How much?” I asked, without thinking.
I needed clothes and food, but there was a magic about these beads that I couldn’t leave behind.
The little girl considered me with the seriousness of a merchant three times her age. “Two coppers for a strand.” We both looked down at the one hanging between my fingers. “Three for the blue ones.”
Of course. A smile tugged at the corner of my lips. A smart one, she was. I could admire that.
“Fine. What’s your name?” I asked as I pulled the coin purse from my cleavage.
“Lizzy,” she answered, confidently turning up her chin upturned.
“Well, Lizzy, you drive a hard bargain, but a fair one.”
Upon opening the purse, I froze, the breath catching in my lungs. I didn’t have any coppers to give the girl.
The purse was full of gold coins.
I cleared my throat and grabbed a couple of gold pieces. “How about I take all the blue strands and,” I looked around, making sure no one else could see what I was handing over, “you take this in exchange.”
She narrowed her eyes in suspicion that I could again admire, before reaching out. The coins clinked as I dropped them into her hand.
“Shhh,” I whispered with one finger to my lips. “Our secret, yeah?”
“Y-yes, miss.” Her eyes bulged.
“Run along and take that to your parents. Don’t want to be caught holding it in a place like this. I promise, I’ll take the blue and nothing else.”
Lizzy nodded and ran off, the dirt pluming behind her steps as she pumped her legs as hard as she could. I tucked the purse back into my dress, collected my strands of sea glass, and pocketed them.
The purse felt heavier as it settled between my breasts, now knowing what was inside.
When I grabbed it, I assumed it held copper, silver at best. A pirate’s petty cash.
A hundred gold pieces was more than that.
It was the sort of money that bought ships, men’s silence, or both.
And it had been tossed in a drawer, buried under papers like he’d half-forgotten it was there.
I didn’t feel bad about spending it, either. He owed me after all he’d put me through and what he intended to do to me even after it all. Maybe he didn’t owe me hundreds of pieces of gold, but he was also purchasing my silence, and that was worth my weight in gold.
I kept moving, searching for clothes as I tried not to think of the blood money that rested between my boobs. Had it been received as payment for horrible deeds? Or was it meant to purchase something far worse? Either way I didn’t want to know.
I didn’t have far to walk before I found a stall with clean, simple dresses. The rotund woman tending to the small shop looked me up and down, taking in the dripping hair, and my undoubtedly exhausted expression, but said nothing.
“Whatever you have,” I said, as a shiver rolled its way down my spine. “As long as it’s dry.”
She dug through the crates under the counter and produced a dark charcoal skirt, a cream blouse worn soft at the elbows, and a set of stays that had seen better days but would serve their purpose.
The price was probably twice what these rags were worth, but I handed over a gold piece and said nothing more as I stepped behind the curtain at the back of her stall.
Peeling wet clothes off in the freezing dark was an exercise in controlled suffering. But I was determined to prevail. I’d just swam through the ocean at night to outmaneuver a pirate. I could certainly dress myself. Shoulder pain and oncoming fever be damned.
Once fully clothed, I took a moment to close my eyes and breathe, inhaling and exhaling through the dizziness, the still wrenching cough, the searing shoulder pain, and this godsforsaken situation I’d found myself in.
“You’ve survived August so far,” I sighed. “You will survive this, too.”
After a few more moments of composure, I removed the sea glass beads from the pocket of my still sodden skirt, looped on their cord, and admired them in the thin light that came through the gap in the curtain.
Something about them looked so familiar, the way each was layered with a different shade of blue that changed with the way the light hit it.
It reminded me of eyes of the same shades surrounded by small wrinkles that told tales of squinting in the sun.
The wisps of brown hair that blew across them with the breeze…
I gasped, clutching at invisible pearls before shoving the beads into the pocket of my new skirts. “Filthy, bloody, unkempt pirate!” First, he infiltrated my life, and now my dreams? I was a stupid, stupid girl for even noticing those damned eyes to begin with.
You loathe him, Corynne. You do not lust for him.
The shop owner scurried out of my way as I parted the curtain with, admittedly, more force than necessary, and stomped out onto the street.
I was dry and clothed. Yet, I still needed a plan.
Perhaps I could go by the docks and hire another ship to take me in the morning.
Then I could find an inn, have some food, and get some rest before having to figure out where the hell I go from here.
“Blast,” I groaned. The last place I wanted to be was back on the docks, but it was a risk I’d have to take. What was riskier was giving Silas too much time to search for me in Deadveil.
The thought of Silas made my mind drift to the map on his back.
I knew it led to the Stella Mortis. I was so eager to finally discover the artifact that would secure my future, but now I had yet another problem to solve because of a man.
I had to either convince him not to kill me, kill him first, or get to the Stella Mortis before he could.
Dirt turned back into rum- and water-stained boards as I approached the docks.
The first thing I saw was the Mourning Star moored in the harbor, her black sails unfurled and her green lanterns burning cold and steady in the dark.
I thought back to before this had all begun, how the sailor in the tavern had nearly pissed in his knickers because he’d seen her sailing in the fog.
Did pirates not feel the same fear? Mayhap they were too drunk to see her floating out in the distance?
“Well, well, well.”
I whirled to find three shadowy shapes forming around me.
Shit.