Chapter 11
Eleven
Dare
We sailed home under black sails, on a pirate ship, disguised by magic to slip past the Ice Kingdom’s defenses.
“I want to know the story of how my sister became intimately familiar with pirates,” Hanna told me. Her blond hair blew around her face as we stood at the railing, watching the relative safety and green shores of the Isle slip below the horizon behind us.
“I don’t know, but it makes me feel much more fond of her.”
“I thought you would have been won over by how she despises Kaelan,” Hanna said lightly, though I knew that troubled her. She wanted all of us to get along.
“That is rather charming,” I agreed.
The captain swaggered up to us, his hat cocked back on his head in a way that seemed to invalidate the entire purpose of a hat. “Morick, at your service.”
“Thank you for your help.”
He waved a hand. “I’m forever being dragged into the Royals troubles. Terribly inconvenient being friends with any of you.”
“Don’t mind him.” A dark-haired woman came to his side, one hand braced beneath the swell of her pregnant belly as if it were too heavy to bear. “He adores drama. You Royals give him a reason to live.”
He frowned at her. “You give me a reason to live.”
She rolled her eyes. “And yet, I’m most likely to murder you.”
I eyed her belly, wondering if she would make it back to land before the baby arrived, but I knew better than to reference a woman’s pregnancy before she did unless the baby was crowning in front of me.
“This is my wife, Nora,” Morick said expansively.
We soon found ourselves sitting in the captain’s quarters with them, where Morick encouraged us to drink the wine he wouldn’t—not when Nora couldn’t—and I barely had to prompt Morick to satisfy Hanna’s curiosity.
“I served Caldren and Honor before they were king and queen,” he explained, leaning back in his chair and welcoming his wife, who sat on the bed and put her feet into his lap. He seemed to know his job, beginning to massage her feet as he told his story.
Hanna’s lips tugged at the corners. He must have been one of Caldren’s followers, back when Jaik and Caldren were at war.
“Hopefully we have the same luck,” I said.
“She has the look of a queen. I’m sure you’ll vanquish Edric,” Morick said expansively, then eyed me. “You, I don’t know about. You look more like a pirate than a king.”
“Thank you,” I said dryly. “I don’t want to rule—”
“He will,” Hanna cut me off. “Honor rules with all her kings. Not just Caldren.”
Nora rolled her eyes. “Caldren was always too tender-hearted toward that fool brother of his.”
“He’s my brother too.” Hanna’s eyes flashed.
She had so much experience with loving overbearing assholes. How fortunate for Kaelan.
Kaelan and Thorne joined us for dinner. The six of us sat at the captain’s table, the maps and ledgers replaced with roasted fish and vegetables. Thorne, who hated fish, ate grimly. We’d certainly eaten far worse on Kaelan’s ship and at the front.
Hanna stole Kaelan’s wine cup when he wasn’t looking, and he stole it back without missing a beat in his conversation.
“So,” I said, spearing a piece of fish. “Are we going to talk about how we’re pirates now?”
“You’re not qualified,” Morick disagreed. “Well, maybe this one.” He gestured to me.
“These two are a matched set of light fingers and questionable morals.” Kaelan included both Hanna and me in his judgment, and I found it strangely complimentary.
The banter felt good. Familiar. A steady sense of dread like a tide threatened to pull me under as we came closer to the Ice Kingdom, but as long as we were laughing, the dread couldn’t drown us.
But it couldn’t last, not as we grew closer to the Ice Kingdom.
By the next night’s dinner, ice floes drifted past our ship periodically.
The captain’s quarters were cramped with all six of us inside, but at least the conversation would be private.
Kaelan traced the coastline on the map, marking safe harbors and patrol routes from memory.
“We land here.” He tapped a narrow inlet. “It’s rocky, difficult to navigate, but Edric’s navy avoids it. Too many reefs.”
Morick looked at the map and hummed. “You’ve got an awful lot of faith in me.”
“We have the runes prepared for ice breaking, but it’s not something with which we have much practice,” Nora agreed.
“You’ll manage,” Kaelan said.
“He means that you’re the finest captain he’s ever met, and if anyone can handle that coastline, it’s you.” I interpreted expansively for Kaelan. He usually needed the help.
Morick’s lips twisted in amusement. “Merciless flattery. I do like you.”
“And after we land?” Hanna asked.
“We find Azora and Jaia. They may have moved on from the safe house, with how long we’ve been gone. Then Alys and Ekardo.” Kaelan didn’t look at Thorne when he said it, but he was paying attention to how Thorne stilled. Alys was his family.
“Ekardo.” My tone was flat. “Because we can trust the Grey Kingdom mage. The one who so enjoyed torturing Thorne and Hanna.”
“I know,” Kaelan said. “I don’t like it either. But he understands thrall magic, the kind of mental manipulation Edric uses. We need that knowledge.”
“We’d been working with a mage,” Thorne added. “But he had a big mouth.”
“What happened to him?” Morick asked.
Thorne shook his head. Hanna looked troubled.
My jaw worked. “And Alys?”
It seemed unpleasant to bring Thorne’s sister in as a replacement for an executed mage.
“Thorne’s sister is one of the most skilled alchemists in three kingdoms. If anyone can help us understand the goddess—”
“We need to focus on defeating Edric. Not on me. The goddess will help you defeat Edric’s armies.” Hanna sounded sure and cheerful, as usual.
Her eyes still seemed like Hanna’s, but doubt wriggled through my gut.
She met my gaze directly, as if she could sense my skepticism.
“The Shadow Weaver has power Edric won’t expect.
Power that could turn the tide if we’re outnumbered.
It would be pragmatic to use it. We can’t waste time on research when we have a war to win.
After…we’ll have all the time we need to remove the goddess. ”
“Is that so?” I couldn’t tell—couldn’t fucking tell—if this was Hanna being strategic or the goddess at work.
“We use the goddess’s powers as a last resort,” Kaelan said. “I’m not going to bind your hands if we’re in danger of dying, but we’re not sending you in first to fight with shadows.”
Hanna’s expression flickered. Relief? Frustration? I couldn’t tell.
Thorne leaned back in his chair. “What about Jaia and Azora? Can you still use your tracking enchantment to find them?”
Kaelan nodded, but there was something carefully blank about his face. I glanced at Morick and Nora, who were speaking softly to each other—Morick had his hand cupped over Nora’s faintly-moving belly—but that didn’t mean they weren’t listening. Maybe that was why Kaelan was guarded.
But still, something about his reaction worried me.
“You can have my dining room to yourselves tonight,” Morick offered.
I nodded, grateful for the privacy when I was worried about my friends. About dragging Alys into our war and what that would mean for Thorne. About Kaelan facing his father. About Hanna, possessed by a goddess, as if she weren’t unpredictable enough already.
When we sat down to dinner, Kaelan reached for Hanna.
But Thorne was faster, pulling Hanna into his lap. She let out a bubbly laugh, landing lightly in his lap as he put his arm around her.
“You’re lucky I need you,” Kaelan said dryly.
“Him? Or me?” Hanna asked, before leaning in to kiss Thorne—both because she loved to please Thorne and loved to provoke Kaelan.
Kaelan sprawled in his chair, somehow looking just as regal as ever. “Him, of course. We all know for me, you’re nothing but trouble.”
Hanna grinned, clearly unoffended. “Then you won’t be offended if I sleep with Thorne and Dare and give you the night off from how I pain you so.”
“Please do.” He raised a glass to us all. “I could use a night’s reprieve from your snoring.”
“I do not snore!”
“Well,” Thorne said, and Hanna’s eyes widened. He squeezed her waist. “It’s the most adorable little snore.”
Hanna didn’t dignify that with a response, but I opened my arms, already knowing where she was headed, and then she was in my lap.
I leaned back, comforted by the warm weight of her body against mine, and even by the tickle of her hair where it fell against my face.
I brushed her hair over her shoulder, determined to keep her close.
“Dare?” she demanded.
“I’ve never heard a snore,” I said. “If anything, I’ve just heard Kaelan growling in his sleep.”
She rewarded me with a kiss, though the other two rewarded me with looks—Thorne’s baleful, Kaelan’s menacing. All three made me grin.
This is what we could be, I thought. If the world would just leave us alone.
Then Kaelan’s expression shifted.
It was subtle. The tightening around his eyes. The stiffening of his shoulders.
Most people would have missed it. The way his fingers curled into a fist. The cold control that drained every expression from his face.
I didn’t miss it.
I met Thorne’s eyes across the table. He glanced at me with a note of recognition, both of us well-versed in reading Kaelan after serving beside him—and reining him in at times—in endless battles.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
Kaelan’s brows arched as if I’d lost my mind. “Besides the color of that tunic? I’ve never been prone to seasickness before.”
I flattened my hand against the silky fabric. “Always wearing black is so dull.”
I’d thought we were past keeping secrets.
Kaelan’s expression smoothed back into his usual unemotional stoicism. But it was thinner now. More fragile.
I sharpened my humor, kept the conversation moving, drew attention away from Kaelan’s tension while appearing to do nothing of the sort.
This is what I did best.
Holding the room together while pretending not to care.
But after the first course, I caught Hanna’s eye and tilted my head toward the deck.
She followed me out into the salt air and starlight.
“What’s wrong?” she asked immediately.
“Kaelan.” I kept my voice low. “He’s not all right.”
Her expression shifted to concern. “I noticed the snap at dinner. But—”
“It’s more than that.” I leaned against the railing, watching the dark water. “Something’s wrong with him.”
She was quiet for a moment, processing.
Then I said the harder part. “I think you should stay close to him tonight.”
The words cost more than I wanted to admit.
Hanna studied my face in the dim light. “Dare—”
“I’m not—” I stopped. Started again. “This isn’t jealousy. Or insecurity. I’m saying Kaelan needs you tonight, and you should be there.”
“And what about what you need?”
The question caught me off guard.
I wanted to deflect. To make a joke. To pretend I didn’t need anything at all.
But Hanna was looking at me with a tender expression and luminous eyes, and she was the one person with whom I struggled to lie.
“I need him to be okay,” I said quietly. “I need all of us to make it through this. And if that means stepping back so you can be where you’re needed most, then that’s what I’m doing.”
“That’s not stepping back.” Hanna moved closer, her hand finding my wrist. “That’s choosing us. All of us.”
“Same thing.”
“It’s not.”
Her fingers were warm against my skin. “You’re never losing your place with us. You’re making space for all of us to be what each other needs, when we need it. That’s different.”
I wanted to believe her. Wanted to trust that there was room for me in this complicated tangle of relationships and needs and fears.
“I don’t want to lose you. The way we were, when it was just the two of us—” The vulnerability of it made my chest tight.
Hanna’s hand moved from my wrist to my collar, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. She pulled me down and kissed me.
It was a promise and a reassurance and a claim all at once. When she pulled back, her eyes were dark. “I could never forget you.”
Despite everything, I smiled. “That’s true. I’m memorable.”
“You’re annoying.”
“That too. But so are you, which must be why we fit together so well.”
She kissed me again, briefer this time but no less intense. Then she rested her forehead against mine.
“I’ll stay with Kaelan tonight,” she said. “But Dare? Tomorrow, you and I are going to spend some time together. Just us.”
“Look at you, already the queen, issuing commands.”
“Queen, goddess…you and Kaelan had both best learn to kneel. Then there’s no need for you to fight.
Your entire purpose can be to please me.
” There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes, but her hand trailed down my arm before letting go.
“Thank you. We can get through this without losing each other.”
Losing each other. The image of Hanna, Thorne and Kaelan dead—an image that came to me too often—flashed through my mind again. Sometimes it felt like it was already a memory. Something inevitable.
She turned and headed back toward the captain’s quarters. I stayed on deck, watching the stars and trying to sort through the tangle of emotions in my chest.
When I went back inside eventually, Kaelan seemed peaceful, Hanna’s hand on his shoulder as they talked quietly. Thorne glanced up when I entered, his dark eyes asking a question.
I sat back down at the table, poured myself more wine, and raised my cup to no one in particular. “To family.”
Thorne echoed it, his voice rough but sincere. Kaelan rolled his eyes but said it anyway.
And Hanna smiled at me across the table.
I didn’t ever want to forget them all like this. Imperfect and messy and mine.
But something was already knocking at the door.
I felt it in the way Kaelan seemed troubled. In the way Thorne kept watching the darkness beyond the porthole.
In the way the shadows moved wrong around Hanna.