Chapter 54
Lyssa
“Why didn’t I get the fucking longboat fixed!” It’s the third time I’ve yelled it, and it still isn’t making me feel any better.
“Captain, we have time to fix it—we’ll be fine,” Epizon tells me calmly.
“Fix it with what?” I kick moodily at the base of the flame dish, and it wobbles precariously.
“We have materials we took from Alexios’s ship, right, captain?” asks Lucas.
“Some, yes. We’ll need to do an inventory, as soon as possible.”
“Before you do, I have an idea.” He reaches into a deep pocket in his borrowed clothes and pulls out a scrap of paper and numerous colored charcoals.
“Where did he get those?” I mutter to Epizon.
“Len,” he mutters back.
Lucas starts scribbling frantically. “In fact, it’s a good thing that it’s broken,” he says, brows knitted together. “To do what I’m thinking, we’d pretty much have to destroy it to rebuild it anyway.”
“Lucas, we have one day. How much can we do in a day?”
He looks up from his drawing at me, eyes shining. “Plenty. This is going to be the best longboat you’ve ever flown.” He holds his drawing up. Len hustles forward to look and Alexios pushes himself off the quarterdeck railings, eyebrows raised.
“Are those red sails?” he asks.
“Yep.” Lucas beams.
“Rage-fueled sails?” I say slowly, bending to look closer at the drawing.
“Yep.”
“I couldn’t fuel a longboat with my Rage, unless I sailed it every day for a year to bond with it.”
“You can if it’s made from a ship you’re already bonded with.”
I step back, holding up my hands. “What? I’m not damaging the Alastor!”
“We’d just take a small amount of wood out of the back mast.”
I gape at the kid, then shake my head vehemently. The thought is unbearable. “No. No way. You can’t just pull bits off her.”
“We wouldn’t be pulling bits off her. We would be giving her an additional lease on life. On a smaller, more maneuverable vessel, still controlled by you—her captain. She’ll love it!” Lucas looks eagerly at me.
Alexios takes the paper from him and looks between it and me. “Your Rage makes the Alastor the fastest ship in Olympus. A race is your best shot at a win in this competition.” Pride in my ship tempers my outrage slightly.
“You can’t flatter me into destroying my own ship.”
Lucas leaps up. “Destroy her?” He looks genuinely horrified. “Oh no, Captain Lyssa, I swear, that would not be the case.”
“How can you cut out part of the mast without causing damage?” I demand.
“We’d cut small sections in a spiral up and around it. It won’t affect the integrity at all. And it might even look quite good.” He takes the paper back off Alexios and scribbles a sketch of the mast on the edge of the paper, marking where he wants to cut.
Cut. Cut into the wood of the Alastor… I look beseechingly at Epizon, speaking into his mind. “Ep, I don’t have to do this, right?”
“No. You never have to do anything you don’t want to. But a rage-fueled longboat is a genius idea, and the kid’s enough of a ship enthusiast that he might be able to pull it off. Fate may have delivered you an asset here, Lyssa. You should consider using him.”
“But… Cut…” I whisper aloud as I glare at the drawing.
Epizon coughs. “Captain, why don’t you think about it while we repair the sails and inventory the materials? We need sails, no matter what,” he says.
“That’s true,” Lucas agrees.
I give a nod, and everyone except Alexios heads off toward the hauler.
A small whimper escapes me, involuntarily.
“He won’t hurt your ship. He’s a clever kid.”
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“That will never stop me giving it—you know that, right?”
He’s wearing his charming, boyish grin, and the desire to punch him in the nose grows.
I turn to the mast and lay my hands on it. Can I seek her permission? The ship doesn’t speak with me. She elevates me. She frees me. She powers me, as I power her. But she doesn’t use words, doesn’t communicate directly.
Would you like a “new lease on life”? I try to project the idea into the wood. Would it even work, taking a piece of you and putting into a smaller boat?
A tiny surge of heat ripples under my hands.
I press my forehead to the wood. Lucas ended up on this ship by complete chance. My reluctant admiration for the kid made me keep him here. Now, I have to trust that it’s all for a reason.
My gut wrenches as the small axe bites into the Alastor’s mast with a thunk. Epizon looks guiltily at me as he pulls the steel from the wood. I want to give him a reassuring look back but can’t.
He swings the axe again, and I look away, glaring at the deck. I repeat what I’ve been telling myself for hours.
When we’re finished we’ll have an unbelievably powerful longboat, faster than any of our rivals, but still firmly a part of my ship.
I cling to the words, praying Lucas is right, and that we aren’t damaging her. A Rage-fueled longboat won’t just help us in this race. It could be the edge we need throughout all the Trials.
But if it doesn’t work and it damages my bond with the Alastor, then I’ll never forgive him. Or myself.
“Len, you nearly done with the sail?” I call.
“Almost, cap.”
Alexios and I have finished patching the hull with bits of wood scavenged from the cargo deck, and now he and Lucas are wrenching out the old benches.
“Sagittarius is warm,” Alexios announces, then stands up straight in the middle of the boat and strips his shirt off.
He’s not wrong. It is warm, as the sweat glistening on his muscled chest attests to.
I grind my teeth and turn to the pale, and not even slightly sweating, Lucas. “Benches,” I say to him.
“Yes, captain. I’m thinking that you should have one wide one across the middle, behind the mast, and then leave the rest as space for whatever you might be transporting or traveling with.”
I nod, trying to ignore Alexios behind him, running his hand through his long hair, biceps flexing.
It’s been a long time since I felt the sweat on a man’s chest. Even longer since I felt my own sweat on a man’s chest.
Fucking peacock! Ignore him! I berate myself.
I hop up onto the crate we’re using as a step, then climb into the boat, trying to avoid eye contact with Alexios. “Yes, just one bench here, near the mast,” I clarify.
“How’d it get so beat up in the first place?
” Alexios asks, and I’m forced to look at him.
He puts both hands on his hips, drawing my gaze down.
His shirt is now hanging from where he’s tucked it into his waistband.
His skin is smooth and tanned, and the muscles of his stomach are clearly defined.
“A torn-up sail and a huge hole in the side isn’t your standard wear and tear. ”
I look back at his face and pray my cheeks aren’t flushed. “Delivery job gone wrong.” I shrug, then wince at the thunking sound of the axe in the background.
“What were you delivering?”
“Don’t know. We don’t ask.”
“Doesn’t that bother you?” he asks, his eyebrows drawing together. Guilty defensiveness springs up around me.
“If everyone sticks to the code then we shouldn’t need to ask,” I snap. “Len, where’s the sail?”
“Down here, cap,” the satyr calls. “I’ve cut it to size and sealed the edges.
” I climb back out of the boat and retrieve the sail from Len.
It’s heavy, but I don’t need to rile myself up to get the strength to lift it.
Alexios has done that for me. I throw it up over the edge of the boat, a satisfied smile spreading over my face when Alexios grunts.
“Sorry,” I lie as I climb back in.
“I’m sure you are.” He rubs at his pec, and his eyes are shining. “Want to kiss it better?”
“Fates, how old are you? And has that line ever actually worked?”
“Yes. Many times. And I only said it because I knew it would piss you off.”
Annoyance makes me bold. “So, you wouldn’t want me to kiss it better?” I put one hand on my own hip, jutting my chest out, and feel a jolt of satisfaction at the flicker of surprise on his face.
The satisfaction morphs fast into alarm, though, as his eyes darken and his smile changes.
Shit. Don’t play with fire, Lyssa, or you’ll get burned.
“Come here and find out?”
“Abso-fucking-lutely not.” I grab the mast, preparing to climb up with the sail over my shoulder.
“Captain!” Len’s voice sounds urgently in my head as well as out loud, below the boat.
“What’s wrong?” I say, dropping the sail and vaulting over the edge of the boat. My breath catches as I land.
“We… we have a visitor,” he says. I follow his pointing arm and see a centaur standing on the deck of the Alastor.