Chapter 7 To Stay
Chapter seven
To Stay
Rose
Of all the tempests that drag a sailor under, none pulls harder than desperation. The Deep can smell it long before the waves break.
— An Old Mariner's Warning
The worst part was waiting.
I would rather have tangled with giant sea turtles a thousand times over than sit on my ass waiting for something to happen.
The schedule was wrong. I miscalculated. It was all for nothing.
I paced back and forth on the deck of the Sea Wraith, only pausing to raise my spyglass to my eye and confirm the horizon was still empty.
“You are going to wear a hole right through to the hull, and then Bash will be extra grumpy when he gets back,” Val said from where she sat cross-legged, tying a rope like she had all the time in the world.
I couldn’t take for granted what she’d done just then, though.
Couldn’t do anything but appreciate the hope that surged in me.
We were close. Only Val was brave enough to say his name and talk about him like he wasn’t dead.
The new crew members I’d convinced to join were too scared to say his name, and the rest thought they were showing me respect by not.
“When he gets back, I’ll be sure to apologize,” I said.
I rubbed my hands together and blew into them, creating a small stream of smoke in the chilly air. We were just outside London, so close I could practically feel him. We’d been here for a week, though, and still The Bane had yet to show. She was supposed to be returning from the North Sea.
“Someone must have caught on that we knew the schedule and changed it. James is an idiot, but he’s smart enough to know what losing the Bane would cost him,” I said.
“You said the Bane was the only ship he had that could stand against the Wraith. That investors wouldn’t risk putting out anything smaller after three losses,” Val said.
I turned on my heel and glared at her. “I know what I said.”
She nodded and continued threading. “Oh, good. So, you know that we are in the right place, and that you're wearing a hole into the deck is impractical and unhelpful. Also, you are making the crew nervous.”
I bit my lip, a low growl breaking from me. My entire body hummed with restless energy that I needed to expel. Usually, that ended up with my creating a terrible plot, but I was already in the midst of one.
Val sighed with the weight of the sea and set the rope down like this was all a wild inconvenience. Before I could snap at her that she didn’t need to babysit me, she stood and leaned over the Wraith.
“Do you know why I’ve always liked you?” she asked.
I arched an eyebrow and, despite the anxiety floating through my blood, my lips pulled up in a small smile.
“So you admit you’ve always liked me?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes, the scar over her eye flashing against the sun’s light.
“You didn’t ask for permission. You showed up on this ship and forced everyone to acknowledge you,” she said.
I’d thought I knew everything I needed to know, but just then, under the weight of her respect, I learned that I’d been desperately lacking. Val wasn’t the sort of woman to compliment. She was quick-witted and slightly insane, but her respect–that was worth more than gold.
“I’m pretty sure it was luck and desperation more than anything,” I whispered.
She shrugged. “But you did something. That’s the difference between the women who make history and those who don’t. The world is built to make us footnotes. We have to claw our way for what we want.”
I’d never heard her talk with such conviction. It was out of character for her, whereas she was usually morally opposed to being serious.
And so I dared to ask the question I’d always wondered about her.
“What is it that you want?” I asked.
She turned to face me, no hint of a smile on her heart-shaped lips.
“This,” she said, staring out into the blue horizon.
“This?” I asked, trying to keep the skepticism from my voice.
She threw her golden braid back and laughed like she was daring the gods to tell her otherwise.
“This,” she said, laughter peeling off. “Everyone sees my scar and the tattoo on my chest and assumes I have some tragic backstory that forced me into the cruel fate of being a pirate, but the truth is I fought and clawed my way for this.”
I didn’t know if it was wise or foolish to confess that I often wondered the same thing. How fate had pulled her into a life of pirateering.
“I have parents who are alive and well, last I heard. I grew up with everything I ever needed. Yes, it was Piccadilly Street, but we were lucky enough to not know the meaning of want when it came to food and basic needs,” she said.
“I have three older brothers who never treated me any differently because I was a girl. My mother always says it’s their fault I believed I could do anything. ”
A light breeze blew past us, paying testament to her words and the life she lived.
“So with infinite confidence and an unshakable will, you thought, ‘Ah, yes, pirateering will do,’” I said.
Her short laugh was a song in the wind.
“Pretty much,” she said. “I didn’t want to do anything else.
I wanted a life on the sea and the threat of a noose behind me.
I would have settled for respectable shipping like your family’s company, but all they could see was my sex.
Women are bad for ships, as you well know.
So I set out to find less respectable means of a life at sea.
I finally found a captain who would take me on, but mostly because he was desperate.
The crew didn’t appreciate him any more for it. ”
“But you stayed,” I said, knowing who the woman beside me was.
“I stayed,” she echoed. “And when the mutiny came for the captain, they came for me too.”
She ran her finger over her silver scar like a knife.
“Those bastards tossed me over, and the gods laughed because I should have died, but instead, a pathetic excuse for a ship pulled me out of the water.”
She smiled fondly at the memory, and I didn’t need to ask the rest.
“Bash,” I said.
“The asshole himself,” she said. “He stared down at me and asked how I ended up in the sea. Even then, Billy was always trying to temper him, but I respected his directness.”
She paused, remembering, and for a moment I was her on that ship, waiting for a captain’s judgment.
“I told him because I was a woman, since that was my only crime,” she said, turning to face me.
“He nodded, and that was the end of it. I’ve stayed by his side ever since and, believe it or not, princess, I’d do anything to get him back.
Even follow a deranged socialite with questionable planning skills. ”
I resented the burning in my eyes that had no place in this lesson on strength and determination. Yet, the emotion that burned in my chest at her loyalty and reverence was choking me.
“Some might say you have poor judgment,” I whispered.
She shrugged, taking the spyglass from my hands and raising it to her eye.
“Some can go straight to hell for all I care,” she said. “Did you happen to order a rather large ship with a British flag?”
And just like that, my heart fell straight into my stomach as Val grinned and handed me the spyglass.
The Bane.