Chapter Thirteen
Morning came too fast.
I hadn’t slept. Every creak of the hull, every distant thump, had me bolting upright, certain it was the crate again, certain a creature had broken free in the night. By the time sunlight crept through the small window, I gave up.
Beside me on the mattress, Jina groaned and pressed both hands against her temples. Ranis’s blanket on the floor was empty. He must have gotten up early.
“Why does my head hurt this much?” Her voice came out muffled against the pillow. “Did someone hit me?”
“No one hit you.” I sat upright. “That’s the ale from last night.”
“The ale did this?” She cracked one eye open. “Ugh. I’m never drinking again.” Jina groaned and pulled the blanket over her face. “I’m not getting up. Tell everyone I died peacefully in my sleep.”
I snorted, the first easy feeling I’d had since last night. “I’ll get you something to eat. Perhaps with your stomach full you’ll feel better.”
“Thanks, Sis… I mean, Star.”
The name sounded different coming from her, softer somehow. A name that fit better than I expected. I would have to get used to it. We both would.
The ship moved with its usual rhythm. I went to the kitchen and asked for some bread and water. I took them to Jina, then went back outside to get some air.
“Good morning.” Ranis leaned against the railing a few feet away, the early sun warm against his dark skin and green eyes, his brown hair tousled from sleep, sleeves rolled to his elbows like he’d already started the day’s work.
He carried himself easier. His shoulders sat looser than they had on Russo’s ship, as if the weight he’d carried under that man had finally vanished.
“Morning,” I managed.
“Jina—”
“She’ll be fine. I’ll go check up on her soon. I just wanted some fresh air.”
“As you wish.” He dipped his head once. “Duty calls.” He flicked a thumb over his shoulders. “But first, morning meal awaits.”
Ranis went off with Jimin, leaving me alone at the railing.
I stared out at the gray smudge of land growing larger on the horizon, keeping my eyes on the shore and away from the rest of the ship, away from the stairs leading below, away from anywhere Theron might be, away from the memory of last night that I couldn’t seem to leave behind.
I didn’t know what I’d say to Theron if I saw him. Thank you felt wrong. Are you all right felt presumptuous—as if a man who could snap a neck without flinching needed checking on.
“There you are.” Fraya approached the railing, reddish hair pulled back, strands escaping in the wind.
She reminded me of Minha. I wondered if Minha would have liked her. I wondered if I’d ever get the chance to find out.
Fraya leaned against the railing beside me.
“I’m so sorry about Barron,” she said. “I know you two didn’t know each other, but he was...” She trailed off, staring out at the water. “He was one of us.”
Theron sure worked fast on telling his people about Barron. I supposed he had too. The crew would notice him missing. And who would get rid of Barron’s body? Toss him overboard?
I didn’t know what to say. I’m sorry felt like a lie. He tried to kill me felt cruel. So I said nothing.
She bumped her shoulder gently against mine, in the way Minha sometimes did. “You look like you didn’t sleep.”
I smiled.
“Come on.” She grabbed my hand and led me down to the galley.
The space was hot and loud, crew moving in and out, pots clanging, a couple of men and women at work. One stirred an oyster soup, another tearing bread into chunks.
Fraya steered us to the far side, away from the heat and noise, where the air was quieter, and pulled two barrels from against the wall.
She disappeared for a moment and came back with a small cup of liquid, steam curling off the top.
“Drink this. It’ll help you relax.”
I wrapped both hands around it, grateful for the warmth against my palms, and sniffed. Something earthy, slightly floral. “What is it?”
“Valerian root, lavender, honey, and a few other things.” She shrugged. “Theron’s good with things like this. Keeps half the ship stocked.”
I took a sip. Warmth spread through my chest and I let out a long sigh.
“Can I ask you a question?” The tea loosened my tongue to someone I just met, but her sweet voice and her persona made it easy to talk to her.
“Of course, anything.”
“The tall blond woman… I mean. Is she part of the crew? I saw…” I stopped before I said too much, heat creeping up my neck despite myself. “Did she leave the ship?”
Surprise flickered across her face. “Oh, Selene. She is Theron’s friend. I don’t know her well, but she comes and goes. She doesn’t talk to us.” She leaned closer. “Why do you ask?”
“No reason.” I focused on my tea, then met her gaze, smiling.
Fraya’s mouth twitched, fighting a smile. “Mm-hmm.”
“How did you end up here?” I asked to change the subject. “On this ship, with Theron?”
Fraya was quiet for a moment, turning her own cup in her hands.
“My father.” She said it like the words tasted bad. “He wasn’t a good man. Not only did he drink too much, he was physically violent to my mother and me.”
I froze mid-drink and lowered the cup down. “I’m so sorry.”
She traced the rim with one finger, lost in the liquid. “The village I’m from, nobody stops men like my father. They’d rather look the other way. The law doesn’t protect us.”
I thought of Russo. Of the tavern, and how nobody had so much as glanced up when he’d yanked me down with a vise grip.
“My mother couldn’t leave.” Fraya’s fingers tightened around her cup. “She had nothing. No coin. No family who’d take her in. Nowhere to go that he couldn’t find her. So she stayed and endured and told me to do the same, that it was just how it was for women like us.”
“I’m glad you didn’t stay.” Heat crawled up my neck, settling beneath my skin.
I despised her father, and I didn’t even know the man.
Her features hardened. “I was sixteen. I took what coin I could find in the house and left in the middle of the night and never looked back.” She took a long sip of her tea.
“I didn’t know where I was going. I just kept walking toward a port.
Theron’s ship was docked, taking on crew.
I told him I could fight, which was mostly a lie at the time, and he let me stay anyway. ”
“Why?”
Fraya smiled, but it didn’t quite reach her eyes. “I think he saw something he recognized.”
“What do you mean?” I took another drink.
“I’ve sailed with Theron for six years, and not once has he spoken of his past. But I’ve seen the way he looks at men like my father. Men who prey on those who can’t fight back.”
I thought of Barron. Of the way Theron’s eyes had gone dark and flat right before he snapped his neck.
“My mother is still with my father,” Fraya said after a moment, her voice softer now. “I send coin when I can, with people who pass through my village. She won’t leave him, no matter how many times he beats her.”
“Why not?”
“Because leaving means admitting it is as bad as it is.” Fraya’s jaw tightened. “Some people would rather stay in the fire than admit they got burned. Or sometimes it’s easier to take the abuse than start over, I suppose.”
We sat in silence for a moment, the galley clattering on around us.
“Barron used to talk about his daughters,” Fraya said, staring into her cup.
“Two of them. Some island east of here. He said he was saving up to buy them out of indenture before they came of age.” She let out a short, hollow laugh.
“I used to think that meant you could trust that person. But I guess loving your kids doesn’t make you—”
“Doesn’t make you a good person,” I finished her sentence, and my drink.
“Yeah.” Fraya shook her head. “People aren’t just one thing. That’s the part that gets you. You want them to be all good or all bad so you know where you stand. But most people are just whatever gets them through the day. Even if it means selling out someone who never did anything to them.”
Barron had raised his cup to me the night before. Glad that bastard’s out of the picture. He’d meant it. And then hours later he’d had a blade at my throat.
“Did you know about his plan?” I asked.
“No.” Fraya’s voice was firm. “If I had, I would have stopped him.”
“And Theron?” I cleared my throat. “Did he know Barron had daughters? Before he…” I couldn’t finish.
Fraya was quiet for a long moment. “Theron knows everything about everyone on this ship,” she said. “He would have known.”
“And it didn’t matter.”
“No.” She met my eyes. “I told you. He doesn’t forgive easily.
Doesn’t matter who you are, or what you’re carrying, or who’s waiting for you somewhere.
The moment you turn on someone weaker than you—” She made a small, final gesture with her hand.
“That’s it. There’s no version of you he’s willing to remember after that. ”
“That seems like a heavy burden to carry.” I glanced over to the cook, arguing about spices.
“Maybe.” Fraya took our cups and placed them on the counter, then came back. “But it’s the only thing that’s kept this crew safe as long as it has. Everyone here knows exactly where the line is.”
She stood, brushing off her pants. “I’ll get you something to eat. Maybe that’ll help too.”
I smiled despite everything. “Thank you.”
She nodded once and headed toward the cook.
I watched her go, weaving between crew members, talking to them with ease.
I wondered what it had cost her to get here.
Walking away in the middle of the night with whatever coin she could carry, finding a ship full of strangers, convincing a man she could fight when she couldn’t.
All of it just to end up somewhere safer than where she’d started.
Maybe that’s all any of us were doing. Walking until we found somewhere that didn’t hurt as much. Somewhere safe. A place one could call home.
Fraya returned a few minutes later with a plate of bread and something warm wrapped in cloth, setting it on my lap.
“Eat. You’ll need it before we dock.”
“How long until we reach port?”
“Couple hours, maybe less.” She glanced toward the stairs leading up to the deck, then back to me. “Theron will want everyone ready. He doesn’t like delays.”
Behind her, through the small porthole, the land had grown closer. No longer a gray smudge but shapes. Rooftops. Smoke curling from chimneys. A world I knew nothing about getting closer with every breath.
I picked at the bread, my appetite still not quite returned. “Fraya, I—” I stopped myself.
What was I doing? Telling her about the blue blood meant telling her about the healing too, and about Barron seeing it, and about everything Theron clearly didn’t want spoken aloud. That wasn’t my secret alone to give away, not when it might put her in danger just for knowing it.
“Never mind,” I said.
She arched and eyebrow, but she didn’t push.
“Eat,” she said again, softer this time. “We’ll talk later. I need to find Theron.”
I felt grateful for our friendship. But would she turn her back on me like Barron had? I had to believe there were good people in this world. Because if not, who could I trust?
What was the point of making connections with anyone, if all they did was betray you in the end? I made my way toward Jina and stopped short when I spotted Fraya and Theron.
I hid behind the wall so they couldn’t see me and peeked out. Theron and Fraya stood close together by the stairs leading to the upper deck, heads bent toward each other.
“You can’t take them,” she whispered.
“I have to. I have no choice. She knows everyone on this ship.”
Who is “she”?
“When are you going to stand up to them and take what’s rightfully yours?”
The rest of their words were lost to the wind, but Fraya’s hands moved sharp and fast. Theron’s jaw went tight. When he glanced toward the wall I was hiding behind, I pushed back, heart racing, hoping he didn’t see me.
He spoke again and I peeked out.
“My word is final,” he said.
Fraya threw up her hands and brushed past him up the stairs, leaving him staring after her like the conversation wasn’t finished.
Whatever they’d been arguing about, it had something to do with Jina and me.
Somehow, my mind snagged on Selene. A name now instead of a stranger. Theron’s friend, Fraya had called her, like that explained anything at all. I told myself it didn’t matter who she was to him. I told myself that twice, which probably meant it was a lie.
Why did I care? Why was I drawn to him when I barely knew him?