Chapter 18
Zanta closed her eyes for only a moment, letting the sway of the waves far below lull her stress into silence.
They’d managed to slip away from their pursuers for now, dodging around one of Souna’s far-flung islands and heading north, away from their home waters, the opposite of what the enemy expected of them.
They were currently out of sight, so Zanta had sent most of the crew to bed. The smaller night crew still had the Monsoon under full sail, widening the gap between them. But Zanta couldn’t sleep, so she’d climbed up to the crow’s nest and was now laying on her back, her legs dangling over the edge.
She needed to think, and this was the only place her mind could run free.
The sky spread vast and black above her, ribbons of stars unspooling across the darkness like a spilled cache of diamonds, and Zanta’s thoughts spilled with them.
The mystery of their pursuers hung heavy in her chest. The two ships had to be connected to the attack on Roseforte.
It was too much of a coincidence that they’d started following the Monsoon only days after it had fled the harbor.
But who had attacked? And why were they following Zanta’s ship?
The attackers hadn’t had any national or military markings as far as Zanta had seen, and their pursuers didn’t either.
But that didn’t mean they weren’t on someone’s payroll.
The animosity between the two empires was palpable, but the war between them had long gone cold.
There hadn’t been a direct attack against each other in a decade or more.
They’d set that aside in favor of the empire race.
But everyone knew the lands yet unconquered were few.
Only Avardel, Lasland, Yarene, and the Sleeping Isles remained.
Avardel was allied strongly with Marra, treaties and royal marriages ironclad.
Lasland was large and neutral, a valuable trade partner to both empires.
Yarene was the gateway to the southern continent, and neither empire could invade it without incurring the wrath of the continental allies.
That left only the Sleeping Isles, mysterious and naturally impenetrable.
The last bit of free land between the two empires’ expanded territories.
Anyone would be mad to mess with those storms.
Had Marra finally snapped and decided to reignite war? If they had orchestrated the attack on Roseforte, it meant every country would be sucked into an all-out war that would likely last a decade or more. And where did the Monsoon fit into it all? She had no answers.
Zanta’s endless musings were interrupted by the creak of weight on the ratlines. She sat up just as Nia’s fiery head popped up over the edge of the crow’s nest.
“Oh,” Nia said, as if surprised to find her there. Though there was no way she could’ve missed Zanta’s booted feet hanging over the edge of the platform. “Do you mind if I join you, Captain?”
Zanta couldn’t very well say no after Nia had climbed all this way. “Be my guest.”
Nia climbed up and Zanta lay back down, hair beads clacking on the wood. Nia copied her, lying flat on her back on the other side of the mast, so that it blocked her middle but she was visible from the chest up. They would be face-to-face if they turned their heads.
Nia twitched, then pulled out a hairpin that had presumably stabbed her scalp, and settled again. Both women remained in silence for a little while, just watching the stars high above while the sea undulated far below. They were caught halfway between. All alone, suspended together in the dark.
It was a disconcertingly intimate place to be for relative strangers.
Especially ones who’d shared an ill-timed kiss not too long ago.
But Zanta had found herself warming to the other woman, despite herself.
Nia had befriended most of the crew members in a matter of days, and Zanta often found herself watching closely how she interacted with them.
Noticing the way her smile produced deep lines in her cheeks, the way her laugh seemed to skip right to Zanta’s ears.
But she’d also noticed the quiet moments when Nia thought no one was looking. How she seemed to relish when the sea sprayed up across the bow and pattered her with salty drops. How her green eyes took on a wistful sheen when she looked out over the waves.
At first Zanta had worried Nia would go back on her word, and jump after all. But as more and more days passed without an attempt, Zanta wondered what Nia was thinking in those moments. Why did she look so sad?
Just when Zanta thought the silence would stretch on forever, Nia spoke.
“Are you really going to make me leave?”
This again. Zanta couldn’t make up her mind whether she wanted Nia to stay or go, especially now that they were being followed. There’d been no discussion of it at all since the kiss.
“Why is that so bad?”
“Well.” Nia seemed to think hard about what to say. “I’ve become quite attached.”
At first Zanta thought Nia meant attached to her, but Nia continued.
“Laurent especially will be heartbroken if I leave.”
“You’ve become close quickly.”
“I’m good at making friends.”
“But you don’t miss your friends in Roseforte? What about your family?”
Nia remained quiet for some time, the susurration of waves filling the silence, before saying, “The problem with living in a port is friends come and go often and easily. Family just goes.”
“The innkeepers, they aren’t family?” She’d claimed to be an orphan, but…
Nia chuckled. “No, you think they’d let their precious daughter or niece sleep with any sailor who caught her fancy?”
Ah right, that’s what Nia had been busy with when Zanta went to deliver Logan’s package. Zanta had nearly forgotten. She was grateful she hadn’t been allowed to interrupt. Not only for propriety’s sake, but also because it meant Nia was now here and safe.
With her.
Zanta shook the thought from her head, as Nia said, “I’m just an employee who rents a room in the attic. They do care about me, but not like family.” She said this last part as if familial love was something she’d long been skeptical about.
“You really are an orphan, then?”
Nia looked at her, such a strange and unreadable expression on her freckled face that Zanta wanted to pull the truth out of her like she’d pulled the pin from her hair.
“Yes,” Nia answered simply. “Are you?”
She wasn’t. Her parents and siblings awaited her back home in Yarene. “No.”
“Do they love you?”
This was getting too personal, even though Zanta had started this line of questioning in the first place. She changed the subject.
“Did you only come here to ask if I was going to kick you out?”
Nia turned back to the sky. “Not really. I like it up here. I used to do this all the time with—” A weighty pause. “I used to do this all the time.”
Right, she’d lived on a ship as a child. Zanta wondered about that but didn’t press further. Not wanting the personal questions turned back on her again.
After a while, Nia lifted her arm straight up, palm to the sky as if she could touch it. “The stars are so different in the summer.”
Zanta did the same, closing one eye to focus. Her hand blotted out the Pearl Crab constellation, her middle finger and thumb balancing its two bright anchor stars on their tips. Wind whipped through her clothes, sailcloth snapping all around them.
If Zanta was truthful with herself, she wanted Nia to stay.
Not only because they couldn’t go back to Roseforte, or because she didn’t want to drop Nia off in a random port with no resources, but because she’d seen how easily Nia had slipped into place amongst the crew.
She was quick to kindness and radiated confidence in whatever she did.
More than once, Zanta had caught herself smiling just because Nia was.
Zanta closed her fingers slowly, revealing the Pearl Crab like a shining version of the smatter of freckles on Nia’s face. If she explored them, looked for more than the moment or two she allowed herself, would she find the constellations reflected on Nia’s skin?
She looked at Nia once again. Nia had let her hand fall away from the sky too, and it now rested over her chest, as if she was feeling her own heartbeat.
Even in the dark, with only the lantern light below and moon and stars above, she was one of the most beautiful women Zanta had ever seen.
Her fiery hair, half tumbled from its pins, seemed even brighter in the low light.
The bare skin of her neck a creamy river that flowed over her clavicles to the swell of her breasts beneath her hand.
Zanta’s lips tightened into a thin line, trying to dislodge the memory of their kiss. She’d thought about it too often in the intervening days.
As if sensing Zanta’s gaze, Nia finally roused from her thoughts, limpid green eyes on her, pupils wide and dark in the low light. One red curl fluttered across her brow on the wind, and Zanta resisted the urge to tuck it away.
Would it be so bad to keep her around a little longer?
“I guess I can—”
The boom of cannon fire shattered the peaceful night, followed by the splash of the shot hitting the water much too close for comfort. Zanta scrambled to her knees, searching the darkness for the source of the sound.
“Shit.” The two ships blended in with the dark against the water, not a lantern to be seen.
Of course they’d managed to get close. There was no way the crew on deck could’ve spotted them.
The only indication they were there at all was the occasional glint of moonlight catching on brass fittings and glass portholes. Zanta should’ve been keeping watch.
Zanta started to scramble down from the crow’s nest. Nia didn’t follow. She seemed frozen, her gaze pinned to the enemy ships.
“Nia, come on.”
She didn’t move, but to sway slightly as the Monsoon banked to starboard.
“Nia.” Zanta reached over to tug at her ankle, and Nia blinked, as if waking. “Let’s go,” Zanta said again. Nia followed her shakily down the ratlines.