Chapter 45
Acold icicle of metal at her throat and hard wood under her sore back roused Zanta from the deepest sleep of her life.
Weak morning light slipped its fingers into her eyes, blinding.
She winced, trying to sit up and finding her hands bound in rope.
She huffed and fell back to the deck as the icicle pressed tighter to her skin, trying to get her bearings.
Last night she and Nia had turned in early after dinner, cuddled up on the little pallet that smelled faintly musty.
She’d been exhausted, slipping quickly into the dark embrace of sleep before Nia had even finished saying good night.
Nia. Where was she? Zanta sat bolt upright, heedless of the icy edge of the saber nicking her skin.
“Watch it,” the saber-holder growled. Crashing and shouting rang somewhere in the distance, muffled by the ship’s thick boards, and Zanta shook her head frantically, trying to dislodge the strange grogginess that clung to her like seaweed.
Had Rowan and the Demon betrayed her? Her eyes focused on an unfamiliar face at the other end of the saber. He didn’t look like a pirate. It had to be Shaw’s men. The Lonesome must have survived the storm and found them.
Zanta surged to her feet, heedless of the threat as the sword nicked her collarbone.
Her limbs felt like bags of sand, but she managed to make it two steps across the Kraken’s main deck before two men tackled her, smashing her shoulder against the unforgiving wood.
More crashes sounded from below. The Kraken’s main deck swarmed with mercenaries, and she managed to kick one of them in the gut before another pushed her head against the deck with his knee.
In her narrowed line of sight, a door banged open and Laurent dashed through, only to be caught by mercenaries and hauled back through it.
But not before he spotted her. His desperate cry of “Captain!” stirring more shouts from below.
Her crew was alive, at least. Their throats hadn’t been slashed in their sleep. She hauled in a deep breath through her nose, refusing to close her eyes, as she knew the ghosts of Sabriye and her dead crew members lingered in the darkness behind her eyelids.
“Zanta…” Nia’s voice somewhere out of her line of sight made Zanta’s body go rigid.
“Behave and we won’t hurt her,” the man trapping Zanta said, and she managed the barest nod. The knee lifted away from her face, and they hauled her unsteadily to her feet.
“Let me go!” Nia struggled against her bonds near the port rail. One of the mercenaries smacked her.
A surge of energy tightened Zanta’s heavy limbs, and she lurched forward, only to be caught again. It was no use. Zanta tried to get her bearings once again, hoping she could find a way out of this.
The rock spires cast stripes of shadow and light over the perpetual mist. The Kraken’s Fury still sat at anchor at the mouth of the cove, the wreckage of the Marigold clinging brokenly to the rocks.
Masts from what she assumed was the Lonesome jutted from somewhere below the Kraken’s port rail.
The ship was shorter, smaller. But they had the Kraken pinned with them on one side and shallow waters on the other.
Even if the pirates managed to regain control of the Kraken, they’d have to fight their way out.
The lookouts were nowhere to be seen. Were they with the rest of the crew below? Or had something more nefarious happened? Some of the fight went out of her as she realized how truly fucked they were.
Before her mind could register that fact more deeply, the quarterdeck door banged open, emitting more mercenaries.
Two escorted a struggling Rowan, his chin bruised and hands bound in rope.
Then four more dragged the Demon into the light, unconscious body bound hand and foot in iron shackles and a deep bruise already forming at his temple like one of them had cracked him across the head with a blunt object.
Both of them were fully dressed, as if they’d fallen asleep unexpectedly, and Rowan seemed just as sluggish as Zanta felt, though based on the bruising, they’d both put up a hell of a fight.
What was wrong with them all? Was it some magic of the Seer’s Isle that kept them in thrall? Or something more intentional?
The mercs dragged them to the rail, dumping the unconscious Demon at the feet of a man who could only be Warrick Shaw. Rowan flinched as the Demon’s skull struck the deck. But Zanta had eyes only for the enemy.
He was well dressed in the Kefryean style, a light shirt beneath a heavily embroidered vest, and a matching pleated Kefryean skirt that reached the tops of his boots mid-calf.
He couldn’t have yet reached thirty, but the bald dome of his head glistened with sweat over a luxuriously curled brown mustache.
He certainly looked the part of a former nobleman turned mercenary.
Zanta had to assume he’d been handsomer back when Rowan had slept with him.
But there was something else. Zanta squinted at him, the light hurting her tired eyes. Where had she seen him before?
“Ah, you’re all here,” Shaw said nonchalantly, as if they had arrived late to a dinner party instead of being dragged from their beds and tied up.
Zanta thought his manner a bit too easy.
Sure, Shaw and his men had managed to subdue three of the most infamous pirate captains and their crews without bloodshed—Zanta was beginning to think they’d been drugged—but pirates were nothing if not unpredictable.
Especially when one of the captives was the Deep Water Demon, even unconscious.
Zanta wouldn’t have been so calm if she was in Shaw’s shoes.
“What do you want?” Rowan growled. His face twisted into a disgusted grimace, the crossed scars puckering his cheek. Nia shifted closer to Zanta, away from the others. Zanta wished she could put her arm around her.
Shaw ignored the question. His eyes swept over them again. “Where’s little Logan? I assume he became your first mate after me? Get him.” This last was directed toward one of his men. Then, to another, “Wake the Demon up.”
That seemed like a bad idea to Zanta, but who was she to stop an enemy from making a mistake?
The merc in question swallowed nervously, and made a sign against evil, running his middle finger down the bridge of his nose. Then he reeled back and kicked the Demon right in the gut.
Rowan jerked against his restraints as his husband doubled up, coughing. But when he opened his black eyes, a chill engulfed the ship. His gaze speared Shaw directly, and he maintained eye contact as he slowly rose to his knees, but no further, his progress arrested by a sword tip at his throat.
The first merc returned, pulling Logan by the arm.
The skin around the first mate’s eye shone purple beneath the mop of gold hair.
When he saw Shaw, a strangely amused expression passed over his face.
Building in intensity until his lips were pressed together to hold something in.
By the time they deposited him next to Rowan, his shoulders were shaking, and he couldn’t hold it in anymore.
He burst out laughing. It rang out over the water for a few moments before he visibly forced it down.
“Sorry, sorry,” he gasped. “It’s just…” Another short fit of near-hysterical giggles. He leaned against Rowan’s shoulder. “He’s bald now.”
Rowan snorted. Shaw’s face, or rather his whole head, turned red.
“You are not so unmarred yourself,” Shaw growled. “Tell me, was it your captain’s mistakes that cost you your hand? Or was it your own naiveté?”
That silenced the last snickers of laughter.
Their expressions sobered. Shaw stepped forward, grabbing Rowan’s jaw and turning his face to show the scarred side.
The Demon hissed, lurching to his feet, chains rattling, only to be dragged back and subdued by four men.
Rowan cut him a glance, and Zanta had the feeling that it was only Rowan’s silent communication that placated him for now.
“Tsk, you used to be so pretty,” Shaw said to Rowan. “See what a life of crime gets you?”
“As if it’s much better to betray your country to the empire,” Rowan scoffed, jerking out of Shaw’s grasp. “Besides, you didn’t seem so concerned about my pretty face when you tried to have me killed.”
“Well, we won’t have a repeat performance of that if you cooperate. This doesn’t have to get ugly.”
“Too late, you’re already here,” Logan mumbled.
Shaw’s expression shuttered. “Tie him to the rail.” Two mercenaries jumped to do his bidding, dragging Logan over, and lashing his arms to the rail so that he sat on deck with his arms straight out to each side.
They didn’t bother to divest him of his wooden hand.
Logan jerked against the ropes, then frantically began bending the wooden fingers against the rail until only his middle finger remained upright.
He mirrored the gesture with his real hand, staring Shaw down.
Shaw nodded at the mercenary, who punched Logan straight in the face. They were getting to him, his bald head still flushed as red as could be.
“It’s clear to me you’ll continue to be obstinate,” Shaw said. His gaze raked over Rowan’s face, then moved on to the Demon, then Zanta, with Nia huddling at her side.
“You haven’t even told us what you want,” Zanta chimed in, trying to keep her voice neutral.
They all knew what he wanted, or at least they had a pretty good hunch.
But they had to play dumb. Deny everything.
If Shaw got his hands on what he was looking for, it wouldn’t be good for Nia or her people.
“You’re the girl who killed Silver Stroud,” Shaw said, as if murdering her mentor, and the subsequent years of successful pirating, were all a girlish fluke.
“I am Splinter Zanta, yeah.”
“Are you in possession of Stroud’s treasure?”
She raised her chin. “No.”