Chapter 45 #2
“I see.” He signaled to someone on the Lonesome, who dragged a group of trussed up captives onto the quarterdeck. Instantly recognizable as last night’s watchmen.
“Fox!” Rowan shouted, jerking against the mercenaries holding him. Logan struggled too, though he couldn’t crane his head back enough to see the captives.
Shaw’s eyebrows rose. All seven captives, three from the Kraken, and two each from the Monsoon and Siren, including that little spitfire Fox, were intricately tied and gagged.
The thin rope secured their arms behind their backs, then looped over their shoulders and twisted down their sternums almost like harnesses.
How had all of them been captured without raising the alarm?
Zanta didn’t know about the Kraken crew members, but she trusted the men she’d set on watch, and she knew Rowan and Fox were close.
They wouldn’t have betrayed their captains.
“You see, I have the upper hand in all aspects,” Shaw said coolly.
“Your crews are in custody. I have all the hostages I need to compel you to give me what I want. I still know you, Rowan. I know you care for your crew. Now, here’s how it’s going to go.
You’re going to give me Silver Stroud’s treasure, or I’m going to drop your people off the side one by one until you do. ”
Zanta sucked in a breath as one of the men from the Kraken was dragged to the rail.
Rowan glanced at the Demon out of the corner of his eye.
The Demon remained unmoved. Not even a hint of concern for the fact that one of his men was about to die.
The man, to his credit, just closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
How could the Demon—totally devoid of human emotion as far as Zanta could tell—inspire enough loyalty that a man would drown for him without a sound of protest?
Nia’s shoulder touched Zanta’s. She was shaking, her eyes trained on the man who was about to die for the sake of her secrets.
A flicker of surprise passed over Shaw’s face. “I’ve never known you to be cold, Rowan.”
“You’ve never known me,” Rowan replied flatly. “If you have qualms about killing a man in cold blood, don’t do it. You could walk away right now.”
Shaw threw his head back and laughed. The sound bounced off the pillars of stone surrounding them. Ominous even in the growing daylight.
“Oh, but I do know you.” Shaw ran his hand over Rowan’s hair. The Demon tensed, but Rowan waved him off. “I know how stubborn you are. Well, fine. Maybe the ladies will be easier to break.” He gestured to the mercenaries. “Take her.”
Before his words could penetrate Zanta’s skull, they ripped Nia from her side. The hostages on the Lonesome were dragged back out of sight.
“No!” Too late, Zanta realized her visceral reaction played right into Shaw’s hands.
This is what he’d been looking for, a sign of connection.
A reaction that would show Nia was a better hostage.
Someone who mattered to her personally. Then again, Nia and Zanta had been dragged from the same bed.
Shaw would’ve already known they were close.
No use hiding it now. Zanta jerked against the ropes and restraining hands as Shaw’s lackeys wrapped Nia in chains, and attached a round of chain shot to her ankles.
Nia’s mouth had thinned to a tight line.
She elbowed one of the mercenaries in the ribs, earning herself a punch to the gut.
She doubled over, coughing, and they finished binding her, then lifted her onto a plank that jutted out from the Kraken’s side.
“Let her go, motherfucker!” Logan thrashed against the ropes binding him to the rail beside the plank. Nia glanced over her shoulder from Logan to Zanta, holding fast to her nerves. “T-take me instead.” Logan didn’t look at Nia. His eyes were trained earnestly on Shaw.
“Logan,” Rowan hissed, a rebuke and warning.
“Thank you for volunteering. Though I don’t think I need you just yet.” Shaw stepped up beside the plank, partially blocking Logan from view. He drew his sword and tapped it against the chains around Nia’s legs. Her body stiffened, head lowering to stare at the misty water beneath her feet.
“You know,” Shaw said almost conversationally. “I’ve been searching for the two of you for a while. I didn’t expect you to make it so easy for me by finding each other first. Let alone leading me to the very place we needed to be.”
“As if you didn’t drive us here on purpose,” Zanta spat. “Tell us what you’re really after.”
“I told you, Stroud’s treasure.”
“What does a few coins have to do with any of this?” She knew exactly how it was connected.
Did Shaw know what the treasure really contained?
If he did, did he plan to use the pelt, the journal, and the eye to infiltrate the Sleeping Isles?
All she could do was deny, deny, deny. Shaw didn’t know the pelt belonged to Nia, or he wouldn’t be using her as a bargaining chip.
If he knew, that knowledge might save Nia’s life, but he would use it against her people. It wasn’t Zanta’s secret to tell. It wasn’t her choice to make. And thus far, Nia had remained silent.
“A few coins? No, Stroud’s treasure is much more than that.” Shaw pulled a small sheaf of papers from his vest and held it up. They were weathered, ripped along one edge, and scrawled with faded lettering Zanta had come to know intimately.
The missing pages of Stroud’s journal. She forced recognition away from her expression, but all at once things clicked into place.
Shaw’s face was familiar, and if she imagined him younger, and with receding hair on his head instead of on his upper lip…
He’d used a different name back then, but now Zanta was sure it was him. Stroud’s former first mate. The thief.
“Some time ago, these papers came into my possession,” Shaw said, as if he hadn’t stolen them and quickened Stroud’s descent into madness.
“After my failure with you, Rowan, the Marran Empire gave me another chance to prove myself. Stroud’s poor first mate got his head bashed in in a tavern brawl, and I was able to talk my way into the position.
I meant to set a trap just like I did with you.
But something more important came up.” The papers fluttered in the breeze.
What did they say? What information was Zanta missing that Shaw had?
“These are pages from Silver Stroud’s personal journal.
I thought perhaps they would reveal where the fabled treasure was.
And they did, but it is not gold and jewels.
It’s the key to something far greater. A way to conquer the Sleeping Isles.
The old governor never believed me, but the new one sees the brilliance in my plan.
You see, the chest contains the rest of this journal, a crystal ball that will show the truth, and the pelt of a creature of legend.
The Sleeping Isles are not just a tribal backwater.
If they were, one of the empires would have conquered them long ago.
No, the people here are Selkies, protected by the sea itself. ”
Silence dropped over them like a shroud. They’d all known this, yet it stunned them to hear it spoken aloud.
Rowan’s bark of laughter broke the tension. “Selkies? That’s why you hunted us down? Selkies aren’t real, you fucking lunatic. Those papers are obviously the ravings of a madman.”
He was a good liar. If Zanta hadn’t seen Nia transform with her own eyes, she might have believed him.
“I assure you, Selkies are very real. I did not just take Stroud’s journal at face value.
I have something that proves it all.” Shaw snapped his fingers, and a mercenary appeared where the captives had been, holding a bundle of familiar gray speckled leather.
For a moment, Zanta thought they’d found Nia’s pelt after all, but as it unfurled in the mercenary’s hands, she saw it was dull and lifeless, nothing close to the vital and shiny pelt she’d drawn from the chest so many days ago.
Nia made a low sound in her throat that could have been mistaken for pure fear for her life. She was no longer looking down at the water, but straight ahead at the pelt.
“A genuine Selkie pelt,” Shaw declared. Nausea rose in Zanta’s throat as she remembered one of the last pages she’d read of Stroud’s journal.
He stole from me, the bastard. The last piece of Gwyneth is gone.
They were looking at Nia’s mother’s pelt, the absence of which had slowly killed her over the first decade of Nia’s life.
Zanta remembered when Emilie’s predecessor, who she now knew was Shaw, had absconded one night in a Kefryean port with a great deal of Stroud’s valuables.
How Stroud had seemed to mourn instead of getting angry.
How it had accelerated his distrust of his crew, and spurred on his ultimate descent into madness.
“It’s just a seal pelt,” Rowan scoffed. “What do they go for these days? A dozen copper tals? Maybe a silver?”