Chapter 45 #3
Shaw didn’t seem to hear him. His eyes were lit with a fanatical fervor Zanta recognized all too well.
“It says here,” he continued, waving the papers, “Stroud was in possession of two pelts. One from his dead lover and one from their daughter. And imagine my surprise when I read another page. ‘I am a fool. I gambled away my crystal, and it sailed away on a ship called the Siren Song. Now I will never find her.’” Shaw raised an eyebrow.
“It’s here, plain as day. You have the crystal, but you do not seem to have the Siren Song anymore.
Did you let such a treasure go down with your ship? Or is it here?”
“You’re mad.” Rowan’s face had gone white.
“I knew you were a crooked bastard, but you’re actually mad.
You’re going to condemn the people of the Sleeping Isles to war and slaughter at Marra’s hands just like you condemned your own people!
Just like you condemned me! And for what? A fairytale on a few scraps of paper?”
Zanta squeezed her eyes shut, forcing herself to think past the dread that grew through her chest like weeds.
They couldn’t go on like this. Denying everything Shaw said.
Eventually he would snap and plunge Nia into the water.
Without her pelt, she was just a human, as capable of drowning as any of them.
And then Shaw would move on to the next, and the next, until the captains either handed him the treasure or his men found it.
Whichever it was, Nia was running out of time.
Zanta’s eyes snapped open as the sword clanked against Nia’s chains again. Nia stood preternaturally still, her gaze riveted to her mother’s pelt.
“No more stalling,” Shaw said. “I’ve told you what I want. I’ve got my men searching your ship. We will find what we’re looking for. But if you tell me, I might let you live.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Rowan sneered. “You know how I respond to dirty deals with the empire.”
“I do,” Shaw agreed. “Fine then, I guess there are plenty of people on this ship to sacrifice.” He prodded Nia in the back with the tip of his sword, and she lurched away from it, down the length of the plank.
“Wait!” Zanta didn’t recognize her own voice for a moment. She’d played her hand again, after Rowan had denied it all so vehemently. “I-if we give you what you want, you’ll let us go?” Deep down she knew it wasn’t likely, but she couldn’t just watch Nia drop into the sea and do nothing.
Nia’s head whipped around. Her eyes were flat, emotionless. She shook her head.
“Yes,” Shaw said. “I am a man of my word.”
“Bullshit,” Rowan growled. “Zanta, don’t—” A mercenary clamped a hand over his mouth.
Tears blurred the scene before her. If she told Shaw where to find it all, Rowan would lose his eye; Nia’s people would suffer; Nia herself would be in servitude to Shaw.
But she would be alive.
“I’ll give you what you want,” Zanta said. She thought she heard Nia’s horrified exhalation of “Zanta”, but she plowed on. “I’m not just Silver Stroud’s killer. I’m the daughter he wrote about. The Selkie.” Maybe Nia and the others could get away before Shaw found out the truth.
“Are you,” Shaw said slowly, eyes narrowing.
“If you let the others go, I’ll cooperate.
” A wave broke against the side of the Kraken, sending sea spray up around Nia’s bound body.
Zanta could buy enough time for her and the others to get away.
She wouldn’t have her pelt, but Henri and Logan would look after her.
And Zanta knew nothing of the Selkies. Shaw would only have the journal to go by.
She hoped they never found it in the little gap beneath the floorboards where she’d hidden it.
“And let you lead me into a trap?” Shaw laughed, an unpleasant grating sound.
He poked Nia in the back again, and this time she stumbled.
Her bare feet slipped on the slick wood.
Zanta and Rowan both lurched forward, held back only by the mercenaries.
Nia righted herself with great effort, breathing hard and still wobbling as the plank bowed beneath her.
“What do you want from me?” Zanta screamed. The ropes creaked as she strained against them. “I already said—”
“Prove it. Give me the pelt and transform.”
Fuck.
Zanta’s mind whirled. Could she fake it somehow?
In the misty gaps between the spires, Zanta thought she saw something move.
The Selkies come to defend their land? She squinted, but found nothing but the mist rising in tendrils off the water.
She refocused, seeking Nia’s light green eyes.
Full of all the emotion Zanta had been so afraid to interpret before.
But now she knew. As they both stood on the Kraken’s deck, bound and hopeless, she knew Nia loved her.
They were willing to die for each other.
“Give him nothing,” Nia said, so quietly it was almost lost to the waves. But Zanta heard it.
And so did Shaw.
Shaw stabbed her in the back. Not deep, but enough to unbalance her, enough for her to bleed as she lost her footing and plunged into the waiting waves.