Chapter Twenty-Three The Acadia
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
THE ACADIA
The Acadia looked ancient, almost regal. A roaring sea serpent had been carved from the prow and painted gold, its tail curling down the front of the ship and into the sea. Where its eyes should have been, two sapphires shone in the moonslight that lit the night-dark waters of Briony Bay.
Reya let out a long whistle. “Now that’s my kind of ship,” she said to Caelan, who looked like he was debating whether or not to drown himself on the beach. “Go back to the inn. I can handle this.”
“You will not make it onto that ship without me.” He said it with enough of a bite that she didn’t think the blue bark tea she’d given him for the pain was working.
“I know how to deal with pirates.”
“Not this one.”
The Acadia was captained by none other than Kalúe Voláni, the daughter and presumed heir of Reardon Voláni, the only man who had ever managed to make Lennox Raulin sweat. Of all the pirates on the Five Seas, Caelan happened to know this one personally.
Fate had an odd sense of humor.
“Tell me about her.” Reardon was whispered to be one of the five Pirate Lords, an age-old alliance of seafaring outlaws. Reya had heard little about his daughter beyond the woman’s ruthlessness, and she needed all the ammunition she could get if this was going to work.
“The Voláni dynasty is old,” Caelan said at last. “Their family was the ruling line in Kalterra before the Fall.”
The archipelago in the Salt Sea was prized not only for the gold-rich sediment along its inlets and reefs, but also for its location.
Kalterra was the only land body in the vast seas that stretched between Ianess and Idrias, and trade routes between the continents were dependent on its ports.
Now the islands belonged to Rhiterra. Reya had done business with the Island-born on more than one occasion.
A proud, seafaring people, they valued loyalty and family above all else.
And they hated Rhiterra as much as they loved their patron All-Goddess, Ria, commander of the tides.
Reya tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “How do you know her?”
“I commissioned her father to take me across the Salt Sea at one point when I was searching for the next Guardian. She was just a child then.”
“What makes you think she’ll help us?”
“Kalúe’s older brother was supposed to become the next Pirate Lord after Reardon, but he died.
The other lords are slow to bring a female heir to the table, but they can do nothing to depose her without breaking the laws that bind them together, as each lord bequeaths their own seat.
However, should the Voláni family wish to ever again lay claim to the archipelago, they will need the support of the other lords to raise a fleet, so offending them is unwise.
Which is likely why Reardon has delayed announcing Kalúe as his heir.
She has to earn the title. And their respect. ”
Reya crossed her arms. “So she’s out to make a name for herself.”
“You could say that. But there’s something else most people don’t know,” Caelan said. “Kalúe’s mother was a Sage.”
Reya’s eyes widened. “She’s like me.”
Caelan nodded.
“How has she managed to keep that a secret?”
“Kalterrans have long allied with Alethia, and are fiercely loyal to their own. I only know what Kalúe is because I knew her as a child, and children don’t have wonderful control over their abilities.”
Reya cleared her throat to hide her swallow and reinforced the floodgate reflexively.
“Her father threatened to cut my throat if I ever mentioned it.” Caelan winced, and she wasn’t sure if it was from the memory or from the pain in his chest.
“What is her gift?” Reya asked.
“Water elementation.”
Reya whistled again. “That’s handy.”
“She has made a fortune from raiding old shipwrecks. Having someone who can wield the seas will come in very handy in the Kasmore Deep.”
“Here goes nothing.”
Reya shoved off the wall she’d been leaning against. Her breath caught in her throat when Caelan grabbed her hand, tugging her back from the docks. His thumb brushed across the rapidly firing pulse on her wrist, a move that made it hard to think. His expression hardened.
“If I gave you the wrong impression, if you’re doing this because you think that once I’m whole, I’ll be able to give you more—”
“I’m going to stop you right there,” she said.
Hearing again what he thought of her, or worse, hearing him backtrack out of pity—she couldn’t do it.
Her pride had taken enough of a beating.
“I hate to deflate your ego, fire fingers, but one kiss from you didn’t exactly rearrange my brain.
” Lie. Liar. “Let’s chalk it up to too much liquor, shall we?
Also it’s been a while for me, and I’m a little on edge. ”
Caelan’s pupils blew wide, and his fingers tightened on hers.
He was a provider through and through. Knowing she was aching and being able to do nothing about it would be its own special kind of torture.
Good. She was still mad at him for riling her up and leaving her wanting.
Even if the logical half of her brain was glad he’d stopped.
When this was over, Caelan would go on to lead a rebellion she wanted no part of, and the longer she stayed with him, the more she risked her future.
Omira would not be the last person to want to put her in chains.
They both seemed to be of the same opinion: Whatever was between them, however physically undeniable, had to stop here. So she needed him to stop touching her.
Be the thief he already knows you are.
“That blood is my last shot at freedom.” She jerked her hand back, and his fingers balled into a fist around the place where it had been.
“So this is what’s going to happen. You’re going to get me onto that ship, and you’re going to tell the Pirate Lord Apparent whatever she needs to hear to agree to this, and you’re going to be grateful I am saving your rotting ass along the way rather than leaving you to die in this cesspool of a city. Are we clear?”
He stared at her for what felt like an eternity.
“Good,” she said finally, taking his silence as acceptance. She pulled her hood down over her face. “Shall we?”
“You don’t belong here,” said the pirate guarding the gangplank. He was scarred and rail-thin, but the way he held his cutlass told her he knew what to do with it.
“We’re here to see the captain,” Caelan said flatly.
“Captain’s indisposed.”
“I wasn’t asking.” The man’s eyes narrowed. “Tell her Caelan Halcyon is here to see her.”
After a moment’s hesitation, the pirate whistled, and a small head popped over the railing.
“Tell the captain there’s a Caelan Halcyon here,” the pirate called out and, with a glance at Reya, added, “Plus one.”
The minutes they waited, staring at each other in silence, felt like hours. Finally, the head reappeared and said, “Captain says send ’em up!”
The pirate stepped aside, allowing Reya and Caelan up the narrow bridge to the deck, where a blue-haired boy, no older than ten, was waiting for them.
The ship was surprisingly… polished. Every pillar and railing was carved and colorfully painted. If Reya didn’t know better, she would have guessed an artist lived there.
They took a series of stairs before their small escort knocked twice on a set of double mahogany doors, each carved with an ornate gold V set inside a familiar crest.
She knew that emblem. Had stared at it almost every day for the past ten years.
“Come in,” said an accented male voice. She was forced to tear her eyes from the doors when they opened on a cabin that smelled of ginger, lemon, and spices.
Red velvet drapes were arrayed around the diamond-patterned stained glass windows of a study.
A colossal oak desk stood in the room’s center, the legs of which had been carved to look like the roots of a tree growing out of the floor.
Not just any desk, Reya noticed. Beneath piles of books and loose papers were the edges of a carved map.
Behind it, a young woman sat cross-legged, her tattooed hands resting loosely on either side of a cushioned green velvet chair. An Idrian man with umber skin stood at her side, one arm resting near his cutlass. Their faces were dim in the candle-lit room.
“Caelan Halcyon,” the female hummed. Her accent was stunning and rare, the kind one developed from learning countless languages and sailing to the far corners of the world to speak them. “It’s been many years since I’ve laid eyes on your pretty face.”
Reya went rigid, as did the man at the female’s side.
“Indeed it has,” Caelan said, voice low and threatening despite the female’s playful tone.
Captain Kalúe Voláni’s knee-length black leather captain’s jacket was casually unbuttoned, revealing a white tunic and bloodred underbust corset that called attention to her generous curves. Her belt buckle was as large as Reya’s head, and next to it hung several daggers and a cutlass.
Reya stepped out from behind Caelan and tugged off her hood.
“Captain, this is—”
“Reya.” She shot Caelan a look that said, I can introduce myself.
“Reya,” he huffed.
Kalúe’s eyes glittered in amusement, and Reya noted several lighter, raised scars speckling her golden-brown skin, which was freckled and flushed from days at sea.
Her hair was woven into tight braids laced with tiny gold beads, and a silken red scarf embroidered with swirls of gold and green was knotted across her brow like a crown.
“Welcome aboard the Acadia. This is Zantae, my first mate.”
The man standing beside her chair nodded to each of them. His black hair hung loose over his shoulders in thick cords, and he wore similar garb to his captain.
“What brings you to my home after all these years?”
“We need a captain to sail us into the Kasmore Deep,” Caelan said.
Kalúe and Zantae froze like statues behind the desk, and Reya wanted to throw Caelan into the sea for his poor tact. Was he trying to sabotage this? Probably.
“We seek the blood of a Kraken,” he finished without inflection.