Chapter Three After #2
“Perhaps I will return home to Meridia,” she forced out, trying to buy some time. “Back to the Empire after all these years.”
It was a terrible lie, one they both recognized.
Fell rounded the table, his boots thudding on the floor. The empty look deepened, his bright eyes gone to shadow.
“Cat.”
She fought the urge to slap him—or claw his face.
Instead, Cat took another step backwards, a shaking hand raised.
As if she could really stop Fell when it came to it.
He was a captain, yes, proper and polished and pampered by the new governor.
But she knew the sailor beneath the medals, the man under the ridiculous coat.
She remembered too much of Jasper Fell not to fear him and what might become of her should their alliance collapse.
He will do everything he can to rise, even if others must fall.
Her body went cold, the taste of bile rising in her throat.
Including me.
“I did everything you asked,” she said, her words finally shaking, but not with fear. It was rage that ate her through. “I made you, Fell.”
Something creaked in the adjoining kitchen, a footstep or a shifting weight. It’s only Derry, Cat told herself, knowing it was another lie.
Fell tipped his head, one hand on the hilt of his saber.
“I like to think my skill had something to do with it,” he said, brandishing his half smile again. One by one, he tapped at his medals, the ribbons and metals in all colors. “You only pointed me in the right direction.”
Cat flicked her eyes over his honors and raised her chin.
Only pointed in the right direction.
Masts cracked in half, hulls blown apart by cannon fire. Countless men swallowed by the waves, the rest in chains. A black flag sinking to the bottom of the sea while the golden lion of the Meridian flew high. A new fleet on the horizon, sailing into a conquered port.
Only pointed in the right direction.
“How dare you,” Cat said, a familiar feeling washing over her. It was the sense of being overlooked, misjudged, underestimated, and undervalued. “A dozen ships are at the bottom of the ocean thanks to what I told you. Half the men hanging in this city—”
The captain cut her off with a sharp look.
“You know it’s a miracle they haven’t hung you yet?
The crown laws are so clear and rigid, aren’t they?
” Fell bit back, towering over her. “All who partake in piracy, on the sea or off it. I’m quite certain that includes provisioning their ships, offering quarter to their sailors—not to mention fraternization. ”
He said the last word with a hateful smirk, though his throat flushed red over his collar.
In spite of her dread, Cat laughed, tossing her golden-brown curls. She did not miss the way Fell’s eyes followed the movement, tracing the whorls of her hair and the long line of her neck.
He was always predictable about this too.
“Jealousy does not become you, Fell.” She offered a challenging grin, baring her teeth. “Have you already arrested every shopkeeper and whore in the Lyrian? Or are you merely starting with me?”
To her relief, Fell laughed as she did, and some tightness unwound between them. But then the captain shook his head, his eyes lowered as he stared at the floor. Again, the shadow crossed his face, and Cat wanted to run.
He reached into his coat slowly, reluctantly even. On his hand, the single piece of jewelry he wore caught the candlelight. A signet ring of good silver, engraved with the emblem of a swan. Cat glared at it, hating the idiotic ring as she had for years.
Terror swallowed her disdain as Fell pulled a piece of parchment from his inner pocket, the governor’s seal clearly visible. The order trembled in his hand, betraying his own emotions buried beneath a captain’s coat.
“He signed it this morning,” he said in a low voice.
Her knees buckled, and the wall felt cold as she slumped against it. She glared at the parchment, at the familiar curves of ink blurring but undeniable. There was no one in Archenport, living or dead, who did not know what Governor Osprin’s orders contained.
Arrest or execution, what the paper said did not really matter. Either way it was a death sentence—in a cell or at the end of a rope.
Footsteps thumped in the next room, too heavy to be Derry. The world spun and Cat pressed harder against the wall, using it to anchor herself.
“We had a deal,” she hissed.
A muscle feathered in Fell’s cheek. “I thought you would have been smart enough to leave when you could. There’s quite a lot of money with your name on it in Itzima, isn’t there?”
Cat flinched, her mind flying across the Lyrian Sea to the Southern Continent, and a bank in a foreign city.
“But I should have known better,” Fell continued, rolling up the death sentence. “You like getting what you are owed, and there was enough still due to keep you anchored. You were always a greedy woman, Cat, even from the beginning.”
Cat wanted to seize her precious silver teapot and smash it over his head. Because he was right. It was greed alone that had kept her here long after she should have left, no matter how difficult it was to admit. Greed and pride.
And fear.
“It is not greed to know what this world is.” Cat flung the words at him. “Wealth is the only weapon I have left.”
“And how’s that weapon working for you now?” Fell replied, his lips twisting as the first bluecoat entered, a musket over his shoulder, a pair of shackles in one hand.
Three more trailed behind the first, all men of the fleet. Men of the Meridian, following orders of the governor.
For Crown and Empire.
Cat barely felt it when the irons slipped into place, locked around her wrists. She was too numb to notice the metal, worn smooth by a hundred other prisoners.
Fell watched as his men did their work.
“I will say I tried, Cat,” he said as they pulled her back into the hall.
She stumbled, almost colliding with her own staircase. An arm curled around her waist to keep her upright, the unfamiliar touch like a bolt of lightning. With a snarl, she shoved the soldier off, whirling to Fell in the doorway.
“Can’t even bother to arrest me yourself,” she snapped, stretching her bound hands towards him. “I suppose the captain’s carriage doesn’t haul prisoners.”
Fell didn’t flinch, even when she spit at his boots.
“No, it does not, Lady Rose,” he answered, signaling to his men.
Cat felt her feet leave the ground entirely.
“I’m sorry, ma’am,” a small voice called from the direction of the kitchen.
Held aloft between two soldiers of the crown, Cat craned her neck, trying to glimpse the maid one last time.
“Only one person here owes an apology, Derry,” she called. “Send for Ms. Moseley, she knows what must be done.”
The march of booted feet drowned out the maid’s response, her soft voice swallowed up as Fell’s men pulled Cat out the door and down the steps of the townhome.
Indeed, the captain’s carriage was there, waiting for Fell.
Behind it idled something brutish and ugly, barely more than a wooden box on wheels, hitched to a pair of stinking mules.
It had not been there minutes ago, hidden until Fell could spring his trap.
Another bluecoat jumped to attention, throwing open the door to the fetid coffin. To her relief, the prisoner transport was empty. Dire as the circumstances were, Cat hoped to preserve a little dignity.
At least, what dignity she had left before she was strangled to death in front of a crowd.
As the bluecoats shoved her in, Cat glimpsed Fell one last time, the captain silhouetted against the flickering lamplight of her little street. Behind him, the townhome stared down, its windows like glowing eyes in a warm face. Cat wondered if she would ever see it again.
“I made you, Fell,” she said again. Her heart pounded in her chest.
The captain gave no answer, his face dark as he slammed the door shut.