Chapter Five After #3
“I’ll act more ladylike outside this jail cell,” Cat replied, her chest tight with anticipation. “What does the governor want from me?”
Fell’s crooked smile spread, some gleam coming back into his eyes. With a flourish, he tucked the stay of execution away.
“Three ships of the Meridian fleet left Eastermount three weeks ago, bound for Great Edrin. Hardly a long or difficult journey.” He crossed his arms behind his back, standing as if he addressed his crew and not a woman imprisoned.
“They ran headfirst into a storm off Favor Island and never reached port.”
Cat could picture the path, tracing the western route along the island chain known as the Furies, named for their volcanic mountains and cruel winds.
“Hurricane season comes early, it seems.” Cat shrugged.
She understood trade ports and shipping lanes, not wind patterns and sea currents.
But even she knew the seasons in the Lyrian Sea, and they were still weeks from the violent months known only as storm.
“If the governor wants to control the weather, he should try an Arcayan song priest. What does he want with me?”
Fell gave a half-hearted chuckle. “Two sailors washed up on Favor not long after. They had bullets in their heads,” he said, pointing to the space between his eyes. “I’ve seen many strange things in the Lyrian Sea, but I’ve never seen a storm shoot someone.”
The Furies were dangerous ground, physically and politically. Cat bit her lip, weighing the possibilities.
“Perhaps Esperin—”
“The Empire made peace with the Kingdom of Esperin, and there have been no conflicts with Anticles or Itzima. The Rijkstad keeps well away from these waters.” Fell waved off the idea. “No crown will risk another war, and certainly not here.”
“Not over people like us,” Cat muttered, and the captain nodded.
Meridian or not, they were castoffs in the colonies, far from the Empire, small in their backwater lives. Against the great peoples of the world, they meant nothing at all.
“You have done a great service to Crown and Empire, helping save the King’s colonies from the plague of piracy.” Fell turned to stride along the bars, forcing Cat to follow. “But the task is not finished.”
“It is finished enough,” she scoffed. “The last of the pirates are in hiding, dead, or fleeing. The navy will have no issue mopping them up. The reclamation is complete and the pirate republic is in ashes. Harry Morovant is nailed to a post in Hargrove Square, the rest of his captains strung up throughout the city.” She gestured to her own bars and the many cells, filled and filled again. “Is this not victory?”
Fell tipped his head, his eyes shining.
“Not every captain.”
His words echoed too heavily, surrounding Cat like another set of bars.
She felt like a struck bell, and blood rushed in her ears, her pulse the harried beat of a desperate drum.
The room spun and she halted mid-step, letting Fell carry on a few paces without her.
Her face relaxed into a cold mask, but her hand fell against the bars of her cell, holding on to keep steady.
As if she could stand against the impossible wave of memory, ferocious and crashing over her head.
The face she saw everywhere loomed again. Not at the gallows or rotting in a noose but alive and smiling at the helm of a warship, the black flag billowing behind his head.
“I don’t know what you mean,” she finally said, doing all she could to bury the pain welling up in her throat.
Fell clicked his tongue. “You absolutely do.”
I have not seen him since that day, Cat wanted to reply, but no words came.
She refused to think his name, lest it leave her lips.
But he still loomed, the familiar silhouette like a shadow over her.
Tall, broad-shouldered, hair more golden than any coin.
Suddenly Cat smelled seawater and gunpowder, heard music and laughter, the harsh thud of boots on a ship’s deck.
The feel of callused hands on her body, tobacco smoke weaving with quiet words for no one else to hear.
He made her skin itch, until Cat wanted to tear off her dress and all things beneath, to scrub herself clean of what she once craved.
But even that would be no good, Cat knew.
No amount of soap or acid or flame could burn away what he left, deeper than skin, muscle, or bone.
He was braided in her, and there was no undoing the knot.
My head or theirs, Cat thought, wincing at the true meaning.
His head or theirs.
The lock on her cell door clanged open.
Fell waited, a hand outstretched, his palm extended to her, freedom in his grasp.
Cat wondered if this was what the others felt, up on the gallows, rope around their necks, the wood beneath their feet pulled away. In the split second before gravity took hold, and all the world broke apart.
Slowly, she extended her hand and almost stumbled when he pulled her close.
Fell’s lips brushed her ear, his whisper louder than a scream.
“Valerian Kane is alive. And you’re going to find him for me.”