Chapter Ten Before
CAT HAD WEATHERED storms on Rosby. It was nothing compared to weathering a storm at sea.
She awoke to thunder like cannons, firing closer and closer, until the force shook the ship from bow to stern.
She felt it in her teeth, her bones vibrating with the storm.
Clutching her pillow, pressed against the pitching wall of the cabin, Cat tried to go back to sleep, to no avail.
When the next thunderclap sounded, she vaulted from her bunk, half tossed by the swells rocking the ship.
A single candle burned on a little table, the flame swaying with the will of the sea. But it was enough to illuminate the cramped space, the walls pressing in with every hungry wave.
Sara was already folded into the corner, a pillow over her head.
The severe maid had lost all her sharpness, her meticulous hair undone and falling about her in swaying black rivers.
She clutched her prayer beads in her fist, thumbing the stones one by one.
Beneath the pillow, Sara peeked out and offered her free hand.
“My lady,” she murmured.
Cat took her hand gladly.
Side by side they cowered, at the mercy of a merciless sea.
Though she believed in nothing, Cat Rose prayed through the pantheon, begging to one silent god after another, until she had exhausted the deities of the Church.
Still the storm raged, every second somehow worse than the last.
Shouts echoed and Cat imagined Quine giving orders through relentless sheets of rain.
She thought of Lieutenant Fell too, still clutching his hat against the wind.
And perhaps Lord Rose wandering on deck, looking for someone to pay attention to him, until a wave swept him overboard to be claimed by the black deep.
Cat gripped Sara tighter and wished she knew gods beyond her own.
The gods of Esperin and Anticles were like the Meridian’s, cold statues in colder churches. Shadows cast by false shapes. Distant and beyond reach, if they existed at all.
Another wave rocked the ship, the largest yet. For a sickening moment, Cat thought they might tip over. Sara wept beside her, their hands still clasped. On the table, the candle tipped and rolled, the flame guttering out, plunging them both into heavy, heaving darkness.
“In Arcayo, they worship the Song—the sea,” Cat heard herself say, her grip on Sara even tighter. It was a dim memory against the harsh onslaught of the storm. The pages of her books blurred in her mind, the ink running like water. “The sea itself.”
“How do we pray to the sea?” Sara’s voice answered, gulping around tears. Her prayer beads wound around her knuckles, making Cat wish for a token of her own.
For something to put her faith in, even if there was nothing to believe.
The darkness pressed against her eyes, absolute in their cabin. There was no window, and not even lightning could lift the dark.
“May the sea always sing for you,” Cat murmured. It was the only thing she could think to say, the only piece of the Lyrian she knew beyond the chains of the Empire.
Sara repeated like a pilgrim following a priest. “May the sea always sing for you.”
So they went, back and forth, the seconds stretching, the minutes endless.
Until the thunder seemed a little less strong. Until the ship did not rise and fall so violently, each wave smaller and smaller. Until the cabin felt like a cabin again, and not a grave.
“Is it over?” Sara breathed, her arm clutching to Cat’s.
Slowly, Cat extricated herself from the other woman’s grip. Beneath the sleeves of her sleep shift, Cat could already feel bruises forming. It was no matter. She had left curved indentations of her nails in Sara’s hand.
“I don’t know,” Cat answered, rising to shaking feet. The deck still rolled beneath her, but at least she could stand without falling. “I’m going to find out.”
“My lady, you shouldn’t—”
“I’ll come right back, Sara.” Cat stretched out, feeling for the walls of their narrow cabin. Her fingers slid over pitted wood as she traced her way to the door. “I promise.”
There was no light in the passage, the lanterns belowdecks blown out or smashed. Blown out, Cat surmised. Navy sailors knew better than to leave them burning during a storm. Gods only knew how much oil and gunpowder lay stored through the vessel.
Her eyes adjusted slowly, the dark lifting to reveal a wash of blue spilling down the forecastle stairs. The steps gleamed, slick with rain. Then there was a peal of lightning, blinding for an instant. Cat froze, eyes too wide, until the thunder rolled.
Farther away, she told herself, exhaling in relief.
She expected a wreck when she emerged on the main deck, but Quine’s crew were as formidable as their captain.
Everything was tied down and the sails reefed but for one small sheet for maneuvering.
A few sailors bailed seawater over the side, moving in unison.
The rest were either belowdecks riding out the storm or clustered around Quine at the helm.
All of them looked run-through—red-faced and red-handed, wet to the bone.
Cat could hardly distinguish officer from enlisted sailor. Against the storm, against death, they all looked the same.
The rain still fell, but less furious, almost gentle in its touch.
The predawn sky coiled overhead, the clouds a swirl of black, gray, and blue.
And in the distance, strangely green, the storm moved low over the water.
Cat stared for a long second, enraptured by the sight.
Half a mile away, the lightning crackled through the green clouds, the waves white-capped and vengeful.
“May the sea always sing for you,” she muttered to herself one more time, willing the storm to keep moving.
Then a voice bellowed from the quarterdeck, clear across the ship.
“Lady Rose, you should be below!” Quine glared at her, his eyes burning through the rain. He stood tall next to his helmsman, the exhausted sailor still clutching the ship’s wheel.
Cat wanted to obey, but something would not let her move. She lingered, still staring at the green clouds and the dawn breaking somewhere in the darkness.
“Lady Rose!” Quine shouted again.
There was a flurry of motion, and Lieutenant Fell descended the quarterdeck ahead of the captain, cutting him off.
He was not as Cat had pictured, a hat still stubbornly on his head.
Instead his black hair was loose and wet, clinging to his face.
A red flush tinged his cheeks, and she surmised it was not only rain soaking his body but sweat.
His cobalt coat was gone entirely, his white sleeves rolled to the elbow, the fabric so wet it was near translucent.
She glimpsed his pale chest at his open collar, the muscles of his neck and shoulders carved by a harder life than she had assumed.
Cat jolted, realizing her nightshift would be soaked through in a similar way soon enough. She crossed her arms, hugging herself instinctively, trying to cover what she could. Heat bloomed over her skin despite the cold, damp air and the spray of the iron sea.
“Below, Lady Rose,” Fell growled, closing the distance between them. He even took her by the shoulder, forcing her away from the rail.
She gave an indignant gasp, and all thoughts of wet clothes disappeared.
“I thought officers were supposed to be gentlemen, Lieutenant,” she snapped, trying to break his hold.
It was like fighting with a steel trap.
“There are no gentlemen in a hurricane,” he shot back, marching her towards the stairs. “Now get below. Stop pressing your luck.”
Cat glanced back to the green clouds, her face incredulous. “You call that storm luck?”
“We are alive.” Fell lowered his head to her eye level, his silver gaze a knife. “That is luck enough.”
Though her stomach still rolled, Cat nodded. She would go below and be grateful. We are alive, she thought, sighing. It reminded her of another dangerous moment on another deck, on another ship.
Welcome to the Lyrian Sea.
“Lady Rose?” Fell prodded, still standing over her. He dropped her arm, letting his hands dangle at his sides. Like the rest of the crew, his fingers were striped red and white, the angry testament of straining rope.
Cat almost laughed. Fell would drag her across the deck but not below it. The lines of propriety here are so strange. And always shifting.
“Very well—”
Her mouth clapped shut as she pitched sideways, shoved away from the staircase by cold, familiar hands.
Cat caught herself on the rail, the waves churning black beneath the ship.
For a terrifying moment, she thought she might tumble overboard into the wet abyss.
But the rail held, sturdy and solid. She braced herself and turned in time to see Lord Ryman Rose clambering across the rocking deck, his arms flung wide.
“I have need of a man to clean my hammock, our maid is in hysterics!” he called to no one, as if Quine’s crew were servants to be ordered.
Cat bit her lip so hard she tasted blood.
Part of her wanted to wrap an arm around her husband’s throat and silence him for good.
The rest was too worn to do anything but slump against the rail.
Somehow pissing himself in front of pirates wasn’t mortifying enough.
Ryman had to embarrass himself in front of half the navy too, screaming about the vomit in his blankets.
Fell shot a glare in Ryman’s direction but did not stop him. He offered a hand to Cat instead. Real concern shone in his eyes, if only for a blistering second.
“No gentlemen in a hurricane,” Cat muttered, leveraging herself up to stand unaided.
The lieutenant darkened. “Something tells me his behavior is not the hurricane’s fault.”
“These infernal Roses,” Quine growled from the helm, louder than the distant thunder.
Cat could not blame the captain for his frustration. She was shamed enough by her husband’s behavior, in fair or foul weather.