Chapter Ten Before #3
The lieutenant’s pale face only went paler.
“Are we alive or dead?”
Cat swallowed a bloom of frustration and reached out to grab the lifeboat, her shift tangling around her legs. She tried to steady herself, but the current was stronger than she realized, pushing at her limbs. With a will, she twisted in the water and caught Fell around the wrist.
His skin was cold beneath her hand, unmoving, as if he could not feel her grasp.
For a second, Cat wondered if he might have struck his head or lost his senses entirely.
Then his gaze sharpened, and he twisted his hand so it gripped her own.
His fingers closed around her wrist and he flexed, hauling her up next to him.
“Alive,” she answered, clambering up onto the longboat. She tucked her shift, sitting astride the hull, all thoughts of etiquette drowned with the Venerable. “For now.”
Her eyes still burned, but the tears were gone. Her sorrow was spent, for Quine, for Sara. For the rest of the crew lost. She had strength enough for herself and her predicament. It was a strange feeling, to shut out the horrors in front of her eyes.
Fell did not. He blinked at her slowly, still in shock. He seemed half a ghost himself, ready to fade into the smoke.
Cat clenched her teeth and tightened her hold on his wrist, hoping to rouse him.
“What now, Jasper?” she said sharply, but he only looked at her in that detached way again.
As if he saw through her, as if she didn’t exist at all.
She tried again, leaning closer. “I’m sorry about your men—but we are still alive. And we need to figure out how to stay that way.”
He only looked away, scanning the wreckage—the bodies and the uniforms, the men with their faces submerged. A wave of emotions crossed his face. Cat expected anger, but it quickly melted to sadness.
“For Crown and Empire,” he muttered. No longer a proud battle cry but a lament.
“For Crown and Empire,” she echoed weakly, watching as Fell winced.
“They did their duty,” Cat offered, as if it would be a balm.
He winced again.
“Did they?” Fell breathed, his voice breaking. “Did I?”
“Certainly, I would be dead if not—”
The lieutenant only shook his head. “Quine was a good man. A good captain. Fair. Decent.” The words cracked, betraying deep wells of pain. “He wasn’t born a noble, you know? Not like so many officers.”
Something snagged, and Cat tipped her head, her fingers still tight on Fell’s wrist. His pulse thrummed against her grasp. She eyed his tattoo with new scrutiny. It was hardly the kind of thing a nobleman would bear, but the lowborn sailors certainly did.
“Not like you?” she murmured, watching the disdain creep back onto his face. The detachment, the arrogance. And the envy too.
“No, Lady Rose, not like me,” he said bitterly. It was enough to finally shift his attention from the bodies around them. The water sloshed as he leaned and snatched his arm away, the wreckage shifting with his weight. “I’m surprised it took you so long to notice I am not of the same quality.”
Cat’s thighs tightened on the longboat, holding against the sudden movement.
“You hide it well,” she replied, sizing him up. “With your sneer and your cold exterior.”
Some color returned to his face, pink blooming over his cheekbones. He held Cat’s gaze for a long while, the silver of his eyes dappled by the weak light.
“I suppose that’s another difference now,” he said, dropping his gaze to the water. “Jasper Fell, the common orphan boy, alive where so many of rank are dead.”
Cat opened her mouth to respond, to commiserate, to say anything that might prod Fell back to himself. But a gloom fell over them both, a massive shape moving through the smoke and fog.
Her voice died in her throat, her head tilting back to look up and up and up—
The shadow was unmistakable.
Another ship approached, the silhouette sharpening as it maneuvered through the wreckage.
It was smaller than the Venerable, but not by much.
Cat glimpsed the misty outline of three masts, their sails tacked.
Oars splashed through the gloom and hazy figures flitted over the deck.
At the prow, a hulking figurehead took shape, a paw raised to claw the air, jaws open wide.
The Meridian lion.
Cat nearly wept. The lion, the navy, she thought, opening her mouth to shout. But a soft wind rolled along the water, parting the smoke to allow a beam of blinding daylight. At the stern of the approaching ship, a great flag unfurled, black as the bottom of a well.
Black as death.
The world went silent, the only sound Cat’s heart thumping in her ears.
Pirates.
A white skull rippled over them, sewn to the flag. One of its teeth was gold—the incisor sharp as a blade.
Cat felt it as keenly as a knife at her throat.
Next to her, Fell drew a breath. His face cleared, his wits returning as if someone poured a bucket of ice over his head. The ghost was gone, replaced by the stern and capable Lieutenant Fell.
“Get in the water,” he hissed, slipping off the hull without so much as a splash. He eased himself quickly and quietly under the surface. Leaving only a trail of air bubbles behind.
Cat quickly followed, sliding into the waves. When she broke the surface again, this time under the overturned shell of the longboat, Fell was waiting in the near darkness.
“Do you think they saw us?” Cat whispered, doing her best against the current.
Daylight slanted through a crack in the hull, striking a line across Fell’s bleeding face. He was a good swimmer—or at least didn’t seem to struggle as much as Cat.
“You may hold on to me if you must,” he said, extending an arm. “Don’t let your pride drown you.”
“My pride sank with the Venerable,” she said, grasping at him. “What of your pride, Lieutenant?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“We face certain death out here. Sharks, storms, dying of thirst as we drift.” She fought to speak and tread water at the same time. “Surrendering to pirates might be the best option to survive.”
Fell sneered. “You first, Lady Rose.”
Her cheeks burned, her bluff called.
“Very well,” she shot back, taking a deep breath to fill her lungs.
Only for Fell to grab her by the shoulder, preventing her from swimming away.