Chapter Ten Before #4
“We are on a well-traveled sea lane,” he said, too close to her face.
At such a distance, in the slanting light, Cat could see his eyes were not entirely silver but flecked with tiny chips of icy blue.
“There will be a navy or merchant ship along in a day, or maybe hours. This smoke will not be difficult to spot.”
Her shift tangled around her kicking feet. She gritted her teeth, feeling like she might drown at any moment. “And if we drift off the lane, out to the ocean?”
Fell’s resolve wavered. “It will not come to that.”
“It might,” Cat muttered. “You know it might.”
His face tightened, a muscle feathering in his jaw. It was answer enough. The last thing either Catrine Rose or Jasper Fell wanted was to die at sea.
In this, at least, we are aligned.
“On the crossing from the Empire, our ship was waylaid by pirates. We were able to pay them off. Certainly, we can do it again.” Cat remembered the Credence too well, and what hard, fast lessons she had learned upon its deck. “To pay is to live. To fight is to die.”
They were not her own words but the words of a pirate.
Good advice, no matter the source.
Fell did not seem convinced. But before he could reply, darkness fell over the longboat, blotting out the light from the crack in the hull. Cat shivered beneath her shift, holding tight to Fell’s arm. Both ducked low against the water line, as if the waves might somehow hide them.
Splashes echoed outside, amongst the wreckage.
Oars, Cat knew, hearing the hollow thwack of wood on wood as the pirate ship navigated the ruin of the Venerable.
She imagined them bumping up against crates and barrels, long oars gently pushing aside debris and corpses.
Then something heavier crashed into the water. Many somethings.
The pirates were diving into the destroyed warship.
“Lash those together!” A man shouted, barking orders. His voice sounded like grinding stones, destroyed by long years at the pipe.
“Aye, sir,” a few others answered.
The rough voice growled. “We may yet make something of this mess.”
Beneath the overturned hull, Cat felt sick.
She bent her legs, one hand clawed to the wood, trying to find something to hold on to so she might lift herself higher out of the water.
Fell’s hand on her shoulder froze her solid, his grip like a vise.
His eyes widened, furious and cold, his message clear.
Stop moving.
Another splash echoed, bigger and closer than the others. Cat felt the force of it hit their hiding place, rocking the wreckage over them. She winced, squeezing her eyes shut.
A longboat, she thought. How many pirates it held, she could not say. But more than enough.
The voices glided around Cat and Fell, circling them.
To pay is to live, Cat told herself over and over again. But pay with what exactly? Promises? My nightgown? Her heartbeat quickened, ramming so hard she feared the pirates might hear it. She figured Fell certainly could.
His eyes met hers through the shadows. As on Rosby, his gaze took on an odd glint. He was weighing her measure once more, taking stock of Lady Rose. Or what remained of her, half drowned and destitute.
“Do not tell them your name, Cat,” he whispered, his voice almost lost to the sloshing water. “A maid they may let go. But a lady of the Empire—”
Cat’s breath caught in her throat. “What will they do to a lieutenant?”
The glint faded, Fell’s eyes going dull. And Cat understood exactly why he would not chance the pirates, no matter the price. As an officer of the Meridian navy, noble or not, he faced certain death.
“Do you see any survivors?” a pirate called, a woman, her voice tight and annoyed, curling with an accent Cat could not place.
“None,” another replied. “The powder magazine must’ve been full to the gills. Even Goa couldn’t salvage this wreck. What a bloody disaster.”
“By the Sea and the Song, what a waste,” the woman hissed back, almost on top of them.
An oar knocked against their hiding place, and Cat flinched, curling into herself. Beneath the surface of the water, she struggled, working the wedding ring off her finger. It was plainer than a lady’s ring should have been, just a circle of gold.
Do not tell them your name.
Cat felt nothing as she slipped it off, letting it drop. She hoped it would join the one on Ryman’s finger, steadily sinking into the dark.
A gruff male voice growled out from somewhere closer. “The captain was supposed to hobble the ship, not burn it to the keel—”
The woman outside knocked her oar again, cutting him off. “It isn’t the captain’s fault a navy ship couldn’t withstand a few cannonballs. And you should think more on salvage than running your mouth . . .”
Gray light washed over Cat and Jasper as the longboat hull flipped over, revealing them both. They recoiled in unison, as if they were not two obvious survivors bobbing in the waves.
Cat shivered in the water, staring up at a half dozen pirates. Each one looked grimier than the next, seated side by side in a battered longboat. They glared back with flint-bright eyes.
“Maybe not an entire waste,” the woman said, grinning.