Chapter Sixteen Before #4
“That’s what I thought,” he replied, nodding once to Cat, then her escort. “Give your requests to Ana. She will see to them.”
“As best I can,” Ana offered, still amused.
And then he was gone, shutting the door behind him.
“I should like some different clothing,” she muttered once they were inside the captain’s quarters. To her relief, Ana was quick to oblige, seeing herself out.
Cat examined her prison with far more interest than an hour before. This was no longer Captain Kane’s cabin, the finest room on an impressive pirate vessel, but all four corners of Cat Rose’s universe. For however long their voyage took.
Or until Kane figures out we are near to penniless and worthless to a man like him.
Part of her wanted to collapse on the tiny bunk, which Kane appeared to have tidied. The blankets were at least pulled up and smoothed. She blushed at the thought of a pirate captain preparing his bed for her, no matter the circumstances.
There was a small looking glass in the corner, and Cat dared to check her reflection. Her insides flipped again.
Red as a poppy, hair hopeless with salt and humidity, eyes bloodshot, half naked. I look like a rat drowned and wrung out to shrink in the sun. Disgusted, she spun away from the mirror, turning to the rest of the room.
Indeed, Captain Kane did seem to have prepared his quarters, after a fashion.
The desk was bare, most of his papers and maps collected by his men, the rest filed away amongst the endless shelves.
She paced the floor, idly examining the wood planks for any more bloodstains.
To her pleasant disbelief, she found none.
And while the armoire was now missing another drawer, no doubt packed tight with Kane’s effects, the rest of it was neatly shuttered.
She did not bother long with the chest in the corner, still screwed into the floor. Iron bands crisscrossed the chest, each one set with locks of varying sizes and metals. Even if I knew how to pick a lock, I would hardly know where to start, Cat mused, turning to the bookshelves.
Some of the books were covered in a layer of dust. Belonging to the ship’s previous captain, no doubt.
They were the kind of books a naval officer would enjoy—long-winded tomes of Meridian history, almanacs from years past, and even a few leather-bound genealogical records denoting the great families of the Meridian Empire.
Cat sneered at that one and considered throwing it overboard.
Her husband would be in there, Lord Rose and his ilk marked down in fading ink.
Her own family would not merit a mention. They were country nobility at best, and the worst kind. One generation of new money, only to be squandered by the next.
“Useless,” Cat said aloud, shoving the book of noble blood back onto the shelf where it belonged. Forgotten, and gathering dust.
What seemed so important in Meridia was so trivial here in the Lyrian Sea.
She eyed it through the windows, watching the sun shimmer on the waves.
The horizon looked calm, all remnants of the terrifying storm blown away.
The wreck of the Venerable was long gone, now miles behind them and well on its way to the seabed.
Even after six months, she still could not fathom the brilliant color of the water, somehow brighter than turquoise, and infinitely more beautiful.
The sun gleamed over the waves, beginning its slow descent.
East.
She blinked and pressed her face to the window, forehead against thick glass warmed by the Lyrian sun. Hurriedly, Cat took her best measure again. Indeed, they were past noon now, the sun climbing down from its high pinnacle.
“Archenport is to the north,” she muttered, raving to herself like a madman. The sun rises in the west, sets in the east. Rises west, sets east. “The sun should be there.”
She tapped the glass, pointing. Her mind spun, and indeed she did feel mad, or at least stupid.
Perhaps I am wrong. I know nothing of these things, she told herself as she went to the books again, hunting through the papers until she found a folded map of the Lyrian Sea.
But I know where the sun sets.
With a flap of parchment, she unfurled the well-worn map and laid it on the floor.
It was almost as tall as she was, more detailed than any map she had seen before.
Lines of ink dotted islands she did not know existed, and tight scrawl crammed the margins in differing handwriting.
She guessed this was another captain’s map before it became Valerian Kane’s.
Now on the ground, bent over the map with squinting eyes, Cat traced the drawn waves of the sea.
Her fingers walked the miles, finding Rosby, a little spit in the southern arc of the Furies, between an archipelago called the Hook and the larger islands.
Then she found Archenport, marked on Beacon Island. Far to the north.
Her fingers shook as she eyed the horizon again, and the arc of the sun against it.
Captain Kane had lied.
He was not sailing to Archenport.