Chapter Seventeen After
SHE EXPECTED THE way down the volcano to be easier than the way up, but her body ached with every step, absorbing the hard shock of stone underfoot. Cat lamented each minute, though it cemented a truth she knew all too well.
Nothing in this world is ever easy. Such is the way of the Lyrian Sea.
The climb to the old song tower, and Ana, seemed a waste. There was no escape to be found, only disdain and accusation. Ana charged her with betraying Valerian, which Cat did not deny. But betraying the sea?
It seemed preposterous. The sea was no kingdom, no nation to swear allegiance to. No matter what the broken remnants of the pirate republic might say.
This war is not over.
That chilled her more than anything. To think Ana was so delusional as to believe the pirates could somehow recover from a killing blow—or that something else lay in wait, something Cat herself could not plan for or fathom.
Her thoughts swirled, following her down like a storm cloud.
By the time she reached the lower hills, her frustration threatened to boil over.
At least I warned her of Osprin, she thought. It was a small comfort to think Ana might pass the information along. It might even nudge a few more survivors to flee.
But not Valerian, Cat knew, anger flooding her again.
Her temper was not helped by the sight of Jasper Fell waiting at the bottom of the jungle path. He was red faced as his merchant captain’s coat, looking more like a burnished apple than a living man.
She came to a halt on a broken spit of rock, a long-weathered step split in two. From her vantage point, she could see most of Alvaris, the harbor shimmering blue between the rooftops.
Fell and his sailors fanned out beneath her, all shiny with sweat.
You have only made it a few yards up, Cat wanted to taunt them but decided not to make matters worse. Men responded so poorly when confronted with their flaws.
“You stay right where you are, she-devil!” Whisten barked, shaking a fist at her. His bracelet of prayer beads rattled.
Cat pointedly did not move. “Fear not, Mr. Whisten, I don’t intend to run off into the jungle.”
“Again,” Fell said, his voice acid.
“Gentlemen, what news have you gleaned from the commander of Alvaris?” Cat said brightly, a false smile splitting her face. She still gripped her stolen scarf, her blood spotting the patterned fabric.
“Don’t play coy, Cat,” Fell snarled up at her. He clambered over the next step and took her by the elbow, his hand warm through her sleeve. “We’ve wasted precious time looking for you, and now I’ve half a mind to shackle you to my wrist.”
Well surrounded, Cat had no choice but to let him lead her down to the others.
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Captain?” she said, batting her eyes. “Half my worldly possessions are on your sorry excuse for a ship. You knew I was coming back.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure of that, Captain,” Whisten said, looking Cat over in disgust. His black eyes lingered on the hem of her dress. “That’s a heavy swing of her skirt. I venture she sewed a fortune into her clothes.”
Perceptive as the lieutenant was, Cat waved him off with a laugh, fluttering the folds of her dress for good measure. “Have you been looking at my skirts, Mr. Whisten?”
It was more than enough to quiet the disagreeable lieutenant for the rest of the walk back into the city, though Cat heard him grumbling along at the back of their line. She carried on with her head held high, curling her arm so that Captain Fell held her like an escort at a ball, and not a jailer.
“What exactly was your little jaunt into the jungle?” Fell muttered. Beneath their feet, the stone pathway turned to packed dirt cut with cart tracks.
Cat weighed her words carefully. “I met with a friend, looking for information. I was unsuccessful.”
“Is that the truth?” Fell’s steel eyes met her own, sharp as a blade.
In reply, Cat tipped her head and pulled her hair back to reveal the long cut on the side of her throat. It was no longer bleeding but obviously still fresh.
“I’d say so,” she answered, letting Fell’s eyes linger on the arc of her neck. “I’m lucky she did not slit my throat.”
The streets of Alvaris grew hotter as another hour tolled from another church. Cat raised a hand to shade her eyes against the glare and wished for a hat.
“She?” Fell prodded, leaning closer.
“No wonder the navy is having such a difficult time finding the pirates. You have no idea who to ask, or who to listen to,” Cat scoffed, exasperated. “Women know things too. More than most men, I would wager.”
A smile that could only be described as “shit-eating” split Fell’s face. He laughed openly, and Cat fought the urge to swat him off her arm.
“So you asked another woman where Valerian Kane is,” he said, delighted by her discomfort. His grip on her tightened. “I did not know you had a rival for his affections, Cat.”
In spite of herself, Cat’s cheeks flamed.
“She is a friend,” she snapped, annoyed with him and his wretched smile. “Or was.”
He did not relent, using the swelling crowd of market traffic to bump his shoulder against hers. This close, Cat could at least stop squinting, using the shade of his hat to her own benefit.
“You’re running short on those, you know,” he said.
Her relief in the shade was short-lived.
“Thank you for noticing, Fell,” she replied, looking at him sidelong. Her voice changed, softening. “But you’re still my friend, aren’t you?”
Captain Fell reeled back with a cold look. After so many years, Cat could see he knew better than to take such obvious bait.
“So long as you remain useful,” he said dryly, urging her onwards.
“Ah, yes, that is the definition of friendship,” Cat muttered, letting herself be herded along. Until she looked up to a collection of whitewashed buildings, and beyond them, the limestone walls of the Alvaris fort guarding the harbor.
She halted in her tracks and dug in her heels, fast enough to force Fell to break his hold. He rounded on her in an instant, one hand flying to the pistol on his hip. In the street, his men reacted, pressing in to surround Cat lest she try to run again.
“Enough of that, Jasper, you’re not going to shoot me,” Cat said, rolling her eyes.
Fell dropped his hand, leaving the flintlock where it lay. “One day I might,” he grumbled. “Now what?”
She glanced up at the fort, then back to Fell with a withering stare. “Where are you going?”
Realization dawned across his face more quickly than Cat expected.
His eyes narrowed. “You never intended for us to interview the commander of Alvaris.”
Cat only shrugged back at him, too aware of Whisten and the others at her back. “Like I said, Fell, women know more than you think.”
The bulldog lieutenant gave a wet, rasping laugh. “Are we to interview every fish wife and tavern maid in the city, then?” he said, chuckling around at the crew.
“No,” Cat said, refusing to give Whisten more than a passing glance. “Do you know what a skirt ship is?”
Despite his merchant’s coat and the battered tricorne, Fell drew himself up straight as a line, heels together, arms pressed to his sides. Cat half expected him to salute.
“I am an officer of the Meridian navy. Of course I know what a skirt ship is,” he snapped.
Cat placed a calming hand on his shoulder in the most condescending way she could. “Of course, Captain, though I know such a practice is beneath you,” she said. “Pirates, on the other hand. Quite the appetite.”
As he would a spider or a piece of lint, Fell brushed her fingers off. “What are you proposing?”
“If the pirates are operating from a new place in the Lyrian Sea, they will have need of resources,” she explained. “Food, water, rum. And prostitutes.”
She did not miss that most of the sailors of the Fledge looked intrigued, if not eager, at her words.
Prostitution was not forbidden but certainly frowned upon in the so-called civilized parts of the Lyrian.
Though that hardly stopped sailors from pursuing their pleasures.
The hypocrisy of it was not lost on Cat.
Many a fine officer sneered at a whore in the street before dropping money in her hand that evening.
But not Whisten, who managed to look even more disgusted. Or Fell, whose cool demeanor returned, icy as his eyes.
“Follow the whores?” he offered.
She nodded. “Find the pirates.”
* * *
THE SUNSET TURNED the Alvaris harbor the color of blood.
Cat shuddered at the sight, looking out from the gunwales of the Fledge to take in so many warships anchored in scarlet.
She wondered if the sea had looked like this six months ago when Harry Morovant and his ramshackle armada sailed against the Meridian fleet. And were slaughtered for it.
She forced herself to breathe the fresh air, smelling salt instead of the iron tang of blood.
It calmed her a little, enough to survey herself one last time.
Her dress from the morning was discarded, half-stiff with sweat and stained with mud from her pointless climb.
Now she wore the second-best dress she had packed, the black fabric tightly fitted and cut beneath her collarbone.
Terrible for travel but good enough for city streets.
Cat knew the low neckline made her amber eyes seem warmer, her tan golden, and even her freckles more refined.
There was little to be done about the state of her curls, so she braided them away from her face and tied them with a gold ribbon to match her eyes.
Even without a looking glass, Cat surmised she cut a fine figure, her narrow waist and flared hips accentuated by the skim of her skirt. She was certainly older than most of the girls she would encounter, but she would not look it.
At least not in dim candlelight, she thought, pinching her cheeks for color.
“You’re not going to run off again, are you?”
She turned to see Fell approaching, his boots a rhythmic drumbeat on the deck.