Chapter Twenty-Five After #2
The Dorales it was, then. To flee as fast as she could and put the world she knew behind her once and for all. Quickly, she left the tea shop and returned to the harbor, paying for the dawn passage with carefully measured coins.
She would be gone before the first storm clouds reached Nera. It was time to chase a new horizon.
* * *
“YOU’VE DONE THIS before,” Cat reminded herself, watching her reflection in the tiny mirror purchased earlier in the day. It was one of many wares strewn about the little room at the limestone inn, alongside her parcels of clothing and new baggage. “You can start again. Again.”
She huffed, scowling into the glass. Looking at herself, at what she had become, it was difficult to swallow.
Six months ago, she had a plan and a heading and enough money to do whatever she wished.
And as much as she wanted to blame Fell or Valerian or the whole damn empire for where she was now, she had to blame herself too. Her greed. Her pride.
And her own weak heart, her fear. The ill-founded hope that kept her holding on too long. Until everything burned around her, and the corpses swung high.
“Welcome to the Lyrian Sea,” she cursed aloud.
The mirror did not reply, and Cat almost threw it across the little bedroom. Instead, she stared at herself, weighing the seemingly infinite—and still very limited—options left to her.
I could stay right here, lock my door until dawn, and then head down to the docks and the Dorales.
She blinked at herself, hair still wet from a much-needed bath. It trailed to the middle of her back, chestnut curls dark and damp, soaking through her new shift.
I could go out into the city, find a little dinner, and return before the revels truly begin.
In the window, the first stars pinpricked a purple sky. Music drifted up from the streets—drums, fiddles, flutes, and conch trumpets creating a merry tune. Cat could not help but tap a foot against the tiled floor, keeping time with the melody.
I could sit myself down at a card table, bet a few coins from my purse, and board the Dorales a richer woman, with a stronger foundation on which to build.
Her jaw clenched, the mirror reflecting a hardened woman with coin-bright eyes and a determined look. She felt the greed rise up again, the same terrible want that had made her linger in Archenport. It was a burden still—but a boon too.
The only shield in this world is money. Not love or loyalty or even your wits. Only wealth keeps you alive—and free.
It was a hard lesson to learn, but Cat learned it long ago.
Quickly, she donned a new dress, black with amber accents to match her eyes, and belted her purse around her waist. Instead of boots, she slipped on a pair of Arcayan sandals, the braided strips of leather winding around her feet.
Intricate gold and shell beading decorated the ankles, flashing as she walked.
It matched the small hoops in her ears, two golden circles hastily bought from a smaller jeweler on the way back to the inn. Cat Rose never could resist a bit of shine.
She donned a wide-brimmed brown hat made of boiled wool, the band beaded like her sandals, with the single gold feather of a sand dove. More adornment than sun hat, she would not draw strange looks for wearing it at night.
The misty waterfall bisecting the city put an uncharacteristic chill in the air, and Cat wrapped a scarf around her shoulders, dyed to match her dress. All told, she looked fine but forgettable, easy to overlook. Exactly as intended.
It felt good to walk boisterous streets again, eyes darting from one curb to another, looking for a game.
Looking for a prize. She felt like a pirate vessel combing the sea, on the hunt.
Pitiful as the travelers looked, she told herself to target pirates as much as she could, to exercise some small mercy.
There was little moral failing in taking from someone who had already taken.
Not that Cat cared much for morals anymore.
She started small. A little table in an alley, a few hands of Lady Saints or Barrio with half-blind old men.
Small wins, even smaller losses to keep the table hot and occupied.
Until she would smile, most of her face hidden by her hat, and thank her opponents for their time before sweeping off again, her purse heavier.
Nera bloomed at night. The shops stayed open, torchlight blazing, the cacao bars and food windows crowded with folk. Cat winced as she passed another jewel house, a pair of fiery green emeralds beckoning like sirens out at sea.
Later, she told herself, promising to return for the earrings and whatever else she fancied. It would be a welcome reward after a long night at the tables.
Much like Alvaris, there was a pleasure district in Nera a tier above the docks, most establishments looking out over the ships in the harbor.
Fewer brothels but more gaming dens, and taverns spilled out into the open streets laced with flowering vines and glimmering light.
Cat felt like a fish flung back into open water, or a horse released from its bridle, given room to run.
It was an intoxicating sensation, invigorating as rum or taquil. And impossible to ignore.
Small tables, she warned herself, edging around a gambling hall heaving with sailors. Cards, game pieces, and tumbling coins decorated the walls, white limestone washed gold by many flaming lanterns. Her eyes darted, weighing the opponents she could see.
She looked across the top of the crowd, wary as always of a golden head above the rest. Spotting none, she sighed a little in relief.
He is not here, she told herself again.
Women were not uncommon in the halls, and there were enough roving the tables to allow Cat to blend in. Some wore dresses and others breeches. The latter, Cat knew, were sailors of the pirate crews.
Pirates and merchant sailors were more difficult to distinguish from each other, though she ventured most of the Meridian or Esperese folk here were anything but law-abiding citizens.
They were too hardened, with sun-bleached hair and flash-burned hands, wearing knives or pistols or both on their belts.
The Itzimans were safer ground. They hardly ventured far enough north to darken the door of the Widow Rose. And Cat knew better than to expect Arcayans gambling amongst the foreigners. They had their own entertainment districts higher up the city, away from those only passing through.
Some wayward folk from the docks mixed in amongst the sailors, mostly wide-eyed civilians trying to win a hand or two.
Cat suspected quite a few of them were simple men fleeing the Meridian noose, fearing the worst of the Empire returned.
From Archenport or the other cities of the colonial islands, she did not know.
But they all looked the same—pale, desperate, adrift.
Easy pickings, Cat thought, slowing next to a table of weary travelers. Two men argued over the very simple rules of a very simple game, giving her time to eye their hands. Pitiful. Then she measured their meager pot; little more than a few copper coins and a single polished button.
One of them glanced up at her, eager and wide-eyed. “Would you care to join our hand, madam?”
Desperate as he was, Cat could smell the greed on him. Easy pickings, she thought again, knowing he thought the same of her.
Much as Cat wanted to take his money, she refrained, what shred of decency she had left triumphing over her better senses.
“Oh, my apologies. I am a poor hand at cards,” Cat murmured, moving on before he could say something stupid and convince her to waste what time she had bleeding him dry.
On she went, circling, taking her measure of the gambling hall and its gamblers. Some tables played Merchant King, others cheered over the dice game Sevens. Lady Saints, Barrio, Corderis, Whipping Boy. Cat knew them all, her fingers itching in the folds of her skirt.
Lightning struck at a table in the center of a room, where three sailors had just finished a hand.
“Is this Red River?” she said beneath her hat, biting her lip to hide a smirk.
* * *
THE FIRST SIP of rum was out of polite acquiesce, to assuage a snarling bosun who accused her of cheating. The wine was kindly accepted in lieu of an unfulfilled bet. Then came more rum and more wine. All pushed upon her by the other card players, or so Cat told herself.
But there was no excuse for the first glass of taquil. Or the second.
Her head spun a little, but not unpleasantly.
The damp air grew warmer, and her fingers danced among the cards, reading the symbols in her hand as she read the faces around the table.
Three men stared back at her over the rickety wood, pirates all.
One crewed for Vex, but for less than a year.
The man in the middle, oddly thin for a cook, sailed under Captain Rawls.
And the third had recently washed out of the Esperese navy, along with the hundreds, if not thousands, of sailors released from their commissions at the end of the war.
Hardly fools, but hardly a challenge either. One of them even tried to cheat, though Cat’s pistol was threat enough to send him scurrying off while the other men laughed.
The pot grew steadily in the center of the table. Coins stamped with the Esperese cross. The Meridian lion. Arcayan crescents, Itziman squares. A few baubles, a spyglass, and a cracked but working compass. It was a formidable pile to be sure, but Cat angled for greater.
As she ceded a small hand to the cook, she glanced around the lively hall. Sharks swam at night. The later the hour, the bigger the prizes grew, and the more valuable—and lethal—the gamblers became.
It was a delicate balance. A captain might bet a chest of jewels or a map to his treasure cache. Or even his ship, if he was deep enough in the rum. Life-changing prizes that would set up Cat for a very comfortable life in Itzima. A safe life, protected by wealth.