Chapter Twenty-Five After #3
But there were few captains who did not know her face or name, or her position as proprietor of the Widow Rose. A pirate outfitter and known accomplice to Valerian Kane should have been dead months ago. Cat was a woman on the run as much as any of them, suspicion following in her wake.
“Where did you learn to run the tables so well, Miss?” the Esperese sailor asked, his accent thick and curling.
Cat flashed him a knowing grin.
“Far away from here,” she said truthfully, laying down a pair of stars.
Every day seemed farther from her mother’s house, every step of the path more impossible than the one before. Cat almost giggled to think of it, the unpredictable and implausible journey she had taken from the Meridian countryside to the Lyrian Sea. Much lost, much gained.
But one thing chased above all.
Freedom.
If every passing second tightened the noose, every coin gained loosened it.
Cat kept a weather eye for Goa, who had a habit of melting out of crowds, but he did not appear. She could only hope he did not linger after this morning and was off the island entirely, and out of her life.
The air in the gambling hall thickened, hot on her face.
Still smiling, she fanned herself with her hat, the brim washing a cooling gust over her fevered skin.
Distantly, she knew the taquil and the rum and the wine were to blame.
But it did not stop her from waving for another glass and indicating for the barmaid to leave the bottle.
Her gambling companions cheered when she passed it around, thick golden liquid sloshing from chair to chair.
The joyful noise and heated game drew eye after eye, and Cat waved for more bottles.
More eyes. More hands. More coins.
More.
More.
More.
The crowd around their table thickened, chairs changing.
The cook bowed out to be replaced by a glossy Itziman quartermaster with an envious collar of gemstones that soon joined the pot.
The Esperese sailor held his seat, dueling hard to keep afloat.
And Vex’s man gave way to Vex himself, the scarred and scowling pirate captain descending like a storm cloud.
“Captain,” Cat said, the tremor of fear in her dwarfed by the thrill of a sizable prize.
Avery Vex was no man to sneer at. Nearing fifty, bald beneath his tricorne, he had the build of a pit fighter, barrel-chested and broad.
His skin was the clay red of a Meridian sailor many years in the sun.
Appearance aside, Cat knew his reputation, though he had not anchored in Archenport in long years.
His galleon, the Harriet, named for a wife real or imagined, was an Esperese warship seized in a daring raid years ago.
And while she was smaller than vessels like the Seadragon or even Valerian’s Covenant, she had many kills to her name.
Vex was known to blast his way through ships twice their size, cannons loaded with chained shot to snap masts and immobilize hulking warships.
“Widow Rose,” he said gruffly, a tankard of ale clutched in his mutilated hand. Vex had lost two fingers to a skirmish some years ago, though it had not slowed him down. He eyed her shrewdly. “I’m told you shook a navy hunter this morning.”
“I’m told he’s in your custody,” she answered. “Will you bother with a ransom?”
Vex shrugged and watched the Itziman shuffle the cards. “More trouble than he’s worth.”
It was not difficult to follow his train of thought. The practice of ransoming officers was lucrative years ago, but far more difficult now with the pirates on the run. And Cat doubted Osprin would even honor the old terms. His iron fist would hardly open to save a captured sailor.
She swallowed down the guilt bubbling up. Fell would have let you hang, she told herself, though it did little good.
“I agree,” she said mildly.
Across the table, Vex’s bloodshot eyes flashed. “What would you know of it?”
Her first card flipped, black crescents face up.
“I’ll tell you what I told Garedo when I saw him. The navy has returned, the Meridian Empire stronger than ever. It’s only a matter of time,” Cat hissed, staring intently at Vex. “I’m running. You should too.”
He curled his lip, either disgusted with the sentiment or his cards. Cat guessed both.
“Cowards run,” he sniffed, organizing his hand. “Captains fight.”
When he added his first bet to the pile, Cat felt herself sharpen through the haze of alcohol. A spill of bright gold coins shone in the center of the table, Meridian lions stamped in the middle. These were not worn by many hands but freshly minted.
And freshly stolen.
Quite the endeavor, even for Vex.
Her next breath laced with cigar smoke, the scent distantly familiar.
She licked her lips nervously, tasting taquil and smoke.
Tobacco, and something sweeter. With a jolt, Cat realized her hat lay discarded on the table, forgotten.
Her face exposed to the wide room, to many eyes beyond the table. Eyes she could not control.
“No captain can fight alone,” she murmured, still watching Vex. He held no cigar, blew no smoke. But the smell persisted, stronger by the second.
Around the table, the other two players folded, unable to match so precious a pot so early in a game.
A tremor of fear shot down her spine, and Cat wondered if she should do the same. Admit defeat, don her hat, grab her purse, and turn tail for the inn. Hide until morning and be the first passenger aboard the Dorales.
With a grin, Vex set down his tankard. Over his shoulder, the room filled with more figures, more bodies.
More pirates.
“I’m hardly alone, Widow Rose.”
A rushing sound roared in her ears, rising like a furious wind.
The card table became the eye of a hurricane, with Cat trapped in the center.
Faces spun, the smell of smoke grew heavier, the taste of taquil turning to acid.
The floor heaved like the deck of a ship in a storm, tossing so violently Cat gripped the edge of the table to keep herself upright.
The heat in her skin became fever, flame running over every inch.
The time to run was gone.
If it had ever existed at all.
Cat’s grip on the table tightened, and the hall stopped spinning enough to notice how the sailors moved, darting aside like a school of fish avoiding a shark.
They parted without question, allowing someone to pass through without ever breaking stride.
Someone golden-headed and storm-eyed, taller than everyone else, his gait the loping prowl of an apex predator.
There was nothing to be done, no choice to make. All Cat could do was hold her ground and wield the cards she still had to play.
Steeling herself, she raised her face, chin high, shoulders thrown back. A fire burned in her chest, the rage all consuming.
But to the world she looked serene, the still surface of a safe harbor. A Meridian lady amongst monsters.
I am a monster too, she thought.
And you know it, Valerian Kane.
The first glimpse of him speared her through. Her heartbeat thundered, every breath more difficult than the last, until she thought the bodice of her dress might suffocate her.
Even so, she held on, refusing to blink or break or bolt.
Smoke wreathed Valerian’s head like a halo, catching the candlelight.
His eyes sparked through the shroud, gleaming from within, all the fury of the sea bound up in his glare.
He looked exactly as she remembered six months ago, and yet not at all.
The once-golden captain seemed made of shadows, black as the wildest deep.
Her vision shifted, the Valerian that was erased by the man approaching.
Hands that had never touched her in anger turned to fists, knucklebones white beneath tanned skin.
Familiar scars became terrible reminders of his lethal capabilities.
Long, lean arms that used to hold her body now threatened to wrap around her throat, tighter than any noose.
She swallowed against the sensation, the crushing weight of his rage already unbearable.
Where once Cat had reveled in the danger of him, in the sharp edges she knew would never cut her, now she felt the blade perilously close, and wielded for blood.
Valerian was no longer her loyal hound, but a desperate, starving wolf.
And Cat expected to be devoured.
Beneath the table, Cat’s free hand slipped into the pocket of her skirt. Her fingers curled around the grip of her old pistol, molding to cool, smooth wood.
If I die, I will not die alone.
Only Vex kept his seat. The other two players leapt up from the table upon seeing Valerian approach. They scurried out of his way without being asked, the reputation of Captain Kane well-known, respected.
And feared.
He did not acknowledge either man. Behind him, members of the Covenant crew fanned out. They wore faces Cat knew and cared for, or had once. She expected the same anger on them, the same stinging accusation.
Strangely, she saw none.
Not on Cavallid or Brimley, or Ratter grown tall as a mast. Not even on Adelo, Ana’s replacement, the pragmatic first mate privy to any and all of the captain’s whims.
Her grip on the pistol loosened, if only a little.
But her lips did not part, her voice too far away, her tongue like lead.