Chapter Thirty Before #2
But in her heart, Cat knew better. There were no gods in this world, Meridian or any other. No one was listening and no one was coming to carry her away.
“There is only me,” she said aloud, her reflection faint in the glass.
She looked the same—Catrine Rose, a lady of the Meridian, soft and prim and incapable. But her freckles had grown these months in the Lyrian Sea, her hair wilder, her hands not so smooth and clumsy.
She was Cat too.
By now, she knew her way around the ship unaided, and the crew let her pass without question, letting her wander.
There were fewer sailors aboard, with Garedo and a skeleton crew left to attend to the limping Victorious.
The remaining men were busy preparing to weigh anchor and jettison their peculiar cargo upon the captain’s command.
It was both a freeing and sobering feeling to know she mattered so little in the scheme of the ship.
Cat felt like a ghost passing through, and perhaps she was.
Or was certainly about to be.
Cat walked a dim passage, her mind spinning as she realized this would be the last time she glimpsed below deck of the Covenant. It slowed her feet, the rail sliding between her fingers. Every sense seemed to sharpen, as if the moment itself demanded to be remembered.
The smell of seawater lay heavy, along with pine tar and the distant odors of Cook’s over-salted stew.
Humid air clung to her skin, growing warmer as she climbed through the belly of the ship.
Shafts of sunlight pierced the shuttered gunports while the cannons stood silent in the shadows, slumbering beasts.
Cat knew to fear them, the drumbeat of a firing cannon still vibrating in her bones.
Ana barked orders somewhere overhead, her voice filtering down through the timbers as sailors jumped to her command.
More figures rushed about the gun decks, preparing empty barrels to take on water.
Cat wanted to lie and tell them the water on Rosby was sour.
They would have to sail for another island and put this place to the stern.
She emerged squinting into the fierce, hot sun. Instead of shielding her face, she tipped her chin up and shut her eyes, trying to bask in the blazing warmth one last time. Before turning for shore and leaving the sea behind.
Cat drew a shaky breath, holding on to the red darkness behind her eyelids as long as she could.
She already knew what waited when she opened her eyes, the smooth lines of the little island long burned into her mind.
The house below the crest of the hill, the stable, the sandy grass, the stubborn garden dying more by the day.
And the grove of phoenix trees casting their little pool of shade.
Cat inhaled again, the air laced with the smell of their leaves.
Once, the trees had been a great comfort.
Now they only made her feel sick.
“I will not pretend to understand what you are doing, but do you mind doing it in a less obtrusive place?”
Cat’s stinging eyes snapped open to find herself level with the open collar of a shirt, and a familiar chest. Her mind slowed, a stubborn wheel stuck in mud, trying to turn and failing.
Again, the moment tried to etch itself into her memory, the white cotton crisp against his golden skin and curling hair, the glimmering thread of his chain a line of light.
Her gaze trailed, finding the prayer bead dangling, the pale-blue stone laying flush against his sternum.
Valerian blinked down on her.
For an instant, she saw him as he was a few days ago, streaked with gunpowder and blood, dead men piled at his feet. Strangely, it did not fill her with dread.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he said, almost teasing. It was a harsh contrast to the last time she glimpsed the captain, stoic and surrounded by a terrible victory.
It felt embarrassing to acknowledge the truth of it, and Cat said nothing.
But Valerian pressed, leaning down. His smile turned sharper, a seductive and dangerous flash to his eyes. “Did we scare you, Lady Rose?”
Her cheeks burned. “Of course you did,” she said, the echo of gunfire still heavy in her mind. “The battle was monstrous. You were monstrous.”
“Was I?” he challenged. “I gave that captain a chance to save his crew, to surrender without bloodshed. He chose to pull the trigger, not me.” His face tightened. “Such is the way of the Meridian Empire. To win, no matter the cost.”
“Such is the way of the Lyrian Sea too,” Cat replied smoothly, surveying him.
Valerian’s skin was clean, the blood long gone—but the wounds of battle remained.
A few scrapes and bruises, perhaps a new scar on his knuckles.
One to match the dozen or so other marks on his body, most likely born of battles just like the attack on the Victorious.
Cat could not bear to count them all, a horrible testament to what Valerian was behind his dangerous smile.
“Perhaps this place makes monsters of us all,” she murmured.
Above her, Valerian arched an eyebrow but said nothing.
She shuddered under his attention, the weight of his eyes just as heavy as his hands once were on her face.
“You said I would learn. I am learning, Captain Kane.”
The splash of an anchor sounded worse than a gunshot, and just as final.
Cat jumped in her skin, startled back to the ship deck.
Her jaw clenched, her eyes finally landing on the familiar coastline.
The sad little beach, the bare grasses, a stubborn garden clinging to weak soil—and the peel-paint wreck of Rosby House, the crumbling estate that would be her grave if she let it.
“I hoped to never see this place again,” she said under her breath, and something flickered across Valerian’s face.
But what, Cat could not say, and there was little time to find out.
She startled again at another sound, worse than the anchor.
“Ryman,” she muttered.
Both captain and lady took a rocking step back, leaving a gap between them, as Lord Rose and Lieutenant Fell were shuffled up on deck.
Three sailors frog-marched the shackled Fell, while one kept a loose hand on Ryman’s shoulder.
The latter blinked fiercely around at the deck, eyes adjusting to the light.
He balked at the sight of Rosby, then the gathered strength of the Covenant, her crew armed for a skirmish, the danger of them on full display.
Cavallid, Garedo, Brimley. Even little Ratter held a knife.
But it was the sight of Valerian that washed his face of color. Unlike Morovant and his many flourishes, Valerian elected to let his weapons speak for themselves. His flintlock pistol was back at his side, along with the second belt of knives, the threat of them plain as day.
They had been cleaned since the battle, but Cat still imagined the blood on them, clinging like a scarlet ghost.
“Lord Rose, Lady Rose, we are to escort you ashore,” he barked, his voice ringing out over the ship. “You best make it worth our while.”
As a roar of laughter went through the crew, Cat thought of Moseley back at the house. Is she watching from the veranda, puzzling after the unfamiliar ship in the harbor?
The ship did not fly the black, nor any other color.
Will she still suspect pirates?
Certainly, Cat guessed, knowing Moseley’s keen mind. And her long years in the Lyrian. Cat hoped the old maid had the wherewithal to stay out of the way.
The laughter seemed to snap something in Ryman, and he ceased his sniveling, drawing himself up to his unimpressive height. In his borrowed clothes, he looked like a sickly pauper. But his eyes, pale and watery as they were, went to flint.
“I shall make it worth your while, Captain,” he replied, taking a step towards Valerian. But it was Cat he glared at, an easier target for his anger and impotence. “Infinitely so. Or for however long she interests you.”
Despite her best efforts, Cat flinched, her cheeks flushing red and warm.
Over Ryman’s shoulder, Ana recoiled in disgust, along with a few other members of the crew.
Cat dared not look at anyone else, unable to stomach the sight of her shame reflected back at her.
Or worse, abject pity. And there was no imagining Valerian at all.
She kept her eyes on Ryman, willing him to shut his mouth. But his foul lips kept moving, his words somehow crueler than his hands.
“I suppose you will discard her after a month or two,” he pressed on, laughing darkly. He even waved his hands, motioning for the crew to join in. To turn their ridicule on someone other than Ryman Rose. “Gods know I should have,” he added, his grin corrosive and hateful.
Cat felt it eat through her, punching a hole through her chest, leaving her empty and numb.
“Ryman. We shall go ashore,” she said stiffly, trying to keep her voice even. But it shook horribly, her eyes stinging. With sadness, frustration, rage—and shame too.
He took another step, and Cat flinched again, fearing a blow even from yards away. Her husband was nothing compared to the screams of sailors and thunderous cannons, but she feared him just the same.
He raised a hand, pointing at her furiously.
For a brief moment, Cat saw not the drowned rat her husband had become, but the man he was in Meridia.
Bewigged and powdered in a silk suit, done up in his trappings of wealth and society.
A poor lord was a lord still, the world at his feet if he dared to grasp it.