Chapter Thirty-One After #2
Adelo shook his head at the mess but retreated for the evening, leaving Cat to her lamps and the captain’s papers. As before, he had removed his more recent logs and charts. His voyages of the last few months remained a mystery.
One Cat was eager to unravel.
I intend to get off this ship with at least something to show for it, she told herself, poring over his ledgers, looking for some clue. Especially if the navy closes in. I will need something to trade for my freedom, and I suppose the crew of the Fledge will hardly be worth the prize.
It was tedious work, sifting through columns of carefully inked inventory and lists of stores.
Taken on, carried off, bartered for, stolen, or bought.
In Alvaris, in Nera, in city ports and little village docks.
The Covenant was careful to avoid Meridian holdings in the north, where the navy’s grip was strongest, beyond the protection of the storm-ridden Furies.
Tongue between her teeth, Cat took careful notes of her own, alongside a little map where she marked hasty lines of passage.
If Valerian was assembling an armada of ships, all commandeered from the Meridian navy, he would need somewhere to anchor them.
But where?
Her eyes lifted from the desk and the tray of food, crumbs scattered across the open pages.
Cat wrinkled her nose and pressed a few crumbs into the seam of Valerian’s ledger, to annoy him at a later date.
Behind her, the gallery windows darkened, the pink glow of sunset giving over to bruising purple and the first winking stars.
And where are we going? Cat wondered, watching night crawl across the sky and darkness pool beneath the waves.
The Covenant and the Fledge crawled along the Hook, keeping a bank of storm clouds well to the northeast. Lightning flashed and thunder rolled from far off, the winds rattling the windows—but the storm never closed in, and it never blew away.
Cat wondered if Valerian was following it, using the storm as a wall to hold one side of the sea.
But she knew how fast tempests traveled, the winds of the furious Lyrian storm season blowing hurricanes across the islands in a day or so. This one seemed to linger, heavy and black like an angry guardian across the horizon.
May the storm be your shield. It rattled in her head, impossible as it sounded.
Then all thoughts of the strange, scribbled prayer melted away. Cat pressed against the windows, eyes racing across the horizon, weighing what she knew of the Lyrian to their position. They were well past Rosby, but Rosby was not the only island filled with painful memories.
There is Kiers, she noted, recognizing the distinctly knobbled coastline of white beaches and rocky green hills. Then Tharrow.
And ahead...
Her breath caught. She turned from the window gallery of the captain’s quarters, facing the still-locked door.
As if she could see through the wall and the chamber on the other side, out to the main deck, beyond the forecastle and the prow.
Over many miles of open water, to a spit of land still far out of sight.
Drowning Key.
“Gods damn you, Kane,” she hissed to herself, tipping the last remnants of her food into the ledger and slamming it shut.
She hoped it would rot.
* * *
THE WAVES LAPPED well over the remains of the dock, almost washing up on the steps of the old Drowning Drink.
The makeshift tavern was missing a wall, and the ocean breeze whistled through its remaining broken windows.
But it was not a ruin. On the contrary, the old Drink was now a covered porch for the new Drink, built of stone and wooden poles, along with a thatched roof of dried palm fronds.
It was twice the size, open on one side to face the steadily rising waters of the Lyrian Sea.
Cat recalled many hazy nights drinking in the newly built tavern, before dancing beneath the palms and then the stars on the powder-white beach.
Despite the improvements, even the new Drink had seen better days.
The fall of the republic, and the deaths of so many crews, left her to the elements, her stone floor half buried in sand.
But not for long. Figures moved about beneath the shade of the palm roof, sweeping the floor or mending holes in the thatch.
Some were already drinking, raising bottles to the island and the ship.
Ships, Cat reminded herself, the Fledge still with them.
Teeth clenched, Cat tried the door again, thumping her shoulder against the wood. She received a sore arm for her efforts.
I refuse to be a prisoner, Cat thought, cursing to herself as she rubbed her bicep. She had spent too long clawing her way to freedom; she did not intend to give it up now. And certainly not to bullheaded, stubborn, shortsighted Valerian Kane.
The pirates did not wait for nightfall to row over to the beach. A few swam, laughing in the warm water as they leisurely made their way. Cat recognized most from the window—able gunners and talented seamen, well-suited to life beneath the black flag. Rowdy, bold, deadly, and brave.
Valerian did not swim, but rowed across with Adelo, a lantern perched at the prow of the longboat.
It was not far between the Covenant and the beach, but the lantern would be a welcome sight in darkness, when the pirates had to stumble back to the water’s edge.
Cat slipped back into the cabin before he could spot her, pressing against the wall to avoid the stormy gaze of the pirate captain.
Then she waited, counting the minutes.
Purple and blue washed across the sky, a half-moon rising over the single crest of Drowning Key.
The shadows shifted, cast by moonlight and lanterns prickling to life across the Fledge.
They would be doing the same on the Covenant, illuminating the ship fore and aft.
With the captain across, there would be only a skeleton crew left aboard, having drawn short straws to stay behind.
Laughter and music rose up from the Drink, loud enough to wash over the ship. The remaining crew would hardly notice one more shadow.
Or one more splash.
Cat was not the strongest swimmer, but she could manage well enough. Especially in the protected bay, with gentle waves and little current. At least she knew to leave her shoes behind. There was nothing so horrible as a waterlogged pair of boots.
She fell more than dove, arms wheeling as she leapt from the open window of the captain’s quarters to land feet-first in the sea.
Water closed over her head in a rush, but she soon found the surface again, legs kicking and arms pulling her forwards with even strokes.
She’d donned breeches—far easier to swim in—and left the rest of her effects in the cabin so as not to weigh her down.
She only hoped her wet blouse was not so sheer as to give her trouble.
Or perhaps that will improve my odds, she thought, making for the shore.
Her bare feet touched soft sand in a few minutes, salt water heavy on her tongue, and she climbed out of the sea as gracefully as she could. Rivulets of water ran down her neck and hands as she wrung out her hair, twisting the curls like a wet cloth.
Adelo spotted her first, smoking his pipe as he sat on the foundation lip of the old Drink. His beard was gray, but his brows were still a furious black that disappeared into his silver hairline.
“Cat, you can’t be serious,” he muttered, jumping up to meet her. But there was a grin on his lips, his eyes sparking with amusement. “Get back to the ship.”
“Make me,” she retorted, never breaking stride.
Inside the old Drink, a few men played dice on the bare floor next to the old bar, now shoved up against a remaining wall.
Cat eyed them, then the bar top and the broken cabinets smashed open.
Bits of glass glittered in powder-fine grains of dust, the remnants of another memory.
The doorway was gone too, its wall swept away in a hurricane.
Once Cat hovered on the same threshold, a foot planted on either side, with storm eyes above her, holding fast. Her heart twisted, a sick feeling in her stomach, and she forced herself through a door that no longer existed.
Then the sailors spotted her. One gave a finger-waggling wave, smiling with a mouth of missing teeth. His curly black hair was shot with silver.
“Has the captain let you out?” Cavallid called, his tone light.
“Hardly,” she answered, stepping into the old Drink. Her eyes flashed over the dice game, reading the bone squares marked with black dots. She weighed their odds.
But the pot was far too poor for her liking.
The new Drink was not so tightly pressed as the old Drink, with the thatched roof high above her and a floor of stones and plank wood below.
But it still felt raucous enough. The open side caught the breeze off the shore, cooling the air despite the many sweating sailors drinking and shouting and smoking around her.
None of it bothered her. On the contrary, a room filled with drunks felt warm and familiar after so many years tending a tavern of her own.
A fiddler sawed his way around the room, followed by a pair of sailors blowing into hornpipes.
Their melodies braided into a tune that made Cat’s blood surge, and many pirates stomped their feet in time to the music.
A few even danced, men and women paired together or with each other, all grinning and circling, one hand on a bottle with the other on a shoulder.
For a moment, it was as if the republic had never crumbled. This was just another celebration after a successful hunt, and the Covenant would return victorious to Archenport.
Cat swept a bottle from the nearest table, gulping at whatever liquid it held. Rum, she thought, tasting sweet fire, though it was the burn of taquil she craved.