Chapter Thirty-Three After
“WHAT CHANGED, VALERIAN?”
Her eyes trailed, tracing the open collar of his loose shirt, running over familiar ground. Scars she knew better than her own. The braiding lines of an old tattoo. In the dim light, in the writhing shadows, she wondered if the Arcayan ink moved in time with his beating pulse.
“Besides the world itself?” Valerian scoffed, still beyond the water line, keeping some distance between them.
He seemed to itch under her investigation.
“You’re right, the Meridian has returned.
And with it the undeniable truth of our extinction, if we do not band together in our entirety. As we should have before.”
Cat lashed out, kicking the water, cursing the heart she knew so well.
“The moment for alliances has passed,” she hissed, taking a raging step forwards, back onto the sand. “Even if you somehow collected every pirate who could still hold a saber, every ship still afloat—it would not be enough.”
Her jaw clenched and she thought about throwing him into the shallows, to hold his head underwater until he saw reason or drowned. But Valerian dismissed her, as he had so many times before. He made her vision slant red, an angry heat washing through her.
It was the usual journey of the old argument, the path walked so many times, their footprints carved a bitter road. But something was different in Valerian now, barely there—but unmistakable.
Cat eyed him through her frustration, trying to read the quiet resolve on his face. And the weariness too. The shadows beneath his eyes, the worn look on his face. They worried her as much as any storm on the wind.
“What am I missing?” she murmured, taking another step closer.
He did not move, unflinching, refusing to cede any ground. Cat took it as an invitation and she scrutinized him one more time, trying to see past the hard angle of his jaw or the storm rush of his eyes. Her gaze traveled down his arm, to the rolled sleeve and the forearm bared to the moonlight.
A line of tattooed diamonds stared up at her, each one an island, holy and strange.
Her body shifted, as if the ship tipped beneath her, and Valerian pulled his arm away, obscuring the tattoo with a sudden jerk.
“Go back to the ship, Cat,” he bit out.
The tattoo was already fixed in her mind, memorized after so many years tracing it with her fingers, her mouth, her tongue. Seven islands, seven black diamonds. Arcayo, Rosby—and the rest.
Her breath caught.
“Why are the Arcayans building song towers beyond their island?”
Valerian did not react, going too still, as if frozen to the spot. Like prey in front of a predator.
Cat sunk her teeth in.
“I passed through Alvaris. There is a new song tower in their harbor, manned by an Arcayan priest,” she said, watching every minute flinch of muscle in his face. “The Esperese are not believers. What business have they with the Song?”
He finally gave a shrug, running a hand through salty hair. “You should have asked that in Arcayo. I am but a pirate. I know nothing of politics, as you’ve pointed out many, many times.”
Valerian even dared a patronizing smile, until Cat lunged forwards, seizing one necklace among the many others.
“And what is this?” she demanded, holding up the Arcayan amulet. The golden charm washed silver in the moonlight, almost glowing.
His smile dropped and Valerian wrenched the necklace away, ripping the beaded length from her grasp.
“You’ve asked enough questions. It’s my turn,” he snapped, tucking the amulet back into his shirt. Then he leaned forwards, towering over her to blot out even the stars. “Was Fell hunting you? Or was he following you?”
He’s trying to distract you, throw you off the scent, Cat told herself, even as she rolled back on her heels. Her head tipped, trying to hold his eyeline even as his warm breath washed over her face.
Her throat worked, swallowing hard as she considered what to say next. What does he know, and what will he believe?
“You saw the warrant of execution yourself. It’s my head if I go back to Archenport,” she replied. The admission, though calculated, still felt shameful. “Empty handed.”
The truth is always best. A piece of it, at least.
Grim satisfaction filled his face, his lips pursing. But Cat did not miss the flicker of regret, small as it was, barely a candle before being snuffed out.
“I see,” he laughed, though it sounded more like a snarl. “You’ve changed so much over the years. And yet not at all.”
Her hand brushed his arm tentatively, but he shrugged away.
“I always planned to give Jasper the slip,” she offered, still weighing her options. “I tried in Alvaris first, but—”
Valerian’s jaw tightened. “Ana sent you on your way.”
“It was good to see her. Even at the wrong end of a knife,” Cat muttered. She raised her hand, touching the still-healing cut on her neck.
His eyes flashed, following the path of her fingers.
“Go back to the ship,” his hissed, repeating himself.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
Without thought, the pirate grabbed her by the bicep again, marching her the last few feet to the longboat.
It was not gentle, his strength and frustration on full display.
Water sloshed around their feet, and Cat caught herself on the edge of the boat, holding firm before Valerian could toss her in.
She whirled, bracing her back against the smoothly curved hull. He loomed again, fire-eyed and frustrated.
“I wish it could have happened differently,” she said, sending him reeling back on his heels.
A low growl whistled through his clenched teeth, one hand tearing at his hair in frustration.
“Tell me, Cat, what other path would you have chosen? If given the chance to go back?”
“I don’t know. But I can still wish.” The smell of him was making her head spin again, and Cat fought to keep steady, one fist clenched, nails digging into flesh. “If you had listened—”
Then he seized her by the face, thumb and forefinger framing the length of her jaw.
All thoughts of the beach disappeared, the sounds of the tavern fading away.
Even the feel of the sea vanished, lapping against her calves, her bare feet submerged.
There was only the burning skin of his palm against her throat, Cat’s pulse thrumming against Valerian’s open hand.
He bent, nearly nose to nose with her, so close Cat had to stop herself from closing the last few centimeters.
“I did listen. I heard everything you said. I just didn’t agree.” His voice was not soft or kind, making her shiver. Out of fear or pleasure, Cat could not tell. “And I still don’t. This war is not over, and I was hardly going to surrender before it even began.”
“Survival is not surrender,” she bit back at him, leaning into his grasp.
His fingers tightened, pressing deeper.
“I’ve half a mind to give Jasper Fell and his crew to the deep, but at least I respect them. They have loyalty, they have faith,” he growled, never blinking, the fury of a hurricane in his eyes. “They believe in something—other than themselves.”
The red sheen returned, fire licking up Cat’s spine as the world washed scarlet.
“I believed in you once,” she replied, clawing at his wrist. Her eyes stung, the silver moon going red as her anger. “I will never make that mistake again.”
I should have let you sail with Morovant.
I should have let you all die and been done with this six months ago, Cat thought, peeling Valerian’s hand off her throat.
She knew there was no breaking his hold under her own power, but he relinquished, letting her go.
Her mind flew as she moved, turning back to the longboat, pitching herself over the side in a very undignified way.
Flustered and furious, she reached for the oars, thinking only of the Covenant behind her. Not Valerian, not the crew in the Drowning Drink enjoying what last gasps of freedom they could.
Don’t think about them. It’s your head or theirs, your head or theirs...
Her hands closed over the handles of the oars, the wood smooth beneath her grasp. But only one side moved, the other stuck fast against something.
She loosed a frustrated snarl at Valerian standing calf-deep next to the boat, one hand holding the offending oar in place. The other curled over the lip of the boat.
“I am capable of rowing a boat fifty feet,” Cat said dryly.
“I think you’re capable of rowing yourself back to Archenport at this rate,” Valerian answered, putting his shoulder to the longboat and pushing the little vessel off the sandy shore. He moved with it, leaping in with far more grace than Cat had.
Scowling, she crossed her arms and ceded the oars, allowing Valerian to row them both into the shallows. His shoulders worked, rolling beneath the lines of his shirt in a way that made Cat’s skin prickle. Don’t look, she told herself, angling in any direction but his.
She felt his eyes on her face anyway, and the steady rhythm as he pulled the oars, his long body working back and forth. Without thought, Cat dipped a hand in the waves gliding past. Warm as the sea was, it was a cooling balm to her flushed skin.
“I want off this ship. The fleet is trawling the Lyrian, hunting you. And it’s only a matter of time before a man-o’-war runs up on your stern.
If you let me return to Nera, I can make my own way from there,” she said, voice stiff as her posture.
“I’ll be gone with the next tide, and you’ll never have to think of me again. ”
“I think about you every time I close my eyes,” he muttered back, scowling through the darkness. It sounded like a threat. And somehow, a confession too.
Cat bit the inside of her cheek, unable to comprehend much beyond the next slap of the oars. And then the next step up the sea ladder, one hand passing over the other, hauling herself up and onto the Covenant with Valerian not far behind.