The Azure Warlock (Heroes of Melowynn #3)

Chapter One

THERE WERE FEW THINGS THAT COMPARED to greeting the dawn on the bow of a ship.

A handful of plump cock or a hefty breast, a fine wine, a hold filled with fine linens, rich tapestries, and a goodly amount of the king’s gold. The king.

“Fukkate.” I sighed as I placed my hands on the rail of the Cloud’s Shame—a name that finally made sense to me—to observe the pink and purple reflection of the sky on the waves.

Rough waves. The Stormhold was never calm, not really.

Even in the brief summer the northern sea was chaotic, which my father had always noted reflected life. My father.

“Fukkate.” I heaved once more, the Bhaston expletive expressing my thoughts perfectly on this riotous morn.

My sight lifted from the cold, gray waters of the Stormhold to the skies, deceptively glorious, as if the sea witches had chosen to taunt me with a day so perfect bards would pen prose about it.

A lone gull kited overhead, dipping and diving, the warming winds lifting him up as if he were light as a letter. A letter.

“Fukkate,” I snarled yet again, spinning from the sea but unable to leave my thoughts at the bow.

Not even the figurehead of the three witch sisters, voluptuous they may be, could ease the turmoil in my head.

Pulling my hair back from my face into a thick tail which I tied off with a cornflower ribbon from a former lover, I strode along the deck of my ship, my skeleton crew of a dozen loyal souls readying for a journey none had dared take before.

We sailed to the docks of Celear. A perilous trip for those such as us.

The king’s army, and now its ever-increasing navy, disliked privateers.

No, disliked is not a strong enough word.

They loathed us. They would sooner see us floating belly up in the Silvura Sea like dead sucker fish than speak to us.

A sad state as, if they would only lower taxes on the poor and indigent, we would not have to steal to survive.

I was not an overly educated elf, being taught aboard this ship, but even a pirate could see the simplicity of it all.

The nobles were too greedy to envision such a simple notion. Riches did blind a soul.

Entering my cabin, I froze to witness a small blue dragon with its snout in one of three small chests fastened to a wooden shelf.

The dragonling—a companion or pet, I was not sure which but suspected a dragon would never allow itself to be a pet—of the two passengers that were yet to arrive slid a silver ring onto its long tail.

“Excuse me,” I said aloud. The wyrmling lifted its head from my jewelry while clutching a gold bracelet beset with rich rubies in his toothsome maw.

“How did you enter my quarters?” The beast gazed at me as if I were a fool then glanced at the open porthole.

“Ah, well, haul your scaled arse out of my private quarters. Ah! No, do not fly off with my damn—” Off he went, wings carrying him back out the way he came in.

“Bastardly son of a bilge sucking whoremaster!”

“Captain?” I spun at the call from my first mate behind me.

Hyla Everwind. Another person who had spun a web of lies that found me wrapped up in silken threads I feared I would never break free of.

I couldn’t gauge which of the liars I had shared my entire life with had pained me more with their deceptions.

My father or this woman who had nursed me then went on to raise me as a mother would her own babe.

The hurt was an open wound. My father was dead.

I couldn’t vent my wrath on him, but Hyla…

“If that bastardly wyrm took the sphere…” I snarled, throwing open the smaller of the chests before breathing a sigh of relief.

The blue orb—The Seafoam Lucent—was still nestled amid a swath of deep cerulean velveteen.

I plucked it out of the chest, feeling the call of the water the moment my skin touched it, and shoved it into a pocket inside my vest. It was no larger than a plum, cold as the Stormhold no matter the weather, and reflected the sea to those who possessed water magicks.

Like my father. Like myself. My magicks was formidable without the lucent, but with it, the sea was my pet.

A wild, wooly, and not wholly domesticated pet.

More like a wild beast who mollifies you as long as you please it.

But when you do not…well, my father learned that lesson.

The sea witches giveth and the sea witches taketh away.

“Out of the way,” I snapped, catching the flash of hurt in her pale brown eyes.

She hurried to clear the doorway. I yanked her small crossbow from her hip as I stormed out onto the deck, the waters under my ship reacting to my ire.

The sea rose and fell, slapping against the docks in agitation.

My eyes went skyward. There. The blue bastard circled the crow’s nest as if he were on a merry little flight to take in the scenery.

I raised the weapon, sighting in the dragonling, and rested my finger on the trigger.

“What are you shooting at?” The voice of the ginger root scout, Beiro Vahorn, reached me.

With the crossbow trained on the wyrm, I threw a glance toward Beiro, then turned back and lost sight of the dragonling as he landed in the crow’s nest with his booty.

The shitter. It rankled that a pirate had just been pilfered so neatly. And by a beast.

“Your little pet has stolen from me,” I snarled, lowering the crossbow and shoving it at Prescott. My massive second mate and personal guard took it without comment. Beiro and his dwarven lover, Asdren Grimmane, both looked skyward.

“Ah, well, he is not my pet so much as he is my bonded friend.” Beiro smiled softly and turned his attention to me from the sky.

“I am sorry. He is a dragon. To him, shiny things are like honey to a badger. If you let him have that area for the trip, he will just store the things he finds there. After we land in the port of Celear, you may simply gather the goods.”

“That is my fucking crow’s nest. There’s a reason it’s there. I may have need to send a man up to scout ahead.” The royal scout looked at his lover. The dwarf seemed unsettled. I’d heard many of the stone folk disliked being on the water.

“Oh, yes, true. Well,” Beiro rubbed a finger over his freckled nose as Asdren made his way to the rail to stare over the side, long beaded beard hanging over the rail, “I will speak with him about being polite to any sailor who climbs up near his horde. That’s the best I can do. He is a dragon.”

I stepped up to the red-headed elf, my half-human blood giving me a handspan or more of height on the slim scout. “That excuse will wear off quickly. The first of my crew that wyrm bites will result in his pelt being made into a new boot for Hyla’s wooden leg.”

My first mate held out her pinewood leg, the sequined slipper glimmering in the sun. The royal scout was not intimidated. If anything, color rose in his cheeks, turning the freckles a deeper cinnamon tone.

“If you so much as pluck a scale from his hide, I will slit your throat while you sleep.”

“Ah, so there’s the son of the bandit coming out. Guess all those dandified courtly manners slip now and again.” Beiro snarled, his chin coming up in defiance. Brave. I would give the boy that. Surrounded by bloodthirsty pirates, he stood his ground. Well, he stood the dragon’s ground. Admirable.

“Keep your chests locked tightly and he will not be able to rifle through them,” Beiro countered.

“Noted.” I spun from the irate scout to focus on the dwarf. “Master Grimmane, what are you looking for?”

“The witches,” he replied, now up on his booted toes. “I ain’t sailing over waters them witches of yours are fecking about in.”

That made the sailors on board chuckle. The witches were everywhere.

Any place there was saltwater the trio of sisters lurked unknowingly.

Oft times leaving their oceanic trench to swim through the sea, stirring up mighty storms or plucking bones and anchors from ships that sank from the depths.

Many a sailor knew the wrath of the witches.

Few had lived to tell the tale of being caught in one of their massive whirlpools or their tempests.

While they favored the Cadere bloodline that didn’t mean they would not sink my ship should I cross them.

Fickle things they were but easily charmed.

Luckily, I was considered quite captivating.

“Then you shall have to walk for the seas are the witches’ playground,” Hyla fired back. The chain for the anchor began to rattle upward. The gangplank was brought aboard as the blood-red banner all independent privateers flew was hoisted.

“Too late, good dwarf,” I called out while stepping up to him, my arm falling around his thick, stout shoulders. “We’re putting out now, but don’t grow too worrisome. As long as we pay the sisters their dues as we sail, they’ll not set the beasties they command after us.”

“Never did care for being on the water,” Asdren muttered under his breath. I led him from the railing, partly to calm his unease, partly to show off the ship that was mine to command. “Sensible folk have dirt and rock under their boots.”