23 LONNIE
ABOARD THE FORESIGHT
In my dream, I pushed the door open, the Fae males walking close behind me. My mother stood at the long wooden counter in the corner of the small kitchen, chopping roots with a long knife. Immediately, I felt safer.
“Mother,”
I began, but didn’t get a chance to finish.
“Rhiannon,”
the frightening man interrupted me. “I’m glad to see you’re well.”
My mother dropped her knife at the sound of his deep voice and turned with a gasp.
Her face was pale and heart-shaped like mine, her hair a shade brighter red and tied back in a long braid. She barely looked at the second Fae, who stood near the door, all her attention focused on the frightening man. “What are you doing here?”
“Did we not agree to meet?”
he said pleasantly.
“Yes, but—”
she looked at me, her eyes darting anxiously toward the door. “Lonnie, where’s your sister?”
“Outside,”
I said quickly.
“Why don’t you join her.”
The frightening man laughed. “It seems the children aren’t safe outside if they are running into strangers at every turn.”
My mother bristled. “They’re fine. You are the problem here.”
“Is that any way to greet an old friend?”
Mother snatched her knife off the ground. She brandished it at the commander. “I’ll greet you with this unless you tell me what you’re doing here. We were not supposed to meet for months.”
“Plans change,”
he said, honey dripping from his voice. “I need you to do something for me.”
Again, mother glanced at me, as if only just realizing I was still there. “Lonnie!”
she snapped. “Go outside.”
“But—”
I cast around for some excuse that would keep me in the room. My curiosity burned like fire within me. “I thought I heard a mountain lion earlier.”
To my surprise, the commander threw back his head and laughed. “Why doesn’t Ambrose here watch the children while we talk. In case there are any more lions lurking around.”
The second Fae male looked up suddenly. “Commander, you’re not fucking serious. You didn’t bring me here to play wet-nurse to human infants.”
I wrinkled my nose. I was hardly an infant—I would be eleven next year.
“I brought you here to do whatever I asked of you,”
the commander barked. “Go.”
My mother wrung her hands in her skirt, but nodded for me to follow.
Over the next several days, Ambrose Dullahan held true to his word.
Every morning, he’d remind me that if I wanted to eat I could join him in the dining room, then he’d leave, shutting me in the room all day. Every night, he’d return, and I would stubbornly sleep on the floor like a dog, so as to avoid touching him.
This went on for two straight days, and at first, the gnawing ache in my belly was manageable.
I’d been hungry in my past life as a servant, and even starving while in the dungeons. I was no stranger to finding ways to distract myself from the shooting pains in my stomach. Happily, the cabin was filled with books, and I distracted myself from the bleak situation learning history and geography that I’d never before had the time or opportunity to know.
Finally, however, I couldn’t take the hunger anymore, and on the morning of the third day since my attempted escape, I gave in.
Rising from the bed, which I occupied during the day so as to rest my aching joints, I dragged myself across the small room and tried the door. It was not locked, and I found myself staring out at the wide-open sky, and the bustling deck of the ship.
Stepping out onto the deck, I shivered slightly at the cold winter air that blew in huge gusts, picking up the ends of my hair and the hem of my borrowed shirt. I turned my head this way and that, trying to take in everything at once.
Men and women barked orders at each other, while others hoisted sails and scrubbed the wooden planks clean. The sound of creaking ropes and splashing waves created a symphony of maritime activity. Far in the distance, I could just barely make out Dullahan standing on the captain’s platform at the wheel, his long white hair almost shining in the bright sun.
I scanned the faces of the crew members as I walked nervously down the center of the ship. Not a single person paid me any mind, but still I couldn’t help but notice that almost all of his crew were humans.
That only fueled my dislike of the rebellion. A fairy war fought by human soldiers gave an uncomfortably real meaning to the word “Slúagh.”
The literal translation of the Fae slur for humans was “Sword fodder,”
and that had never felt so real as it did in this moment.
Grinding my teeth, I reached the other side of the ship and stopped at a set of stairs leading up to the captain’s deck. I glanced around again, half expecting someone to stop me, or at least ask where I was going. No one did, and with a final anxious glance at the crew I began to climb.
There were three people on the captain’s deck—or rather, two Fae males, and a woman who looked to be half-Fae.
My mouth fell open as I looked over the group. Ambrose Dullahan stood at the wheel, steering the ship, while the tiny black-haired woman spoke to him in rapid, too-quiet words I couldn’t make out. They were not what shocked me, however. The other male—tall, with close cropped hair and tattoos covering his scalp—glanced at me as I approached. I met his green eyes, and instantly recognized him. “You!”
I exclaimed. “You shot me, you fucking bastard.”
I took a quick, jerking step toward the male. I was absolutely certain it had been him whom I’d seen in the Waywoods, just before I shadow walked. Not only that, but while back in Inbetwixt, Scion and I had sought a male of this exact description in the brothel owned by one of the city’s many guilds. We’d never found him, but I’d suspected it was he who had scribbled my mother’s name on Phillipa Blacktongue’s client book, as some sort of cruel taunt on behalf of his rebel commander.
Before I could demand an explanation, Ambrose Dullahan raised his voice to a volume I could actually hear over the rushing wind. “Riven, Lin, leave us.”
I gaped after my attacker as he followed the small woman down the stairs and out of sight. Every bone in my body wanted to chase after him. To attack, to do…something. Only, it was now more clear than ever that my true enemy still stood before me.
The rebel leader hadn’t even looked at me as I approached him, though he would certainly have been able to see my entire walk from end to end of the ship. Now, he kept his eyes firmly on the horizon, entirely focused on steering the ship.
“Dullahan,”
I said, bitterly. “You ordered your man to shoot me.”
It wasn’t a question, but Dullahan answered as if it were. “Yes.”
He cast me a sideways glance. “And ‘Ambrose’ is fine.”
“Don’t like your nickname?”
I asked with a harsh laugh. “What does it mean anyway?”
“I’ll tell you over dinner, assuming you share something about yourself first, Elowyn.”
I wrinkled my nose. “Here’s something,”
I snapped. “No one has called me Elowyn since I was a child.”
He looked contemplative. “Right, sorry love. Old habits…”
I reeled back, surprised by his casual tone. This male had ordered someone to kill me in the forest, knocked me out and dragged me onto his ship, no doubt bound for my death, but he’d also saved my life from the sea monster, and talked as if we were…not friends, perhaps, but at least as if we knew each other.
My mind spun with questions, and I forgot for a moment what I was doing here in the first place, but Dullahan reminded me. “Are you willing to eat yet?”
I ground my teeth, and as if on cue my stomach rumbled loudly. “Yes.”
“Good.”
He looked at me for the first time, his face impassive, as if he were staring through me. “I’ll have something appropriate for you to wear brought to the cabin.”
I frowned. In truth, my stomach was almost weeping with hunger, and I didn’t want to spend another second waiting, now that I’d given in. Dressing up for him was the last thing I wanted to do, especially if it prolonged my meal. “I don’t remember that being part of the agreement.”
Ambrose cast me a condescending look. “If you’d prefer to keep wearing my clothes, be my guest, but you should know you’re becoming quite the source of gossip among the crew.”
I snapped my mouth shut, my cheeks heating. I longed to point out that there would be nothing to gossip about if he’d just let me sleep in another room, but didn’t feel like wasting my breath on pointless arguments. “Fine. I’ll wear whatever you want, just bring it quickly.”
He grinned. “I’m glad you see it my way.”
I’d barely crossed the deck of the ship again, arriving in the cabin where I’d been sleeping, before there was a knock at the door. I rushed to open it, and came face to face with a young, chestnut-haired man. He was covered in freckles from the top of his forehead down to his hands, which shook slightly as he held out a tangled ball of burgundy silk.
“For me?”
I asked, glancing down at the fabric.
The man nodded, and shoved the bundle at me. Holding it up, I realized it was a gown that looked at once too formal and too delicate to wear on a ship such as this.
“Wait!”
I called, as the man had already turned to leave. “Do you have anything else? Trousers perhaps?”
The man looked over his shoulder at me, and finally spoke in a clipped, rasping tone. “This is what the captain sent, miss.”
I took that to mean that even if he could’ve found other clothing, he wouldn’t. I groaned. “You can tell your captain that he is only confirming my opinion of him.”
The man paused. “Which is what, miss?”
“That he’s a controlling fucking bastard.”
“Yes, miss.”
Slamming the door, I made my way across the room and laid the dress out across the bed. Something heavy fell from between the folds of fabric, and I jumped in shock, as whatever it was landed beside my foot and rolled across the floor and under the desk.
My heartbeat increasing inexplicably, I got down on my hands and knees and poked my head under the heavy wooden desk. I blinked in surprise, and stretched my hand out to reach the black, glittering object. Pulling it out, I straightened and held my breath as I stared down at the dangerous looking obsidian crown. What the fuck?
The crown sparkled without anything to reflect off of, and I glimpsed my own distorted reflection in its smooth, black face. It seemed to pulse with a strange sort of energy, like it was alive and not a chunk of carved stone.
I shivered, and tossed the crown unceremoniously on the bed. I didn’t care about the crown in the same way Bael and Scion did, but I didn’t want to wear it either. Something about it sent cold shivers up my spine, and turned my stomach.
Ignoring the crown, I instead looked down at the dress it had come wrapped in. The gown reminded me simultaneously of all the intricately decorated clothing Scion bought me in Inbetwixt, and of the iron and purple gown Iola had made for me back at the palace on the occasion that I’d attended the ball with the prince’s raven.
At that thought, I looked over at the window, half expecting Quill to be hovering outside, as if summoned by my thoughts. Nothing but the sky and the ocean stretched before me and I sighed heavily.
I’d done my best not to think of Bael or Scion in the last days, and for the most part, I managed.
That was one reason I despised Ambrose Dullahan’s similarities to his brother and cousin. They too, liked to drag me around, and seemed to enjoy buying me clothing I never would have otherwise worn. I hadn’t lied when I said Dullahan reminded me of his family, but they had better qualities which outweighed the rest.
Ambrose Dullahan might have some of the same mannerisms and proclivities, but only those which I disliked. Everything he’d done was closer to the cruel, smirking princes who had once tormented me. He was nothing like the males I’d left in the inn, who looked at me as if they couldn’t turn away, and who’d saved my life more times than I could count.
I hated to allow myself to think of them, as it left a gaping wound where my chest should be. A large part of me felt guilty for leaving, and another part hoped they’d soon arrive to rescue me.
It was a selfish thought, and one I refused to voice, less I somehow wish it into existence.
I’d left to keep them safe, and I supposed one benefit to this mess was putting even more distance between us than I ever could’ve managed on my own.
Someone had brought a bathing tub into my room while I’d been gone, and I took a quick bath, trying not to dwell on thoughts of the last time I’d stepped into a tub. Once finished, I reluctantly unwrapped the new dress and laid it out on the bed.
Fortunately, it was not a complicated pattern, and I didn’t require any help to do up the lacing in the front. Unfortunately, however, the size was slightly too small and I looked down in dismay at how the fabric clung to my body like a second skin, and pushed my breasts up below my chin.
It could be worse, I supposed. I could still be covered in blood.
The sailor—or perhaps he was a servant, I wasn’t sure—returned in due course, and knocked three times on my door. I hurried to let him in, already dreaming of whatever food might await me.
The freckled sailor looked up at me, his eyes lingering on my head. “You’re not ready, miss?”
He phrased it like a question. “Should I come back?”
“No, I’m quite ready,”
I said quickly, trying to usher him out the door. “Let’s go.”
He shook his head vigorously. “The crown, miss. I was told ‘specially to make sure you didn’t forget it.”
I gnashed my teeth. To argue, or to eat?
“Fine,”
I said viciously, and dashed back across the room to snatch the crown from the bed. Shoving it on my head with little care for how it was positioned, or the state of my wild, curling hair, I grimaced and stomped back to the door. “I’m ready.”
The sailor looked like he wanted to protest, but seemed to think better of it. “Very good, miss.”
I followed him out onto the deck of the ship, feeling like I was walking the gangway to my death. We reached the opposite end of the ship, but instead of climbing the stairs to the navigation deck as before, the sailor gestured me toward a large wooden door. I sighed, bracing myself, and knocked.