Chapter 27
Riella’s head throbbed.
She was lying on her back while being bounced around without pause, making her whole body vibrate unpleasantly. Opening her eyes revealed little. A dark fabric canopy stretched above her, sunshine darting through the cracks. Her pulse quickened. Where was Jarin? Was he alive? Moreover, where on earth was she?
“She’s awake.”
The voice was a man’s—quiet and unfamiliar.
Wincing at the ache in her head, she sat up. Three men huddled on wooden benches in the small space. Jarin lay unconscious on one of the benches.
Riella stood to go to him, but fell straight onto the slats of the floor. Through the gaps in the floorboards, the rocky dirt ground moved rapidly beneath them. She was in a cart pulled by horses, whose hooves clopped on the road.
But who were these men?
“Your friend’s alive,” said one of them. “We gave him a dram for the pain. You can wake him up if you like, but he’ll be sore.”
She shuffled to Jarin and leaned over him. His chest rose and fell steadily, and there was color in his face. The gash on his head had closed, leaving behind an angry red line.
“How long was I unconscious?” she croaked at the men. “Where are you taking us?”
A bald older man answered, who looked vaguely familiar. “We found you both on the beach this morning, in pretty rough shape. Couldn’t just leave you there, but we need to return to Klatos. Been stranded out here in the settlements for over a week now. We thought we’d take you with us.”
The other men grumbled something bitter and surly, not meeting Riella’s eyes.
The older man spoke over him. “And we’re happy to do it, too.” He gave her a kindly smile.
“That’s a siren,” spat one of the others, raising his voice. “And a bloodthirsty pirate. Savages, both of them. We ought not to harbor them. Dunno why you’d take the risk.”
“Don’t be silly,” replied the bald man with a chortle. “Sirens don’t have legs. And your so-called pirate won’t be thirsty for your blood—not in his condition. We believe in doing good deeds, don’t we?”
He winked at Riella and suddenly she recalled how she knew him. This man was the captain of the fishing boat she hauled to shore right before Polinth captured her. Had he recognized her? Was he trying to return a favor?
“Where are you heading?” he asked her. “We’ve just set off not ten minutes ago. Took us some time to get your friend into the cart, the huge lad he is.”
“Oh, um. The pine forest?” She didn’t know its name. “It’s off the main road, a few hours away. There’s a small bay and the trees are dark.”
He started nodding before she’d even finished speaking. “I know it. We’ll let you out there, no problem.” He stuck his head through a flap in the front of the cart and relayed instructions to the driver.
“Thank you,” she said when the man retook his seat.
Without anything to distract her, except for the nauseating and incessant bumping of the carriage, Riella dwelled on her imminent demise. Her insides were a tempest of conflict and feeling—for herself, for Seraphine, her siren friends, and Jarin.
In the privacy of her own thoughts, she wished she had more time with him. She’d grown attached to him. It was a new and foreign feeling, and already she grieved that she wouldn’t get to explore it properly. There were many things she didn’t want to say goodbye to, but Jarin was fast becoming number one. Her heart felt linked to his in a mysterious, invisible way. Death would sever that link, she supposed.
These were perfectly horrible thoughts, so she was glad when the cart finally slowed. The older man poked his head through the back flap before hopping out and tying it open with twine.
“This the place?” he asked Riella.
She peered out at the grim, lonely pine forest, and nodded.
The older man roused Jarin by feeding a few drops of a potion into his mouth. In less than a minute, the pirate was groaning and sitting up. He appeared every bit as confused as Riella had when she regained consciousness.
“These men let us ride with them to the forest,” she explained to him. “Are you alright to walk?”
He rubbed his head, which was now fully healed, as if he’d never been hurt at all. “Aye.”
The other men in the cart eyed Jarin in silence, much like the stablehand at the settlement. They seemed to have shrunk now that he’d awoken. Riella felt a rather absurd stab of annoyance that the men hadn’t feared her as much as they obviously feared him. She was every bit as capable of hurting them.
After he climbed from the cart, Jarin shook the older man’s hand in thanks. The man returned to the cart and it set off again, trundling away in a cloud of dust. Riella and Jarin stood in the middle of the road, regaining their balance and inspecting each other for injuries.
Jarin shocked her by spontaneously cupping her face and kissing her gently on the mouth. “You survived that blast, and without the help of sorcery. You are incredible.”
She exhaled. “I’m sorry for leading us into danger. I should’ve listened when you said we needed to leave the caves.”
He shook his head and drew her into a tight hug. “It was a trap all along. The moment we set foot on that mountain, Polinth had us.”
Riella grunted. “This is probably how I’m going to die. I’ll go running blindly into some trap. I won’t get a say in how it happens.”
“You can’t think like that. Just because last night didn’t go to plan, doesn’t mean it was a mistake. After all, now we can find Polinth. He said he’d be at the royal wedding. And with any luck, he thinks we died in the explosion.”
“I hope that’s true.” Riella looked up at him. “I’m glad you didn’t die last night.”
He smirked, dark circles under his eyes like shadows. “Takes more than that, siren.” He kissed her forehead. “Come, we have to go. The crew have probably returned to the Pandora by now.”
The crew was boarding the ship when Riella and Jarin arrived, ferrying themselves to the Pandora in rowboats. Berolt noticed them as he waited on the bank, lifting his hand in greeting. The strain in his expression worried her.
“How was it?” asked Jarin as he piled into the boat with Berolt and Riella and the last of the crew.
“We got plenty of loot,” replied Berolt in clipped tones. “Plenty of weapons, too.”
“Meet any resistance?”
“Nothing we couldn’t handle.”
Jarin nodded, frowning. Riella wondered what he was thinking, but dared not ask him in front of the crew. Something was definitely wrong.
No one asked Jarin and Riella how their night went.
Aboard the ship, Jarin did laps of the deck to check on the crew and the cargo. Only once they set sail did Riella begin to realize the problem. Looking around, the deck was far emptier than on yesterday’s journey. What happened to the rest of the crew?
She found Berolt and Jarin having a hushed discussion at the helm, steering the Pandora into open waters. Hanging back, not wanting to interrupt, she couldn’t help overhearing.
“—as soon as we parted ways with you yesterday,” Berolt was saying. “They set off toward Klatos once we left the pine forest. Splintered off from us. Made me real nervous, but what could I do?”
Jarin shrugged and stared straight ahead, gripping the wheel. “No point having a crew who aren’t loyal. Good riddance.”
“They said they’d not consort with a siren. I reckon they went to join Artus.”
“Let them. I’ll cut their?—”
As Jarin turned to say these words to Berolt, he saw Riella behind him.
She tried to rearrange her expression, so that her concern and dismay wouldn’t show. Jarin clearly had enough to worry about already—a good chunk of his crew had deserted him. Because of her, too.
“Riella—”
She shook her head. “I didn’t mean to interrupt.”
Before he could say more, she slipped away and climbed the rigging.
The desertion of crew members was yet another blow to their cause. Would their luck ever change for the better? Perhaps not, when death was her ultimate destination. No worse luck existed.
With clear blue skies and a calm sea, the Pandora traveled swiftly. Hieros Isle came into view within hours. From her vantage point, Riella was the first to lay eyes on the island.
She squinted, dread creeping up her spine. Splashes of red stained the white sand of the beach.
Then, she saw the body, slumped and broken in the shade of a palm tree.