Chapter 5
RUN
ODELIA
He never came back.
It’s been two days, if the meals I’m brought are any indication.
The pain in my shoulder has faded, though it's blue with bruising. I haven’t seen the cook again, only the man with the close-cropped hair who called Rune away that first night.
He doesn’t sit to watch me eat—doesn’t even make eye contact.
The ship moves, then seems to fly and slowly, so slowly, I grow more haunted by the fear.
Alone with my thoughts, like Rune intends, no doubt, I can’t help but feel the idea of freedom creep away.
If the ocean can smother me so easily, imagine stone.
Everyone knows of Stonegallows—the inland mining prison—and its endless hunger for wrongdoers and the wrung out corpses it spits when it’s done.
Escape is unheard of. Being trapped there, underground, would be the same death, only slower. I can’t let that happen.
Desperation has me stealing a duragan bone from dinner.
The man with the hazel eyes and hair cropped short doesn’t notice.
By the time the ship is still again—shouts welcoming it in, commotion above as the ropes are tied—I’ve splintered it in half.
They’ll either serve as daggers or lockpicks, depending on what comes first: the navy, or the silence of night.
When the door opens again, I feign sleep, hoping to seem pliant. I don’t expect to fool Rune a second time, but it’s only Bear. He doesn’t try to wake me, instead quietly setting the bowl through the bars. He tugs up his shirt collar as he goes, his steps hardly making a sound.
Traitorous hope flutters in my chest as the evening wears on.
If they haven’t called anyone to retrieve me, maybe Rune is considering the deal after all.
I don't eat, but at some point, I doze, the constant vigilance requiring it’s due.
When I jerk awake, the ship is still. The bowl is gone, but there’s no breakfast in its place. It may be my last chance to escape.
My stomach twists at the thought of leaving the map behind.
But even if he’d have agreed to work with me, Rune has made his stance clear: He’d just as soon see me at the bottom of the ocean than trust me—a feeling that goes both ways—and working with him might end up being a race to see who goes back on their word first. Between being free and risking getting locked underground, there’s no contest.
I shift quickly, not allowing my animal form to stay long enough for the cage to overwhelm it. When I’m back in my skin, the manacles are off, and I hold a breath as I step to the lock.
This time, I’m gentle. The bone isn’t quite brittle, but if I snap it inside, I may as well lay down and let them ship me off.
Once I’ve angled everything right, a bit of tension leaves my shoulders.
With two picks the lock is a breeze, and a thrill races down my spine as the soft clunk of it releasing echoes through my fingers.
This is it. I’ve memorized the map. And since Rune doesn’t know the riddles, there’s no way he can solve them without me even if I have to leave it behind.
All that’s left is to get off the ship and away, into whatever wilderness surrounds this town.
Once I touch land, I’ll be in the wind. They could search for days—but they won’t be looking for a wood nymph deer shifter.
The gate creaks, so I only push it wide enough that I can slip through and then past the neat rows of barrels and crates.
When I move up the stairs, I skip the second step, familiar now with the way it protests under weight.
The next floor is empty, lined with polished cannons.
Muffled voices above tell me the next floor is occupied, but I square my shoulders and stride up, holding one sharpened bone close to my leg.
My heart beats hard in my chest as I rise into a room stuffed with mostly empty hammocks.
The crew must be out on the town, enjoying it while they can.
There’s movement, but I don’t give the rustling on one side time to register before I’ve flipped around to go up again and through the already opened door in the floor of the deck.
I keep moving. Trying not to draw the attention of the body in the crow’s nest. It’s dark, almost pitch black in the shadows of the torches.
Only a sliver of moon lights the sky, but the sea reflects the night’s stars across from a quiet dock.
The warehouses are empty, locked up for the night.
A lone figure walks past them, coughing into a rag, shoulders hunched.
Soft murmurs drift down from somewhere towards the front of The Gilded Hart. Probably whoever was tasked to stay behind to keep an eye on the ship. It doesn’t matter, because if they haven’t noticed me by now, they aren’t going to. I cross the deck on silent feet, double checking behind me as I go.
Until I crash into solid wood.
An arm snakes around my back, crushing me into an unyielding body, but my gasp is cut short as a hand clamps over my mouth.
“Going somewhere?”
Rune.
Golden markings shimmering up his thick neck.
Somehow he’s bigger out here, as if he’ll take up all the space the sky will give him.
His eyes glow like blue flame, the playfulness at odds with his rough voice.
I fight, trying to knee him, trying to get my arms free, but it’s like being encased in marble.
He squeezes until my chest feels like it will implode with need for breath, but when I still, his grip loosens, if only a little.
I angle the bone shiv in my hand, prepared to fight to the death as he drags me back down to the cell.
But he doesn’t.
Instead, his eyes bore into mine, shining with curiosity. “Did you really think it would be that easy?”
I swallow, seeing no reason to lie. “No.”
The edge of his mouth twitches, and when he lets go, his gaze pins me in place, freezing my feet despite how my heart races, and when I don’t move, he offers a predator’s smile, sending a thrill of something I don’t dare name arcing right towards my middle.
His attention flicks over me from head to toe, compounding the issue. For a moment, his attention stalls on the bone in my hand. “It’s my turn to set the terms.”
I should fight him. Should sink this makeshift blade into his groin and run. But the tension in the air doesn’t feel like violence, and if he wants to set terms, it means he’s been thinking about the map as much as I have.
“You can try.” I don’t let my voice waver. Even with my blood pounding in my ears, drowning out the screeching seagulls above. Even with the animal in me whispering, always whispering.
Run.
His smile stretches impossibly wider, revealing canines as sharp as a shark’s. “Escape me now, and you’re free. On my honour, I won’t pursue you. But if I catch you, you return willingly, and then you’re trapped here until you prove the treasure is real, or I toss you overboard.”
My mind trips over itself, trying to absorb the words. Is it a joke? A trap? Freedom, just like that. They brought me here. And he’s letting me go? But he doesn’t give my racing thoughts much time.
“I’ll give you the count of three.” He steps to the side, revealing the gangplank and empty street beyond.
When I don’t move, he draws the bone dagger at his hip.
“This is what you wanted. Now’s your chance.
” Another second passes, and the next time he speaks, it’s a frustrated growl. “So run, Odelia.”
The shock of the word echoes through me a split second before my legs bound into action. The map, the treasure, it all leaves my mind as he calls out behind me, true to his word.
“One!”
The wood of the dock pounds under my feet, then I fly over old cobblestone.
“Two!”
The shadows of the warehouses engulf me, but it won’t be enough to hide. I’ve got to outpace him.
“Three!”
I can’t help but look back. He clears the gangplank in a single leap, his long legs eating the ground between us.
Adrenaline shoots me forwards like a cannonball, and I take the most crowded alley I can find, dodging parked wagons and empty crates. With any luck, it might slow him down.
Something explodes behind me, banishing the hope.
His steps pound the cobblestone, echoing off the sleepy buildings.
I swerve, taking a last minute left. Anything to get farther from the docks.
Air saws in and out of my lungs, straining my barely healed throat.
I haven’t had the chance to run like this since I was a child, and the exhilaration mingles with fear in my veins.
Fear of what, I don’t know. All of it. The ocean.
The past. The way my hands will never be clean and what that means for this dream that steps back every time I think it’s in reach.
Rune is the least of my fears. This whole race is a game. A test—for both of us.
On the next street, there’s a tavern with people spilling out the door. Some exclaim as I dart past and the shouts grow louder, making me assume they’ve spotted Rune as well.
I veer right, trying to find my way out of the town.
There’s no cobblestone here, just packed earth and small gardens rowed with green that blurs as I pass.
With enough practice in my other form I would probably be faster, but it’s been too long, and shifting now would likely end with me rolled in the dirt in a tangle of legs.
I dart down the space between two buildings, so narrow each step grazes my shoulder to a wall on either side.
When a shadow darkens the other side, my stomach drops even as I go up, scaling the houses with just the strength of my toes and fingertips.
The top is wood, not thatch, thank the sea’s mercy. Or the land’s mercy?