Niya now slipped into a shadowed corner, unseen by her sisters amid the tangling crowd of creatures in the palace, knowing he’d be waiting, his energy calling to her. Turquoise eyes glowed as he stepped forward from the darkness. Her heart beat quickly as he tenderly grazed a finger down her costumed form. The scent of sea clinging to his clothes invaded her headdress, the scent of midnight orchids in the crook of his neck, pulling her closer. His ever-present power, a refreshing tingling enveloping her heat, shielding them during all those soirees in the kingdom. The deep coo of his compliments and clever replies each night, his desperation for her as his burning gaze bored into her disguise.
“I love you, fire dancer,” he rumbled while running a finger along her covered neck, down, down, daringly close to her breasts.
Niya’s magic erupted in her chest at hearing his words, her body, for the first time, not knowing what to do, how to react. She breathed heavily, her skin aching in a way she had never known. “Alōs,” she whispered.
“Yes,” he purred. “That is my name, but what is yours? Let me know you, fire dancer. Or is that what I am to forever call you?”
He only needed a first name, a tiny glimpse of skin to go with her tempting curves, the color of her hair so he could hold the shade close to his heart. He had shown himself so freely to her, after all, his sinner’s smiles, his unwavering attention. It was for her, only for her; could she not do the same?
“Alōs,” she could only respond in agony. “Alōs.”
“Alōs.” Niya bolted upright, a cold sweat blanketing her as his name disappeared on her lips. She blinked to pure black.
Heart racing, she snapped her fingers, bringing alive a tiny flame to burst from her palm.
The windowless cabin stretched out before her. Niya was still aboard the Crying Queen.
The lantern beside her cot must have snuffed out while she slept. When she threw her flame inside, the wick lit with a hiss, bringing more light to her room, before Niya collapsed back into her hammock, gripping her hands into fists.
Her body felt hot and frigid at once. Her magic swam inside her veins in confusion along with her thoughts. Was she upset? Angry? Pleased? Happy? Experiencing pleasure or pain?
By the lost gods. She dared not close her eyes again.
It appeared even in sleep she would be haunted. Memories she had believed she had pushed desperately from her mind roared to life like some resurrected beast.
It’s Alōs’s magic, thought Niya grumpily. Being around it for so long has set loose the visions.
Visions of when she might have been clever but had ultimately been naive. Though a part of her of course had known of Alōs’s danger then, felt it in each of his words, temptation was sweet for a reason: it masked the bitterness of poison underneath. Camouflaged the destruction lurking below the surface, waiting to take hold once you gave in. And after months of courtship, give in Niya finally did. A moment of ecstasy for a lifetime of regret. A young girl’s fantasy: that she was the one exception to a monster’s loveless heart.
As it turned out, her life was to be not a love story but a cautionary tale.
Look here, children; here is a story of how not to be.
Niya grunted, pushing away her self-deprecating ghosts as she stood.
“Today I will leave all this behind,” Niya said to the empty room, straightening her shoulders. Today was the third day. The final day. But all is well, thought Niya as she pushed away that ever-creeping fear. Today my sisters will come, and I will never have to think of that man and that stupid night again. Today I will be set free.
Niya felt trapped. For this morning, more than any of the others, the pirate lord’s cool energy was a consistent needling along her back.
She might have been standing the farthest she could from him, gripping the railing along the bow of the ship while he stood at the other end, beside the Crying Queen’s wheel, but she knew his gaze was upon her.
She always knew.
The flutter of her magic seemed to pick up speed, her heat responding to his touch of cold.
In fact, she felt him everywhere she walked. His presence was spread across every board on this ship, a slip of icy-green haze that whispered, Mine. All of this is mine. Including you.
Niya hated it. Just as she now hated the sea.
The open fresh air: too windy.
The peaceful waters: monotonous.
The constant sun against her skin: a recipe for sweat, wrinkles, and sunburn.
Her magic buzzed impatiently in her veins as she stared at the ever-empty horizon. She half believed she could will a portal door into existence, one that would reveal a ship with two figures in black robes and gold masks sailing toward her.
But her hope felt fleeting, a fish believing it was the hunter to the dangling worm. Not the hunted. Not the caught.
“I must know,” came a deep voice from behind her. “Do you feel standing in the blazing sun all day will have them find you sooner?”
Niya had sensed Alōs drawing nearer, but she had hoped it was to speak with one of his nearby pirates.
She took in a calming breath before meeting his turquoise gaze as he stopped beside her. His dark hair was loose around his shoulders, his angular features made softer in the morning light. “Why, Alōs, that is so kind of you to be concerned at all with how I feel.”
A lilt of an amused grin. “It is my duty to care for all my pirates.”
“I am not one of your pirates.”
“Not yet.”
Niya clenched her teeth together, anger flaring as she turned back to the endless sea before them. Just ignore him, she thought. If I ignore him, he’ll go away.
“Speaking of becoming one of my crew, you know you cannot continue to sleep in that private cabin after today,” explained Alōs from where he annoyingly remained beside her. “You’ll be bunking with the rest of the pirates below deck.”
“After today I will be back home with my sisters.”
Alōs tsked. “All these years, and you still have not learned that optimism is a fool’s step forward. It will always have you falling into a ditch.”
“Well, I’m glad we can at least both agree that this ship is a real pit.”
“This ship,” said Alōs, a rare edge entering his tone, “is the fastest and most sought-after vessel in all of Aadilor.”
Niya blinked up at him, a stir of elation that she had found a weakness in the mountain of stone. “Are you sure? I had heard that the Wild Widow was the fastest in Aadilor. It certainly is bigger.”
“Which is precisely what makes it slower,” countered Alōs. “The Wild Widow could never keep up with the Queen.”
“Care to wager?”
Alōs met her gaze before his eyes traveled to her crooked grin. “Gladly,” he began. “But it won’t get you out of the bind you’ve once again tied yourself in.”
Niya’s smile dropped.
“I see the reality of your predicament has returned,” he continued. “Good. Now, do not torture yourself further, fire dancer, by standing here getting burned. I invite you to take a reprieve. We can sit in my nicely shaded quarters and discuss what your role will be here. I’ll even pour us a bit of whiskey as a peace offering.”
Niya was astonished she had not tried to throw him overboard already.
“So long as I remain on this ship,” said Niya, hating how her voice shook with her rage, “there will be nothing peaceful between us, pirate.”
Alōs studied her a long moment. His smooth features remaining a placid lake. “Very well,” he said at last, “but know it is you who has set the tone of your new beginning here, not I. And be warned, no matter how difficult you may think you can be, I promise, you have no idea how difficult having me as your captain can become.”
With that, Alōs strode from her, his movements those of a graceful king returning to his throne beside the wheel.
Niya growled in frustration as she spun around to grip the banister.
Kill him, her ma
gic replied to her fury. Burn him to nothing but bone.
I wish, she thought, glaring down at her binding bet. Once this blasted thing was off her wrist, by the stars and sea, she would certainly try.
How dare he act as though the results of their bet were already cemented.
The pompous arse!
He’s only trying to get into my head, she reasoned, attempting to calm herself.
But sticks, where were her sisters?
This was its own form of torture, standing still. Waiting.
Niya was not used to waiting.
She took matters into her own hands, but what could she do presently?
Niya tensed as an idea gripped her. Spinning her hands, she sent a burst of her magic into the air. And then another. Forming orange clouds of smoke to float higher and higher.
Signals.
Any with the Sight had to see them, even at a far distance.
Why hadn’t she thought of this before?
For the rest of the day, she remained exactly where she was, sending her colorful magic into the azure sky. She desperately pushed past the ache in her body as her magic became exhausted, depleted.
Rest, it whimpered. Rest.
But she couldn’t. Her time was almost up.
But in the end her gifts decided for her, when she was only able to produce the smallest wiggle of steam from her fingers.
Niya slumped against the banister, breathing heavily, wanting to lie down, to sleep. By some miracle she didn’t. She kept staring at the empty horizon. Hoping, wishing, that anyone had seen her magic. Hoping and wishing even when Kintra came to give her bread and water; it remained untouched and became sullied in the heat and salt air. She remained as still as the horizon in front of her as the sun began to set, throwing out a dark blanket of stars.
Niya stared and waited, strangling her growing panic. She became unmoving, unfeeling. She could almost believe herself becoming a statue, the kind that lived on in myth.
The girl stood so long unblinking that she did not notice when the wood of the ship grew up, over, and around her, claiming her soul. If you look carefully, my child, at every passing vessel, you might see a woman carved into the bow, forlorn in her frozen scream. For that is indeed the Crying Queen.
As if the lost gods had heard her fears, eventually a sliver of light cut across the dark water, a slowly ascending knife dragging across her heart as the sun rose.
Nonononononono.
Niya’s final plea thrashed wildly in her mind, raked down her skin. She stood on the deck, captured in her disbelief, her nails cutting into the banister, her breaths all used up.
Her left wrist began to tingle, but she would not look down, would not watch the black band of her binding bet inking its last stretch and filling in completely. Her debt, her chains. A year, it whispered. A year.
Niya stared into the center of the sun as though she could force it back beneath the surface.
It did not yield.
The sun rose, proud and defiant, above the Obasi Sea. Niya’s free will swallowed up by light as her eyes began to throb and water.
Tears of pain.
The first light of the fourth day awoke bright, new, and calm—an utter nightmare.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Niya remembered little of how she’d come to be blindfolded, hog-tied, and then bound and secured some more in a holding cell that sat deep in the belly of the Crying Queen.
There had been a lot of screaming.
She remembered that.
As well as quite a bit of blood, none her own, of course, dirtying her face and clothes further.
As soon as the fourth day had broken fully, Niya had lost all reason.
She had to get off this blasted boat!
Present binding bets be damned.
As she stared down into the churning sea cutting against the bow, she barely batted an eye at the prospect of the Fade taking her if she did not survive the dive toward her escape. Alōs could find her in the land of the dead to serve her sentence. Sanity was a thing of the past now.
Unfortunately, her plans were quickly foiled. Before she could get a foot up on the banister, she felt them approach, ten of the strongest crew.
“Come to take in the view with me?” she asked the group, inching closer to the ledge.
“We have instructions to take ye below,” said a hulking man, eyes narrowed beneath his stringy hair, which was pasted over his brow, as he calculated her stance.
“Thank you,” said Niya, gripping the railing. “But I prefer it up here.”
“It ain’t a request,” explained a woman, gray braids hanging to her waist. Niya sensed she was one of the few crew members who held the gifts.
Niya’s own magic jumped alive then, ready to fight.
“Captain’s orders,” another added.
Niya’s scowl deepened.
It did not sit well that Alōs had predicted her next move.
Nevertheless, she did not wait long to act.
Niya turned and jumped onto the ledge, kicking away the outstretched arms she felt reaching for her, but there were too many limbs compared to her two feet. With a tug to her pants, the crew pulled her back to the deck, grasping tightly every inch of her body.
“If you value your lives, you will let me go,” she growled, twisting and thrashing as best she could. Her skin began to heat with her magic, intent to burn burn burn.
“That’s exactly why we won’t,” grunted the gray-haired woman, calloused hands only gripping tighter as a hard surface expanded from her palm, shielding her from Niya’s growing heat. Blue mist stretched out.
Magic, thought Niya.
“Cap’n’s bite is far worse than yers,” said the oily man from earlier, bending close to her ear.
“I can assure you,” said Niya, teeth gritted, “it is not.” With a headbutt to the man’s temple and a bite to the shoulder of the woman, Niya bent low before popping up to blast off the rest of the pirates’ grasps. Spinning, she swiped up two pirates’ blades from their hips, caring little as she slashed through skin, her breaths coming like cannon blasts in her desperation to escape.
Niya twisted and twirled, bent and skipped over limbs lunging toward her. She was nearly able to scramble back toward the ship’s rail when their numbers doubled. The pirates slid down from ropes and masts and poured out from below deck. By the lost gods, she thought, are there any left to sail the ship?
Niya had begun to pull forward her magic once more, too ready to char them all to cinders, but the next thing she remembered through her white rage was an anvil of weight knocking her to the deck. Bodies, dozens of them, piled above her as she wriggled and screamed. Crew members yelled as well, calling for more aid as she pulled in energy from their movement, a dizzying sensation as she transferred it into her gift, using it to singe them off. Their clothes caught her magic, eliciting flames before buckets of salt water and sand were thrown on top of them. The sizzle of steam. She coughed and wheezed as a cool presence was suddenly above her.
Alōs’s blue gaze was bone chilling but unmoved as he watched her growl and curse like the beast she was as his crew pinned her to the deck.
“Ensure she cannot move a pinkie,” his deep voice had rumbled as he’d thrown more ropes to one of his pirates. Alōs’s was the last face she had seen before a blindfold had covered her eyes and she’d been dragged away.
Niya growled from where she currently lay on the damp floor of her holding cell.
She felt like an animal, and not in a good way.
Her sight was taken by her blindfold, every stitch of her bound tight by rope and chain. Arms and legs bent painfully back behind her and bound together. Even her fingers were meticulously pinched into place.
Her awareness felt frazzled, the grace of her movements stolen.
“I’m going to kill you all!” she screamed, her voice hoarse, throat aching.
She was only met with the creaks and rocking of the boat.
With a groan, she ma
naged to roll from her belly to her side.
How has this happened? How have I ended up here?
You have an anger problem. Arabessa’s words, which seemed so long ago now, slithered over Niya’s memory mockingly.
By the lost gods, how Niya hated when Arabessa was right.
Perhaps if she had not reacted so impulsively on deck, she’d be back in her small compartment, able to think more clearly to search for a way out.
Instead she had dug herself into a deeper hole, and now she was growing more and more resigned that she might never crawl out.
Her sisters had not come.
They had not come, and Alōs still held their identities in the palm of his hand, as well as her servitude for a year.
Niya had ruined everything.
She was a horrible sister.
A traitorous daughter.
She deserved every bit of pain she now suffered.
Tears finally ran hot down her cheeks.
Niya despised crying—she thought it a useless expense of energy—but she was no longer in control of herself.
With her arms beginning to tingle, the first sign they were falling asleep, she felt herself giving in to her fate, her fight leaving.
No, hissed her magic, twisting uncomfortably in her gut at sensing her resignation. We are most powerful. We are most deadly. We will have our revenge. We will!
“How?” she whispered, almost whimpered.
In tiiiiiime, her gifts cooed. When they least expect it.
“Yes,” muttered Niya, encouragement brewing. “Yes.”
Her magic was right. She was one of the Mousai.
I have melted flesh from bone, she thought. I have stripped smiles from the most ruthless.
“You will know my wrath!” screamed Niya into the compartment, her last push of energy, before she began to laugh.
It was an unhinged sound, even to her own ears, but she could not stop.
With her cheek pressed into the dirty floor, her limbs twisted and numb, she laughed and laughed and laughed.
Dance of a Burning Sea Page 8
