The Changing Tide: Book One of Rogue Elegance

by K Dowling

  “Roberts.” Topan’s soft voice is sedating in the gloom of the damp catacombs. Soothing. “You’ve had this fight before. We’re going in circles.” His fingers break apart as he rises from the faded red divan upon which he has been seated. His sudden motion wakes Nerani out of her trance. She looks up from the floor, wide-eyed, staring around the room as though emerging from a dream. Her full lips are pulled into a tight line.

  Before the king, Rob is fighting to keep his reserve. “We could move on if Emerala would give up her absurd notions of martyrdom.”

  “She wishes to trade her own life for the lives of those in custody. You must admit—it is honorable.”

  “It’s mad.”

  Emerala frowns. She can feel her temper snapping within her like a cord that has been pulled too tight. The whole of her body feels as though it is on fire. Perhaps the pyre will be her death of choice after all.

  “I’m going for a walk,” she announces. Three pairs of eyes study her through the shadows. “Since my opinions are unwanted, perhaps you’ll all reach a conclusion without me.”

  She turns upon her heels before anyone can protest, storming from the room without another word. She knows Rob will not follow her. He does not need to. Topan has ordered Listeners to place themselves at every entrance. At first, she thought it was merely to keep watch in case any guardians should try and come back into the cathedral unnoticed. Now she knows better.

  They are there to keep her inside.

  For the first time, she truly feels imprisoned.

  Her mind races as she storms through the shadows. Her bare feet slap against the cool marble floors. Who is Rob to tell her what she can and cannot do with her life?

  It is mine to throw away.

  Earlier he had suggested that he was willing to let two Cairans die in order to keep her safe. Had he not been listening to Nerani? The general said that Rowland was planning to kill as many innocent men and woman as he needed in order to force Emerala to turn herself in.

  She hesitates in a shadowed corridor. The floor is cold beneath her feet. Inhaling deeply through her nose, she tries in vain to quell her breathing. Her temper begins to abate. Frustration seeps through her pores, taking the place of her anger. It swells beneath her skin like the rising tide. Her gaze catches upon her reflection in a soiled mirror that has been mounted upon the wall.

  Her own green eyes stare back at her from her dark, olive complexion. Her cheekbones are tinged with red. She pulls idly at a stray curl as she studies herself in silence.

  Fool, she thinks.

  She should have left Harrane’s body alone. No one has benefitted from her actions. Not her, not the Cairans in custody. Certainly, she thinks, not Harrane the Hostile. Her fingers tease at her violet girdle where she has kept the dagger concealed since receiving it all those days ago. She can feel the outline of it through the coarse fabric—can feel the cool blade pressing against her flesh. Her heartbeat settles at the texture beneath her fingertips. Her breathing grows even. It brings her some solace to know that it is there, should she need it.

  She thinks of the golden-eyed pirate in the shadows and how he had pressed the hilt into her unsuspecting hand. Did he know, then, the extent of the trouble she would stumble into?

  She nearly laughs at the thought. There is simply no way he could have foreseen her actions in the square—no way he could have guessed just how stupid of a girl she could be. A sigh escapes from between her lips. She lets her hand drop down to her side.

  “What do I do?” she asks her reflection. No response is given. The green-eyed girl on the other side of the glass stares back at her, unblinking. Her thin lower lip trembles.

  “Talking to ourselves, are we?”

  The voice that greets her in the darkness frightens her heart into pounding. She whirls around, drawing the dagger from her girdle. The light of the candles catches in the skeletal blade—its silvery reflection is thrown upon the shadowed stone walls.

  She stares into the darkness and watches as it stares back.

  “Who’s there?” she demands. The voice—male—had been strangely familiar. “Show yourself.”

  “Put the dagger down first, I can’t afford to be stabbed,” the disembodied voice spits back at her. “I’m sure you understand.”

  She can see the black silhouette of a man moving among the great stone columns in the dark. Reluctantly, she lowers her hand. The candlelight falls away from the blade.

  “Come into the light where I can see you properly.”

  She hears the sound of boots against stone as the man draws closer. As he moves into the reach of the flickering flames she recognizes his face. It is Captain Alexander Mathew, the pirate that gave her aid in the square. His hair falls out from beneath his tricorn hat, sweeping over bright hazel eyes. A crooked grin is plastered upon his face.

  “What are you doing here?” Her heartbeat begins to normalize within her chest.

  Alexander shrugs. “You told me that if I wanted to see you I would know where to find you.”

  Emerala blinks at him.

  “Well,” he says, sighing exuberantly. His chest rises and falling beneath his worn leather jerkin. The top buttons of his undershirt are undone and she can see the dark outline of a skull inked across his chest. His bright gaze scans the stifling darkness. “Here you are, just where I left you.”

  She places the dagger tentatively into her girdle. Her eyes never leave the smirking pirate before her. “I can’t exactly go anywhere, can I?”

  “I suppose not. You’ve managed to stir up a pretty large heap of trouble for yourself, or so I hear.”

  “Did you think that I spent my days hidden away in gloomy cathedrals for my own amusement?”

  At this, Alexander laughs. “To tell the truth, I assumed you’d have broken free from here days ago. You don’t seem the type to follow rules.”

  “I can’t very well go anywhere with a price on my head,” she mutters. Her expression darkens at the reminder. She wonders if Rob has managed to calm himself down in her absence. Whatever his mood, she is certain he will not change his mind.

  “Ah, yes.” The grin upon Alexander’s face widens. She scowls at him. Why is it that he seems delighted by the news of her warrant?

  “What about you?” She is eager to divert attention away from her and onto something else. “I’m sure the Golden Guard was searching for you as well after you helped me escape.”

  “They were,” he agrees. “They are.”

  “Then why are you still in Chancey? Why wouldn’t you lift anchor and leave?”

  He winks at her. “It takes more than a handful of angry men with swords to frighten my crew and I away.”

  She scoffs. “If I had a ship and a crew at my disposal I would have been worlds away from here before the sun rose the next day.”

  “Interesting,” Alexander muses. He purses his lips, his eyes studying her from beneath his cap.

  “What?”

  “You would leave Chancey?”

  “In a heartbeat.” The answer falls from her lips immediately. She recalls the endless summers—recalls standing waist deep in the waves and waiting for a ship that never came. She has spent her entire life dreaming of escape.

  “What about your family? You would leave them behind?”

  She thinks of Rob, and of all the fighting they have been doing. He would be better off without her around.

  “I would.” Her pulse quivers against the underside of her flesh as she watches the pirate move closer to her.

  “Then you have a ship at your disposal,” he says. He grins wickedly, his cheeks dimpling as he adds, “And a crew. Mine.”

  “What are you suggesting?”

  “You don’t have to hide anymore. We can raise anchor tomorrow—sail away from Chancey. Your king has no hold on the sea. His golden navy can only pursue you so far.”

  She is about to agree, but something within her pulls at her heart. She thinks of the two innocent Cairans waiting to be exe
cuted in her place. If she leaves, they will be killed. Who knows how many others will follow? She thinks of Nerani and of Orianna the Raven. If they are caught—what then? Can she live with the notion that she might have been responsible for the deaths of her family and friends?

  “Wait.” Her heart sinks. “I can’t just leave on a whim.”

  “Why not?”

  “There are consequences for my actions in the square—consequences that innocent people will face if I disappear.”

  “Aha.” He grins, looking thoroughly unperturbed by such a complication. “Yes, I heard. Two Cairans are to be executed in your place.”

  Emerala is taken aback by his response. Nerani came to them immediately after speaking with General Byron. Topan’s Listeners confirmed that they were the first to hear of the news. Even gossip hungry Chancians were not yet aware of the looming execution.

  “How do you know?”

  “I have eyes and ears everywhere,” he says, speaking as though this information should have been obvious to her. “I thought that detail might cause a spot of bother for us. Luckily for you, I always come prepared with a backup plan.”

  She watches him, wary. His arrogance irks her—how can anyone be so jovial in the face of very real danger? Her life is at stake, as well as the lives of innocent Cairans, and he is making conversation with her as though they are discussing the weather. She supposes it does not matter to him whether or not the Cairans live or die. After all, he has no reason to care for any of them. Thinking back, she is not even sure what prompted him to give her aid that day in the square.

  A sudden, nagging suspicion tugs at her. “Why are you trying to help me?”

  “Do I need a reason?”

  She crosses her arms over her chest. “Yes.”

  He thinks about this for a moment before replying, “Boredom.”

  She stares at him, incredulous. “You’re helping me because you’re bored?”

  “I am.” His eyes glimmer sharply. “Now, would you like to hear my plan?”

  She sighs, assenting. “Fine.” She is sure that whatever the plan is, Rob will not agree to it. Especially not if it is coming from a pirate. There is nothing that Rob hates more. Before her, the pirate is watching her with a permanent smirk curling his lips.

  “First,” he begins, “you turn yourself in.”

  “Believe it or not, I already came up with that on my own.”

  “Excellent. Then we’re starting off on the same page.” Alexander laughs quietly, clasping his palms together. “All of the executions in Chancey take place in the square, is that correct?”

  “Yes.” Emerala flinches at the thought. The sound of the dropping guillotine whistles again through her mind.

  “That’s not very close to the palace. You’ll have to be transported there.”

  “True,” she assents. “Although what difference does that make?”

  “The difference is that it gives me and my crew a much larger window of time to retrieve you from the guardians.”

  Emerala fights the urge to roll her eyes. “It’s an exciting plan, but I’m afraid it’s easier said than done. The Golden Guard is a team of highly trained royal soldiers. You don’t simply retrieve prisoners from within their custody.”

  “And?” The pirate’s hazel eyes blaze with challenge.

  Emerala’s gaze darkens. “And they’re incredibly skillful fighters. It takes more than imagination and dry wit to break their lines of defense.”

  “You’re absolutely right,” Alexander agrees enthusiastically. “It takes pirates. Luckily for you, I have a whole ship full of them.”

  “You can’t just swoop in and carry me away unscathed.”

  “I can. I have before.”

  She sighs. “Fine.”

  His smile widens impossibly. The shadow of his tricorn hat obscures the wicked glimmer in his hazel eyes. “Fine?”

  “I’ll give it a try,” Emerala concedes. “But only because I am completely out of ideas.”

  “Exceptional,” he whispers, rubbing his fingers together.

  “You’ll have to sell your idea to my brother, though,” she says. “And I have a feeling the fact that you’re a pirate is not going to sit very well with him.”

  “He doesn’t like pirates?” Alexander asks, feigning surprise.

  Emerala flashes him a grimace. “Most people don’t.”

  She gestures for him to follow her, leading him back into the darkness of the cathedral. The mirror upon the wall fades back into black as their reflections edge out of the framed rim of the glass. She wonders what has possessed her, that she would take the advice of a pirate so easily. Rob will be livid, she is certain of it. In fact, if she were not convinced that Topan would be willing to receive the captain in his quarters, she would never have assented to hear out his plan in the first place.

  As desperate as she is feeling, she knows that the Cairan king is more so. It is his people that are being threatened. She is nothing to him, she knows. He could easily choose to hand her over to Rowland Stoward and be done with it. No more of his people will be killed—just her. In fact, she wonders how many times the thought has passed unbidden through his mind. It is his respect for Rob, she imagines, that stays his hand.

  She glances over her shoulder at the pirate as she walks. He is studying her silently through the gloom, the ever present grin still teasing at the corners of his lips.

  So confident, she marvels. She has never met anyone who is quite so sure of himself. If anyone can free her from Rowland’s clutches, perhaps it is he.

  But why? He was in the wrong place at the wrong time the day she cut down Harrane’s body in the square. It would have been hard for him to sneak away without being noticed once she had drawn attention to him. After he brought her safely to the cathedral, she had assumed that she would never lay eyes on him again.

  She finds it strange that he would seek her out and offer his aid. She cannot fathom how helping her can possibly benefit him or his crew.

  She cannot afford to question his motives—not now.

  They need a solution, and it is quite possible that Alexander Mathew has just offered her the only one that will work.

  CHAPTER 20

  Captain Alexander Mathew

  “Fold?”

  “Not a chance in the Dark Below. You?”

  Alexander Mathew does not trust Evander the Hawk as far as he can throw him. If he did, he is certain that he would have been dead long before now.

  “Aye, you’d like that wouldn’t you, Cap’n?”

  “Doesn’t matter to me either way.”

  Two golden eyes crinkle in the darkness. “Got that much faith in your hand, do you?”

  Alexander settles deeper into his chair and studies the crumpled cards in his fist. Four of a kind. Across the table of splintering wood, the Hawk sits tangled in a cloud of smoke. One stray tendril seeps out from his nostrils and rises into the air above his head. He reminds Alexander of a coiled dragon lying in wait—ready to strike. Alexander raps the corner of his hand twice against the table, leaning back. The spine of his chair creaks beneath his weight as he regards the Hawk through careful eyes. The pirate’s face is smooth and undisturbed. A twinkling pile of coppers sits between them.

  If he is bluffing, he is doing an exceptional job.

  “Tell me why we need Emerala the Rogue.” The words escape Alexander’s lips before he can call them back. There is more at stake here, he realizes, than a handful of coppers. The lives of his crew, the life of the enchanting green-eyed gypsy, the sanctity of his quest—all of these hang in the balance, teetering precariously on the blade of a knife as Alexander waits to see if he will win or lose against the steel force of Rowland Stoward’s Golden Guard.

  He is acting on the word of a pirate—acting on the word of a man who would sooner see him dead than call him captain. And yet the golden eyed pirate knows considerably more than him. Decades spent in the company of Alexander’s late father has led Evander the Ha
wk to hold within his hand the key to many valuable secrets—secrets that Samuel Mathew took to his watery grave.

  Across the table, the Hawk taps his pipe against his knee. His tongue presses against an incisor as he regards Alexander through careful eyes.

  “I already told you why,” he mutters, pulling his cards close to his chest. The corner drags audibly across the wood.

  “Tell me again.”

  The Hawk snorts lightly. “Is that an order, Cap’n?”

  “It is.”

  “Your father spoke of her often, before he died,” the Hawk says at last, repeating his words from the previous night.

  “He never mentioned her to me.”

  “He trusted me.” The Hawk’s voice does not betray his temper, but Alexander has known him long enough to see the twist of betrayal in the pirate’s golden eyes. The Hawk wanted to be captain once Samuel Mathew died—he would have been captain, in fact, had the pirate lord’s long lost son not appeared on the ship months before the man caught ill.

  The appearance of Alexander Mathew onboard the Rebellion had rendered everything Evander the Hawk had worked for null and void. His years of devotion to the fearsome lord of the seas paled in comparison to the bond of father and son—the legitimacy of an heir.

  Alexander is not fool enough to miss the flicker of hate in Evander’s eyes when he is reminded of his stolen fate.

  “When my father mentioned Emerala the Rogue, what did he say?”

  The Hawk replaces his pipe between his lips, drawing in a deep breath. He exhales expertly, sending a dissipating ring of smoke across the table. It frames Alexander’s face, breaking over him in shards of acrid grey.

  “Damned if I remember,” the Hawk mutters.

  “You remember nothing?”

  “That’s what I said, isn’t it, Cap’n?”

  “How can you have any certainty that the girl is worth something to us if you can’t remember why my father spoke of her?”

  The Hawk shrugs. “Too late now, isn’t it?” he muses, flicking at a stray copper on the table between them. “You’ve already offered the Rogue your expertise.” He grins at that, as if he’s made a wonderful joke. Alexander scowls, leaning forward across the table and setting his cards facedown upon the splintering wood.