by Ashley Nixon
“Don’t look so pitiful,” Christopher chided William. “I am not the only traitor here.”
“Come forth,” Tetherion ordered with a jerk of his head.
Barren’s heart squeezed once he saw the twins walk toward their father. What Larkin had told him before they’d been captured ran through his head—the twins, they’re traitors.
He watched their exchange—the twins bowed gracefully and then Datherious produced Barren’s sketchbook. The king took it in his hands and opened it, brows rising as he observed the pictures. After a moment, he plucked a piece of folded paper from between the leaves, handing the book back to Datherious. He opened the note. Barren didn’t need to look at it to know what it was—the coordinates to the Lyric island.
Barren tried to fight, but his captors held him tight, twisting his arm and stomping on his leg. Barren gave out a cry, which drew Tetherion’s attention and the twins’.
“Come now,” said Datherious with a gaze that made Barren cringe. “Did you really think two princes would give up their life of status and wealth to sail the Orient with a wanted man? We only did what our father asked.”
“You sent them as spies!” Barren roared.
Tetherion raised a brow, as if it had been obvious. “I needed someone to keep tabs on you. Who better than my sons? Your cousins. You were so gullible, believing every word they spoke, so long as it included your precious Saoirse.”
“Why?” Barren demanded. “What have I ever done to you?”
“You exist,” Tetherion replied.
The twins had been paramount to everything Tetherion and Christopher were able to do. It was how the privateers had found Silver Crest, how William had known to go to Conn to search for Devon, even how they’d known to search for Estrellas. They had played Barren’s and William’s hatred of each other against them in order to destroy them. Barren’s fists curled, and he resisted the bitter urge to fight, fearing the guards might break his legs.
“You see, all of this was to end in Estrellas,” said Tetherion. “It was the perfect place for your demise. You would attempt to rescue Devon and fail. William and Christopher would arrive, and Christopher would see to it that William met the same fate as you. We would have the location of the bloodstone…there would be no blood on my hands, just your own folly to blame…and everyone would have been happy. But…things did not go as planned.”
Tetherion’s eyes focused on Em, and they narrowed. He took a step toward her, but Barren stopped him.
“So this is how you would ease your people’s fear?” Barren called angrily, recalling the question Tetherion had posed to him after his people rioted. “Bring them my head?”
Tetherion chuckled. “Yes. What did you think? That we could live in peace together? For a pirate, you are far too trusting.”
“But you’re family!”
“I will blame your age for thinking blood had anything to do with my kindness to you. It was merely manipulation.”
“Why go through all of this? Why not just capture us and kill us when you had the chance? You had favor with us, you could have drawn us to you at any moment.”
“Because I needed the bloodstone, and as I am sure you have already discovered, these people do not trust me,” Tetherion glared at Devon and Em. “But you, the son of Jess Reed, they’d trust you enough.”
“Illiana was right,” Barren spat. “You are nothing but evil—you only want power and revenge.”
Tetherion’s eyes blazed for a moment, and Barren knew he’d struck a chord. The king stepped toward him, breaking the barrier he and his sons had created before their prisoners.
“Where did you see her?” he whispered.
“In Aurum,” he said. “She told me everything. I guess some things never change.”
Barren clenched his jaw so tight it hurt.
Tetherion tilted his head to the side, smirking as he observed Barren. “So much anger built up over time will not aid you.”
He went to turn, but Barren wasn’t finished. “Do you even care what happened to her?” Barren’s eyes bore into Tetherion’s soul, and he swore he could see the evil of this man there. “She’s dead.” Barren’s voice was low and deadly, and then he said breathlessly, “She died.”
Tetherion was very still for a long moment. He pushed his cloak away from his arm and stepped toward Barren, striking him across the face. Then he grabbed the pirate by the neck and squeezed, lifting him into the air.
“I sent you on this journey to ensure your death, and I will have my wish. You will ride back to Maris to face the noose, but not until you have delivered the bloodstone to me.”
Tetherion released Barren and he collapsed to the floor, gasping for breath. He glared at Tetherion and then at Christopher whose eyes were blank.
“And you!” Barren sucked in a breath. “What about Kenna? Aren’t you doing all this for her? You loved her!”
Lee’s features were like stone, and without so much as a blink, the lord spoke. “Kenna was merely a means of accomplishing a task, nothing more.”
Tetherion smirked. Before he left the ship, he spoke to his sons. “You will sail by the coordinates Barren has deciphered. Bring them all back to me…alive.”
***
They were led below deck. It was musty and dank, and the lanterns that hung above them cast sick yellow light upon everything. They were not placed behind bars, though that was an option—the entire corner of the brig was nothing but barred cells. The twins, however, had instructed that they all be separately chained—they knew better than to trust free hands. Now everyone was captured—Leaf and Slay, Alex, Em and Devon, Cove and Hollow and the rest of his crew. Barren stared at them, attempting to decipher their masked features. He hoped this would not mean their end, even if it did mean his.
“Well, this was unexpected.” Slay stretched out his feet and settled against the wall. “Gonna be here for a while, might as well get comfortable.”
“What do we do now?” asked Larkin.
Barren rested his head against the wall. “I’m not sure yet,” he said. “But I have about three days to devise a plan. What we have going for us is the fact that they only have a map to the island, as far as what is there, we still don’t know.”
“They’ll have one hell of a time beating that storm,” said Devon.
“What storm?” asked Cove. The rest of the crew watched Devon closely—no one had talked about a storm before.
“Well, there is magic in that water, dark magic. It messes with the elements, causes the Orient to stir and the clouds to sink.”
“So what you’re saying is, we’ll be lucky to make it there alive,” said Hollow.
“It’s the Orient,” said Alex. “You’ll make it if she wants ya to.”
“It sounds like even if we make it, our ship might be in shambles,” said Barren. “And if the twins are navigating, that’s even more of a possibility. They don’t know anything about manning the helm.”
“Well,” said Cove, though he kept his eyes on the floor when he spoke, “I suppose if we are marooned on an island with our enemies, no one will have an escape route. We can end it all there.”
“You all began this quest with ‘opes of destroyin’ the bloodstone,” said Alex. “Not with the ‘opes of livin’. Remember our purpose.”
Though it had been a possibility from the beginning, no one had expected to die on this quest. Barren lived every day knowing it could be his last, but he had never imagined his last days would be spent in the custody of his enemies. If anything, that only made him furious and more determined to come out of this alive.
Barren could feel William’s eyes on him, and while his mind kept telling him to keep his gaze away, he looked up, and met his brother’s stare. For the first time in years, the hate that had been ever-present in William’s eyes was replaced by sorrow and confusion.
“Everything he told me, all the lies he fed me—”
Barren didn’t feel like sympathizing with William. Though he h
ad been deceived, there was one truth that remained—William resented Jess and he’d still killed him. In the end, all Barren could say was, “You always tried to fight father on everything.”
William cast his eyes down, and his voice rose from that muffled position. “It won’t change anything, but I will help you out of this. I’ll make sure you do not suffer.”
Barren shook his head. “It is too late to ease my suffering, William.” And in that moment, Barren felt very tired. “And you are only saying that because you want revenge. You should know it is not sweet, and there will be no reward for you after, only bitterness and loneliness.”
William cast his eyes away from Barren, and his shoulder slumped.
“However,” Barren added. “It is never too late to change, and you have always had another life to turn to rather than the one you chose.”
It was true. William had spent fifteen years as a pirate. He’d only chosen the life of a politician to be as different from his father as possible.
***
The ship groaned, chains rattled, and the ugly yellow lights above them swayed. Various snores and soft breathing told Larkin many people were asleep. It wasn’t a surprise to her—everyone was exhausted. She, for one, had never been this drained, which, given her life up until a few weeks ago, wasn’t all that surprising. For all her exhaustion, she could not rest. Her head raced with all sorts of questions.
Mostly, Larkin felt confused. She knew her father did not hate her, and she believed her father had also loved Kenna. It was she who kept him up at night, she who still had all his attention. It was her memory—or the lack of it—that Larkin competed with for Christopher’s attention, and all the while, she’d been oblivious to it. Then there was Barren who had entered her life and muddled up her future. Granted, a life chained to William’s side wasn’t anything she was excited about, but returning to Maris would be so different. She would never be the same. She’d always remember the time she had with the pirate.
Larkin looked at Barren, studying his features. His eyes were closed and he appeared to be sleeping like everyone else, his chest gently rising and falling. Sometimes it was easy to forget how young Barren actually was—he had the youthful appearance of an Elf, but the soul of an elder. She leaned closer to him, breathing in the smell of salt.
“Do you think we have a chance?” she whispered, hoping he hadn’t drifted into too deep of a sleep.
Barren opened his eyes and turned his gaze to her. Larkin had reason to worry. She had never been in a situation where everyone who could save them was captured. Barren smiled slightly, and with some difficultly, he managed to pull from his pocket a piece of crimson cloth—her scarf. He handed it to her, and she held it tightly. It had managed to resurface each time she believed it to be lost.
“We always have a chance,” said Barren. “This seems a little hopeless, but really, it is nothing compared to Estrellas.”
She shuddered. That was a place she never wanted to revisit. She noticed how Barren grimaced, and knew he hated recalling the details, too. Then he asked something she did not expect.
“Why did you risk your life to save me?”
She hesitated, not wanting to answer him. She’d saved him because she had to. Because she needed to. “Because…you are worth saving.”
Barren’s brows came together immediately and the look on his face was indiscernible—perhaps he hadn’t expected her to say that, but it was true.
“I-I know it wasn’t easy to kill him,” he said at last.
“I was warned,” she said, releasing her gaze from his, and looking down at her hands. She had killed Cas in self-defense. As long as she kept telling herself that, she believed she could live, knowing she had murdered someone.
“That changes nothing about what you experienced,” Barren said quickly.
“I would have saved myself a lot of pain had I listened, and yet I would never have witnessed the maliciousness of my father. I would never have known my mother was a Lyric.”
Barren lifted his brows.
“How did you find out about her?”
“William,” she replied quietly. “My father…has yet to speak of her to me.” She couldn’t figure out why—was it because he really saw Kenna as a means to an end? Or was the memory too painful? Or maybe he didn’t want to have to explain everything else—the friendship with Jess Reed, the treason.
Barren frowned.
“I never would have guessed our lives were so similar.”
Larkin laughed humorlessly. “Neither would I. I tried for a long time to see all the differences in us—I only found more similarities.”
Barren smiled, but only for a moment, and then his lips turned down. Larkin’s frown matched his.
“Whether it began that way or not, I do not believe you were the product of a plan to deceive your mother,” said Barren at last. “I am not sure what your father is planning, but it doesn’t seem right that he would side with Tetherion.”
Larkin’s heart felt a little lighter. “I don’t understand why he has hidden so much from me. Would it not have helped me to understand him?”
“He never needed you to understand him. You never questioned him until you met me, and even then you were dedicated to what your father wanted.” He glanced at William.
“I…I just want to know why he could not be satisfied with what he had.” For years they had lived as father and daughter with the knowledge that her mother was just gone. Sometimes she was sad about not having a mother, but never grievous. With all this new knowledge, she realized Lee had always been grieving. He had never stopped, and she really had never been enough.
“You remind him of the revenge he craves,” Barren said softly. “And until he can let it go, he will be consumed by nothing else. Here I sit across from the one I wished death upon for so long, and he lives, and even I cannot ignite the hate that burned in me before now. It is gone, replaced.”
“Replaced with what?”
Barren smirked. “A very stubborn girl who challenged the wrongs I committed, and asked questions I never wanted to ask myself.” He turned his gaze to her. “Because for so long I fought any voice of reason, and wanted nothing other than to cause pain, because I never realized that pain cannot be eased by pain.”
The warmest smile spread across Larkin’s face, and then she giggled. “Barren Reed, do you like me?”
Barren hesitated for a moment, and then tried to move his gaze from her face, but Larkin would not have him averting his eyes. She reached for him so he would look at her again, and brushed his hair from his face. She was reminded of their time in the Cliffs. She’d watched him brush his hair behind his ear and she shivered as she mimicked the intimate gesture.
There was no thought to what she did next. She pulled him to her, her lips crashing against his clumsily. He tasted of sea salt, which left her craving more of him. He was everything she’d never had—dry lips, rough face, callous hands, but he was passionate and somehow gentle as his fingers laced with her hair. And then the kiss became his, as he nudged her lips open, his tongue seeking hers. Her hands moved through his tangled hair, grasping the strands as if they were the last link to her sanity. She’d never experienced this feeling before, a fire in the pit of her stomach—it erupted and spread to her mouth, fueling her kiss, and making her brave. Larkin shivered as a low growl escaped Barren’s lips, and she found that her heart raced with the excitement of hearing it again.
When her hands came to rest on either side of his face, Barren’s hands found them, and suddenly he pulled away, looking at her questioningly.
“Weren’t you shackled to the wall just like me?”
Larkin laughed.
“When I was young, I was locked in my room as a punishment by my father. In a defiant move, I sat at the lock until I figured out how to pick it, and I have carried this little spec of metal with me ever since.” She withdrew a thin piece of iron.
“And there is our little bit of hope,” he said. Reaching
forward, he pressed his lips against her forehead.
Natherious stared at Barren’s sketchbook, examining every picture.
“I never knew Barren paid attention to anyone but William.” He paused. “Oh, and Larkin Lee.”
Datherious went from pacing before the desk to peering over Nath’s shoulder at the drawing of Larkin. He chuckled. “Such a lovely woman. Too bad her reputation will be ruined after this. She could have been my wife.”
“I’m not certain Christopher would have approved.”
Dath scoffed. “We are the king’s sons, we do not ask, we take.”
Datherious’s eyes moved back to the portrait of Larkin. “It would be such a waste to see her reduced to the status of a working woman for her involvement with Barren Reed. Perhaps I will take pity on her.”
“She will not want your pity,” replied Natherious. “Even if you do kill Barren Reed.”
“Father planned his death in Estrellas,” said Dath. “Cas was to take care of him, but pretty Larkin got in the way of that, and ruined our plans.”
“Well, the hemlock was still administered,” Nath pointed out. “A partial success, because even Alder couldn’t cure him completely.”
Datherious rolled his eyes, but said nothing to his brother. He didn’t understand—the point was that Barren should have died a long time ago, and now Tetherion wanted him brought back to Maris alive. There was something about having to bring Barren all the way back to Maris that Datherious didn’t like. Rumors would spread fast across the Orient that Barren had been captured; it could make the trek back home rather difficult. It would be better if he died on this unnamed island.
“Do you think it was strange that our mother did not approach us while we were in Aurum?” Nath ventured to ask.
“Were you even aware of her?”
“No, but—”
“Then why does it matter?”
Nath shrugged. “She was our mother.”
“She was a means of accomplishing a task,” said Dath. “Her purpose went no further. Tetherion was an adequate parent.”
