by K A Dowling
Emerala’s nose wrinkles in spite of her budding terror. “I’m not a damsel in distress.”
“Nay?” The man charges without warning, slamming her hard into the trunk of a tree, his cutlass at her throat. Emerala gasps, losing her wind at the impact, her vision going momentarily fuzzy. When her eyes refocus, the man’s face is inches from her own. “Ye look like one to me.”
He shoves her aside, grinning wickedly. “I’ll give ye a head start, little fawn. Run. Run as fast as ye can.”
CHAPTER 7
Caros
The air is sweltering. Storm clouds swallowed the sky hours ago, but Captain Alexander Mathew can still feel the heat of the sun on his skin. He wipes a bead of sweat from his forehead and leans back against the heavy mortar wall behind him. How long has he been waiting? He can’t remember. He sighs, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. His toes are hot inside his worn leather boots. Cramped.
His hand reaches inside his coat almost involuntarily. His fingers brush against the torn edges of the rolled up map in his pocket. It has developed like a tick, this constant need to reassure himself that the map is indeed still with him—still a tangible entity of which he is in possession.
The trampled dirt path before him is void of any passersby. No doubt the inhabitants of Exile’s Alley have found a tavern to hole up in to ride out the oncoming storm. Even murderers and traitors are at the mercy of the sea and all she can throw at them. Thunder and lightening can tame the wildest of men, Alexander has discovered. Overhead, the violet clouds are edged with flashes of silver. Thunder rolls in off of the sea, carried ashore by the whipping wind.
Alexander presses his cap to his head and lets out a low whistle. The tune is ripped from his lips by the stinging gale of the oncoming storm.
“Cap’n.”
Evander the Hawk’s voice barely reaches him over the distant bellow of thunder. The pirate’s familiar lanky figure ambles towards him from beyond the line of tangled trees. His golden eyes are sharp and unreadable. His lips twist into a grimace as he takes in the darkening sky. He draws to a stop a few feet away from Alexander, thrusting his hands deep into the pockets of his pants.
“So?” Alexander lets the word hang heavy between them, tasting the aversion on his tongue.
“So?”
“Did you find him?”
His question is met with silence. The Hawk tilts his chin up towards the sky, one eye shut against the storm as he surveys the skeletal clouds that blow in from the west.
“Storm’s coming.”
“Did you find Charles Argot?”
Two golden eyes find his in the settling dark. The Hawk sighs audibly, his chest deflating. “Aye, I found him.”
“Where is he, then?”
“Dead.”
The full weight of the word collides with Alexander like a hammer to an anvil. He quickly feels the hope within his gut extinguish.
“No. That’s—that’s impossible.” His eyes flicker back and forth, surveying the churning sea. Charles Argot was his only hope. He spent months on a wild goose chase, and for what? His search led him halfway across the world for a corpse.
“How did he die, did any of the men say?”
“He was alone when I found him.” Evander pulls his cap from his head, letting his wild black hair fall across his eyes. “His body was rank with rot and half devoured by beasts. I’m not surprised. He was traitor, aye, but not a hardened criminal. Mapmakers aren’t in good company among murderers and thieves.”
Alexander swears under his breath. “He must have been dead for days. We’ve come all this way for nothing.”
He kicks at the ground and feels immediately foolish. Hope isn’t lost. Yes, Charles Argot is dead. Ultimately, this is of little consequence to him. He doesn’t need to lose his faith in the entire mission over a stiff.
The mission.
What, in the end, is the point of his entire quest?
Why does he continue to torment himself—torment his crew—to no foreseeable end? He’s spent the better part of two years dragging his crew from one end of the earth to another without being able to so much as explain to them what it is he seeks with such ceaseless resolve.
It’s getting to be madness.
Obsession is the more fitting word.
And yet, Alexander can’t bring himself to let it go. He desperately needs to find someone who can decipher the map for him, and he’s running out of possibilities. All of his other options were hunted down to no avail. He glances up at the Hawk, who stands silently surveying the rolling thunderclouds on the horizon.
“You pushed me into this blind pursuit,” Alexander says, unable to keep the hostility from creeping into his voice.
The Hawk shoots him a sideways glance. “What pursuit?”
“Argot. You were the first to tell me about him. I’m beginning to think you’re purposely wasting my time.”
“Aye? And how, pray tell, would that benefit me?”
“I haven’t quite figured it out yet.”
The Hawk wets his lower lip, shoving his hands deep into the pockets of his moth bitten jacket. “I’m going to have to disagree with you then, Cap’n. It was Tomas Naples, Argot’s devoted little protégé that insisted we’d have luck were we to track the bloody mapmaker down. You were the one that talked the poor boy’s ear off in the Westerlies, if you’ll recall.”
“But you were like a little bird on my shoulder, whispering encouragement.”
“Well sink me, it was our best lead, mate. I didn’t know he’d be dead.”
A heavy silence falls between them. Alexander’s chest rises and falls beneath the sticking fabric of his undershirt. He can feel defeat weighing him down like an anchor. A bead of sweat drips from the rim of his hat and snakes slowly down the bridge of his nose. He licks his lip, tasting salt.
“Where to next, then?”
“How should I know? You’re Cap’n, not me.” The Hawk’s voice imbues barely concealed dislike. Alexander knows he covets his position. It should have been his. And yet Samuel Mathew overruled the code for a reason. He remembers the name his father whispered as he straddled the precarious line between life and death. His mind going, he had grasped Alexander’s sleeve and uttered what Alexander had then supposed to be gibberish.
Ha’Suri knows the way.
His fingers twitch again at his sides. He thinks of the indecipherable map. He thinks of his father’s equally indecipherable words. He thinks of the unbearable heat pressing against his skin and of the fact that the thunderclouds are rolling in fast, bringing with them the merciless wrath of a stormy sea.
“Who is Ha’Suri?”
He first asked the Hawk the very same question as they played a tense game of cards back in Chancey. He has since brought the name up at every possible turn, determined to wear the pirate down by whatever means necessary.
Now, the Hawk smiles. “Getting a bit desperate, aren’t you, Cap?”
“How do you mean?”
“We keep covering the same ground.”
“We wouldn’t if you’d just work with me.”
“I’ve told you everything I know.”
“That,” Alexander says, “is a lie.”
The Hawk is about to answer before he is cut off by a familiar sounding yelp. Alexander’s blood runs cold.
Emerala.
“Bloody Below, she’ll never learn,” the Hawk curses as the two men whip about simultaneously. They stare into the wild jungle, their fingers dancing at the hilts of their daggers. Up ahead, two figures emerge from the tangled jungle.
Emerala the Rogue stares helplessly across the beach, her curls spiraling down into her green eyes as she struggles against the silver dagger pressing against her throat. Behind her, holding her arm firm against her back, is a man Alexander has never seen before. He’s an exile of Caros—a pirate, perhaps, or a murderer from the West. A deep red scar runs down the left side of his face, starting at the top of his shaved head and ending over his
raised cheekbone. His jaw is thick with stubble and his exposed arms are lined with the curling black ink of several tattoos. The wiry definition of his muscles indicates years of hard labor.
“Found this little fawn wandering the jungle,” he shouts. A low rumble of thunder punctuates his words. “Reckoned she belonged to ye. Pretty lasses like this one don’t last long on Caros.”
“Once again,” calls Alexander, “I told you to stay on the ship.”
“This doesn’t feel like the right time for this conversation,” Emerala snarls back at him, freezing as the blade presses harder against her skin.
“I disagree,” he says. “It feels like the perfect time.”
He pries his pistol from the leather holster at his hip, clutching the weapon steadily within his hand. Next to him, the Hawk has gone as still as stone, his golden eyes murderous.
“I’ll kill you,” he snarls, his fingers bunching into fists. “I’ll put a bullet right through your skull, I swear—”
“Relax, boy,” the stranger calls, shouting to be heard over the roiling waves. “I en’t looking for trouble.”
Alexander shoots the Hawk a sideways glance, unsettled by the abrupt change in the typically nonchalant pirate’s attitude. “What are you looking for, then?” he asks, returning his attention to the stranger.
“Who says I’m looking for anything? Just returning the lass safely to her captors.”
“That’s friendly of you,” Alexander mutters dryly, at the same time that Emerala snaps, “They’re not my captors.”
The stranger ignores both of them. “If you’ll excuse my dropping eaves, I heard ye talking about the wind woman of the north before I interrupted.”
Alexander scowls, not understanding. “The wind woman of the north?”
“Ha’Suri. Surely ye know the story of the four winds of the sea.”
“I’m afraid I missed that one,” Alexander retorts.
“What your trigger-happy friend here was about to tell ye, I’m sure, is that Ha’Suri resides in the Eisle of Udire.”
“Sounds like a folk tale to me,” Alexander says, but something in the stranger’s voice makes him hesitate. In his pocket he can feel the weight of the map, like an anchor. He thinks again of his father’s dying words.
“It’s quite real, I can promise ye. Men en’t like to believe in things that predate civilization. Makes them feel real uneasy. But spirits as old as the winds don’t need men to believe in them in order to exist.”
Alexander stares unblinkingly at the scarred man and says nothing. His thoughts have churned themselves into froth, weightless and useless—the words dissolving as soon as they touch his tongue.
The stranger continues. “Are ye lookin’ for her? If so, I can bring ye there.”
“If what you’re telling me is true,” Alexander begins, “If it’s more than just the mad ravings of a man left too long in exile—”
“I tell ye true,” says the stranger, cutting him off before he can finish his sentence.
“Yes, well, I know the way to the Eisle of Udire. We’ve no need of your aid.”
The stranger lets out a laugh as dry as crinkling paper. “Aye, maybe not. But ye need the girl, don’t ye?”
He presses the dagger harder against Emerala’s neck. One ruby red droplet of blood runs down her taut olive skin. Her thin lips contort in pain. Alexander opens his mouth to protest but Evander the Hawk beats him to it.
“Give her to me,” the Hawk says. His demeanor has changed entirely, turning from murderous to desperate in a matter of seconds. He lurches forward, brows furrowed low over pained, golden eyes. “Whatever you want, damn it, just give her over.”
The stranger’s smile stretches wider, two sharp incisors appearing at the corners of his lips. The friendliness melts away, and he looks suddenly wicked in the light of the settling storm. Overhead, lightning snakes across a violent sky. Alexander’s insides tighten into a knot, threatening to upend the meager contents of his stomach.
He could do it. He could leverage her life for the truth. If she’s so damn important, the Hawk will never let her die. Maybe then, with her life hanging by a thread, the Hawk will finally be honest for once in his rotten life. Maybe, then, Alexander will finally get the truth. He squints up at the sky and feels pinpricks of rain upon his skin. Beneath the line of trees, Emerala has been silenced by the blade against her skin, her blood pooling in the hollow of her throat. His fingers shake at his sides.
He’s never been any good at cards. He loses every hand he plays.
Those green eyes, storming like the sea, glower at him across the darkening sand. He’s not so sure he’s willing to up the ante—not anymore. He returns his attention to the grinning face that hovers over Emerala’s shoulder.
“You want safe passage off the island.” It isn’t a question.
“Ye read my mind. Caros en’t exactly my idea of a happy retirement.”
Alexander’s lip twitches. “The trouble,” he says, “is that I’m not currently hiring new crew for my ship.”
“That’s too bad,” the stranger muses. “I’d make a fine pirate.” His dagger dances against Emerala’s skin, eliciting a whimper.
“This isn’t a negotiation, Cap,” snarls the Hawk. “When I told you we needed her, I meant we needed her alive, not dead.”
“We?” Alexander asks, his gaze glued to the dagger. “Or you?”
Next to him, the Hawk is silent.
“You’re taking an awful long time to make up your minds,” the stranger observes. “Maybe I was wrong. Maybe the lass en’t as important to ye as I thought.”
He twists Emerala’s arm hard in her back, forcing her down onto her knees in the sand. She lands with a grunt, grimacing as he tangles his fist in her mane of curls and wrenches back her skull. Her throat stretches, bare and exposed, beneath the gleaming blade of his dagger. Rivulets of rain run down her skin, pooling with the water and staining the white lace of her blouse.
“Last words?” asks the stranger.
“Drop Below,” Emerala hisses through gritted teeth.
“How ladylike of ye.”
“All right, that’s enough,” Alexander calls, shouting now to be heard over the ceaseless thunder. Fingers of lightning streak across the sky. “Leave her be, we’ll let you on board.”
The stranger considers this, his one good eye flickering back and forth between Alexander and the Hawk. At Emerala’s throat, the blade relaxes, falling away from her skin.
“Tricks, is it?”
“No tricks—we need the girl alive,” Alexander shouts. “You want off the island? You’ve got it. You’ve had your fun. Give her here.”
“I don’t think that’s smart,” the stranger calls, wrenching Emerala to her feet and shoving her several steps forward across the sand. He studies the sky for a moment, his blind eye scanning the clouds without seeing them, his good eye narrowed against the rain. “No, I think I’ll keep her here with me until we’re safely on the ship.”
He shoves Emerala between the two pirates, pressing her forward with a twist of her arm. She bites her lip, her gaze boring into Alexander as she passes him. He expects to find fear written on her face but finds only the slow, simmering heat of rage. In spite of her anger, he feels a sudden, unwanted desire to reach for her—to pull her away from the scarred stranger.
He hates himself for feeling the way he does.
A stronger man would have let her die.
A better pirate would have bartered for information. The man who has nothing to lose is the strongest of all—that’s something his mother used to say.
He isn’t strong, not now. Not in this moment. Perhaps, he thinks, not ever.
He turns and follows in the stranger’s footsteps, watching as the Hawk falls into step beside him. The lanky pirate’s fingers shake with barely suppressed rage.
“If he spills another drop of her blood, I’ll slit his throat.”
At that, the stranger before them laughs. He spins aroun
d lithely upon his heels, grinning like a madman in the rain.
“It occurs to me that I didn’t introduce myself properly,” he says, his eyes flashing silver as lightning cracks across the sky. “The name’s Lachlan. Lachlan the Lethal. Ye might recognize the name, it tends to carry some weight on this side of the world.”
Next to Alexander, the Hawk groans. “The mass murderer from the Westerlies,” he says, flashing him a cold smile. “Great.”
“Retired mass murderer,” Lachlan the Lethal corrects. “I’d like to make that clear. I reckon that once this blows over, we can all be friends.”
“Not bloody likely,” the Hawk growls as Lachlan the Lethal continues to drag Emerala back towards the looming silhouette of the Rebellion.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Alexander mutters, keeping his eyes trained upon the two figures up ahead.
“Stupid?” the Hawk repeats. “That moment passed the second you let the bastard live.”
“Careful, Hawk,” Alexander admonishes. “Let’s not forget who’s in charge here.”
“Never.” The word drips with poison.
“Let’s just get back to the ship,” Alexander urges. “We can deal with this properly once he’s removed the dagger from Emerala’s neck.”
He watches her struggle quietly within the arms of Lachlan the Lethal. Lightning illuminates the beachfront, casting her silhouette in a halo of silver.
As a street rat in the alleys of Senada, he often fought like a boy with nothing to lose. It was the only way to put food in his belly—it was the only way to survive.
In Emerala the Rogue’s time onboard the Rebellion, she has proven herself to be invasive, disobedient, and stubborn in every sense of the word. And yet she has wormed her way into his thoughts, has inked herself into his skin. He no longer feels like a man with nothing to lose.
The admission bothers him—unsettles him. It feels unnatural, this anger that takes root in his gut, this fury that writhes in him like a flame. And deeper still, this sickly coil of jealousy that tightens, tightens, tightens with every glance at the Hawk, his golden eyes slitted against the rain, his fingers balled into fists.
