by K A Dowling
She hurries out from the sleeping quarters, glad for the feel of the breeze upon her skin. Outside, the deck is empty. Quiet. The sails have been doused for the night and the canvas hangs limp against the yardarms. The grey dawn gives way to morning as color leeches back into the world, staining the murky sea and painting the sky a clear, clean blue. Beyond the bow of the ship, the brilliant orange sun rises up over the eastern horizon. Emerala makes her way to the forecastle deck, shielding her eyes against the glare. There, in the distance, she can just make out a sliver of black at the space where the sea meets the sky.
Chancey.
The sight of her birthplace causes something to well within her. Grief? Homesickness? Apprehension? She cannot put a finger on her emotions—cannot pin down her thoughts long enough to understand what it is she feels. Life at sea has done that to her, she is finding. The ocean has chewed her up and spit her back out—has left her a dizzy, shambling shadow of herself. The Emerala who is returning home is not the Emerala that left, all those months ago. She expected the world to be endless—unconquerable. Her foray into piracy has taught her quite the opposite. The world, as it is, is impossibly small.
She stares at the strip of land until her eyes water, pressing her windblown ringlets out of her face and steeling herself against the wind. She wonders if Nerani and Rob mourn her, wonders if they believe her to be dead. What will they think, when they see her again?
She hears footfalls upon the deck behind her. She turns, his name already at her lips.
“Evander, you—”
But it is Alexander that idles on the deck before her, his knee-length jacket caught up in a gust of wind off of the sea. His cap is pulled low over his eyes, casting his features in shadow. He leans onto his good leg, keeping his weight off of his injury as best as he can as he surveys her through eyes that have grown ruddy with drink. At the sound of Evander’s name, a bitter smile cuts across his face.
“Sorry to disappoint,” he slurs.
Emerala sniffs, feeling herself bristling with fast rising anger. Without another word, she charges past him, the rising sun scorching her back as she heads across the deck.
“Emerala.”
He grabs her arm, wrenching her backwards. They are face to face, her wild curls sweeping against the golden scruff of his jaw. She can taste the putrid ale rolling off of his tongue, can smell the rum that leaks from his pores like sweat.
“You’ve been avoiding me,” he accuses.
“You’re fairly observant for a drunk.” Emerala pries her arm from his grasp. Hurt passes across his face and he teeters where he stands.
“What have I done?” he demands, the long fuse of his temper finally, finally running out. “What have I said to make you so angry with me?”
“Nothing at all,” Emerala says. “That’s the problem.”
She brushes past him, her shoulder slamming hard into his as she walks away. He curses, the sound of his voice carried off by the snapping wind. Overhead, a lone seagull shrieks a plaintive cry.
“Saints, you can be insufferable at times, do you know that?”
Emerala draws to a stop, trying and failing to steady her temper. The cotton of her gown ripples past her, caught in the wind as it wraps around her legs. She glances over her shoulder, squinting into the sunlight. Alexander’s silhouette is black against the rising sun. For all of his bravado, he balks beneath the look upon her face.
“The man on the island,” she says, a snarl curling in her throat. “The debtor. He was my father.”
Alexander’s mouth opens, but no sound comes out. His lips snap shut. Open again. The stinging wind dies down with a sigh, leaving behind the murmur of waves against the hull and the thick, brackish smell of the sea.
“He was my father,” Emerala repeats, her voice high and clear in the quiet. “And you left him there to die.”
She turns and walks away from him, her feet slapping against the deck. This time, he does nothing to stop her from leaving. Her stomach feels hollow. So, too, does her head. She is empty, all of her, void of that which has always driven her, betrayed by the life at sea she spent a lifetime coveting.
She climbs the short steps to the gun deck, feeling hopelessly disillusioned. The sound of voices reaches her across the upper deck, causing her to draw up short. Glancing toward the quarterdeck, she can just make out the figures of Derek and Evander as they lean against the starboard side of the ship, each of them shrouded in a dissipating cloud of smoke.
Emerala draws as close to the upper deck as she dares, ducking down between two barrels that sit at the base of the stairs.
“You can ask me as many times as you like,” Evander is saying, staring out to sea as he takes a drag from his pipe. “I’m not telling you.”
Derek smiles gallantly, his manner forced—rehearsed. “And why’s that?”
“Because,” Evander says, expunging stinging smoke into the air before him. “I don’t like nobility. I don’t trust nobility.”
Derek’s smile wanes. “I’m a diplomat, not a nobleman.”
Evander laughs, spitting another cloud of smoke from his lips. It is snatched away by the stinging wind.
“Let’s not waste time lying to one another, your Highness.” The title is delivered like an insult, the inflection scathing—scornful. Beside Evander, Derek blanches. He recovers quickly, the smile returning to his face, dimpling his cheeks.
“That’s an interesting attitude to have,” he observes, “coming from someone who spent his childhood living off of the generosity of nobility.”
Evander tenses, his shoulders hunching beneath the scorching sun. When he speaks, his voice is low—dangerous. “You have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t I?” Derek asks. “I thought I recognized the name Evander the first time I met you. It’s quite a badge of shame, isn’t it, to carry the mark of a bastard?”
Evander slams his pipe down hard against the wood, rounding on Derek and grabbing him by the cuff of the collar.
“You like your tongue, don’t you, Stoward?” he snarls.
“I am rather fond of it, yes.”
“Keep it in your mouth and maybe I won’t cut it off.”
Derek grimaces, unruffled by the pirate’s temper. “How charming. I’m sure I don’t have to tell you how unwise it is to threaten a prince.”
“Why not?” Evander challenges. “Everyone already thinks you’re dead.”
“And I take it you’d delight in the opportunity to finish the job,” Derek observes. Evander relinquishes his hold on him, shoving him aside with a grunt. He glowers as Derek adjusts his lapel, running his palms down the front of his jacket.
“What I’d like is for you to mind your own affairs,” Evander says. “And I’ll mind mine.”
“Out of curiosity,” Derek begins, “whose affairs will Emerala the Rogue be minding?”
Emerala stiffens at the sound of her name, her skin turning crimson as she realizes Derek is staring directly at the barrels behind which she crouches. Evander turns toward the gun deck, his golden eyes finding her immediately as she rises sheepishly from her hiding place.
“I was—I didn’t—”
Derek holds up a hand to silence her. “Don’t bother coming up with an excuse,” he says. “I was just leaving.”
He saunters easily down the steps toward the gun deck, breezing past Emerala without so much as a glance in her direction. Emerala is left standing alone before Evander, twisting her fingers together and waiting for him to say something—anything—to fill the silence. He watches her with amusement splayed across his features, his golden eyes catching the sunlight.
“How much of that did you hear?”
Emerala shrugs. “Enough to know that Derek doesn’t like you.”
Evander closes the space between them, taking the steps two at a time and drawing Emerala into him with the crook of his arm.
“Aye, well, that makes two of you,” he says, his gaze riddled with implication as h
e kisses her once, twice. “Three if you count the cap’n.” He kisses her a third time. “Four if you count the sorry sod I beat in cards last night.”
Emerala presses her fingers to his lips to prevent the fourth kiss from landing.
“I don’t—”
“Hate me?” Evander finishes, his voice muffled by her hand. “I believe that was your exact wording.”
Emerala scowls, feeling suddenly defensive. “I don’t know what I’m feeling,” she admits. “I’m all turned around.”
“I can remind you,” he says, reaching up and prying her hand away from his mouth. He presses his lips against the underside of her wrist, where her pulse is visible beneath her olive skin. His golden eyes, wicked and sharp, never leave hers. She can feel his lips stretching into a smile against her skin and she pulls her arm out of his grasp, her heart skipping several beats.
“Don’t gloat.”
“I’m not gloating,” he assures her. “I’m relishing.”
“Well don’t relish,” she orders. “I have questions.”
“Aye, I don’t doubt that you do.” He leans forward, pressing her hair behind her ear and letting his lips graze her neck just below her ear.
“Ask away,” he whispers into her skin, his breath warm. His wild, black hair tickles the underside of her chin. She struggles to maintain her focus, her gut stirring at his touch.
“You called Derek a Stoward,” she says.
“Aye.” His lips are at the hollow of her throat, lingering just above her fluttering pulse. “That’s not a question, love.”
“Is he?” she asks. “A Stoward?”
Evander pulls away from her, a smile teasing at his lips. “What do you think?”
“I think he’s Frederick Stoward, Rowland’s eldest son, but that can’t be right.”
Mirth flickers through Evander’s golden gaze. “And why’s that?”
“Because he’s dead,” Emerala says. “I attended the funeral procession Rowland held in his honor.”
Evander examines her quietly, the muscles in his jaw tightening. “Rowland Stoward is far too prideful of a man to admit that his only legitimate heir refused the crown.”
“What kind of man would refuse to be king?” Emerala muses. “Everyone wants to be handed a seat of power.”
“Aye,” Evander agrees. “They do. Frederick Stoward is no different. He wants the throne as badly as anyone—more, still. He’ll go after it, too, if Alexander manages to get his hands on Saynti’s Treasure.”
Emerala shakes her head, confused. “Why would he need to go after the crown if he turned it down in the first place?”
Evander smirks, his fingers dancing distractedly over the laces of her corset. “A kingship requires a man to take a queen. Rumor has it our good friend Derek had irreconcilable differences with his father over that particular account.”
Emerala considers this, staring out at the dark mass of land on the eastern horizon.
“Does Alexander know?”
“Know what?” Evander asks, shading his eyes against the sun as he follows the line of Emerala’s eyes. “That his good friend Derek is actually the long lost heir to the Stoward throne? Aye, I’m certain that he does.”
Emerala scowls, her mood souring. Another lie. Another secret. The Rebellion feels suddenly too small, too oppressive. She stares out at the sea, the surface ever changing beneath the wind, and wishes—for the first time in her life—to be back in Chancey.
To be home.
She leans against the starboard siding of the boat, letting the wind whip her curls against her skin—reveling in the salty spray of the sea upon her face. She feels Evander behind her, feels the warmth of him as his arms encircle her waist.
“I have something for you,” he says. “Hold out your hand.”
“Why?”
“Don’t be so suspicious, Rogue, just hold out your hand.”
She does so, reluctantly unfurling her palm. She sees a flash of iridescence as something cold and smooth is placed in her grasp. She gasps quietly, weighting the familiar blade within her hand as her fingers close around the hilt.
“My dagger,” she marvels. “But—how?”
She had abandoned it at the site of her arrest, leaving it near the prisoner’s carriage during her narrow escape. There hadn’t been time to retrieve it, not with the Golden Guard so hot on her trail.
Evander is silent for a long time, his chin resting on the top of her head as he stares out to sea.
“I came to find you,” he says at last. “Cap’n ordered us back to the ship when the ambush failed, but I came looking for you. I found the dagger sticking out of some poor sod’s shoulder. Your work, I’m sure.”
She nods, remembering the feel of it—remembering the way the Guardian had crumpled beneath her. In her hand, the fragile blade is timorous beneath the dawn.
“I gave it to you the day we met,” he reminds her—as if she needed reminding. That day had changed her life. “It was a gift. Rude of you, I think, to leave it behind.”
“I won’t lose it again,” she promises, tucking it away within her corset. Her gaze travels back to the horizon—back to the looming mass of land, her land, in the distance. How long will it take, she wonders, until she returns at last to the cobbled streets of her childhood?
“Just a day more,” Evander whispers, reading her mind. “I’ve already prepared a rowboat. We’ll leave before the rest of the crew wakes.”
“And then what?”
His breath is warm in her ear, and she catches a faint whiff of tobacco on his breath. “Then we go back to Chancey,” he says. “I’m taking you home.”
CHAPTER 47
The Rebellion
Alexander awakes to a bloodcurdling scream.
He leaps out of his bed in a single bound and immediately wishes he hadn’t. His injured leg screams in agony and he nearly crumples back upon the cot. His vision swims, an aura pulling at the edges of his eyes as a nasty hangover roots about within his skull. Bracing himself, he limps across the uneven floor of his quarters and wrenches open the door. Warm morning light sweeps across him in a blinding swath of gold and he blinks furiously, his heart and his head pounding in time with one another. He hears the fluttering of wings as something swoops low over his head, rustling his disheveled hair.
Spinning on his heels, he sees Salty flapping wildly about his quarters, black talons extended.
“Emerala the Rogue,” screams Salty. “Gone to die! Awk, gone to die!”
Something cold grabs hold of his insides as he watches the parrot.
“She’s gone,” comes a low growl behind him. Alexander glances over his shoulder to see the Lethal framed in the open doorway. The old pirate is grim and grey against the dazzling light behind him.
“Bloody bird has been screaming all morning.”
“What do you mean, gone?” Alexander demands. He recalls the last time they had spoken, and the ardent hatred that had riddled her emerald gaze. He isn’t surprised, he realizes, only disappointed. He snatches a pair of trousers off of the end of his cot and begins sliding his legs into them one at a time, hopping slightly to stay upright. His injured leg objects to the movement with a sharp ache.
“Lass left before sunrise,” the Lethal says, looking sour. He adds, “with the Hawk.”
At that, Alexander draws up short, one leg of his trousers still crumpled around his knee. He studies the Lethal’s face. There is, as usual, no trace of humor in the murderer’s expression. Disappointment gives way to something darker and angrier. His skin broils.
“Damn him,” he curses. “Damn him to the Dark Below.”
“What do ye need from me?” the Lethal asks, his face unreadable.
Alexander finishes dressing, his thoughts jumbling into one another. “How close are we to Chancey? Are we close enough to take the rowboats in?”
“Aye, we are.”
“Then we’ll follow them to shore,” he says. “Fetch Thom, let him know where we’re going.
He’ll be in charge while I’m gone.”
“And the ship?” the Lethal asks. “We’re getting mighty close to port. En’t good to be spotted at a time like this.”
“No, it’s not.” Alexander chews his cheek, considering his options. “Tell Thom to have the men bring the ship in quietly—dock her in one of the coves offshore. She’ll be out of sight, then, at least.”
“Ye want me to accompany you, then?” The Lethal’s fingers dance at the hilt of his dagger.
“Yes,” Alexander says without hesitation. “If it comes down to a fight, I need you on my side.”
The Lethal draws his dagger from the scabbard at his waist. He flips the weapon easily, catching the hilt in his hand. “It will have to be a quick kill. I’ve got sleight of hand when it comes to fighting, aye, but the Hawk—well, the boy’s merciless.”
Alexander shoots him a grim look as he buttons the top of his undershirt. “Do whatever you need to do when the time comes.”
The look that the Lethal gives him is frightening. “Aye, Cap’n.”
The waves are calm as they paddle ashore. The wind has settled into an indulgent breeze, and the warmth of it tickles the back of Alexander’s neck as he draws the oars towards him. The rhythmic splashing of the paddles that shatter the glassy surface of the sea is as low and as a slow as a drumbeat.
Drums of war, he thinks, giving way to the anger that simmers just within him. It is close to boiling, now, to bubbling over and scalding everything within reach. All this time, he knew that the Hawk had some ulterior motive. He knew that the golden-eyed pirate had some deeper, independent plan. He knew, and yet he had let Evander the Hawk continue on unbridled—unchecked.
I thought that if I gave him enough rope, he would hang himself, he muses. He sees, now, that he was wrong.
He should have been more protective of Emerala—he should have been more guarded. The moment they brought her onboard, the Hawk had made himself her shadow. He had followed her everywhere, coveting her, cornering her. Jealous, Alexander had chalked it up to nothing more than an infatuation.
