The open ocean glimmered in the morning sun—a million sparkling gems woven into an undulating sheet of blue silk. The sea breeze caught in my hair and whipped the loose strands across my cheeks and forehead. I gazed at the horizon and kept Inselgrau’s diminishing coastline at my back. When Jackie and I had stopped there along the ship’s railing, he couldn’t have known how it hurt me to watch the retreating coastline, how it pained me to leave my birthplace, my father’s kingdom.
Most of the ship’s inhabitants stared toward the harbor and the shrinking skyline. They could afford to look back because they believed in their eventual return. I held no such belief, and looking back cost too much of the very little of myself I still possessed.
Jackie leaned in and spoke in my ear, distracting me from my gloom. His warm breath brushed my ear, making me shiver. “The last time I left Inselgrau, it was on a morning as fine as this one, with breezes just as fresh. The sailing was smooth and the weather fine. I hope the same can be said for this trip.”
The lump of emotion in my throat made speech impossible, so I nodded and squeezed the hand he had tucked into the crook of my elbow.
“Don’t miss Inselgrau too much,” he said. “You’re on your way to a grand new world, and you’ve got me to keep you company on your way there.” His eyes twinkled. “What more could you want?”
I smiled, though it was a weak effort, to let him know I appreciated his companionship.
“My aunt’s home is in Pecia, as I’ve told you. If you agree to it, I’ll speak to your brother about paying her a visit. She has the room to spare and you could stay with us for a while before you start for Dreutch. My sister would like it very much.” Jackie cleared his throat and shifted his weight. “I would like it very much.” His pale eyes reflected many things, emotions that reached into deep places in my heart. Places I had closed away after my father’s death. My heart quavered.
“Eh hem.” The unmistakable sound of Gideon clearing his throat broke the thick atmosphere between Jackie and me.
I flinched, but Jackie only grinned. “Gideon, how does the sailing suit you?” Gideon’s interruption hadn’t deterred Jackie—he remained close, nearly pinned to my side.
“It suits me best when I don’t have to do it anymore, and my feet are planted squarely on solid ground.” Gideon shifted his cold eyes to mine. “Grace, could I talk to you about our new room arrangement.”
“I’m sure I don’t know much more than you.” Delay, delay, delay…
His eyes flickered to Jackie for a moment before returning to me, and his jaw tightened in the briefest grimace. “Well, come and make the beds at least. I’m no good with linens. I was hoping to take a nap.”
It was the weakest excuse ever uttered, especially from him. “I’m sure the ship has got staff for that sort of thing.” Doesn’t it?
“Grace,” Gideon growled and jerked his head toward the stairway leading to our berth. Jackie might have protected me, if I had turned to him for help, but he’d come to my rescue enough for one day.
“All right. I’m coming.” I gave in with slumped shoulders and bowed head. Jackie chuckled behind me as I shuffled away.
Once he had me alone in our room, Gideon dropped all pretenses. “Tell me everything, starting with why you didn’t tell me about Jonathan Faercourt.”
“I didn’t think I would ever see him again.” Knowing truth and brevity would pave the fastest route through this ordeal, I recounted my first encounter with Jackie as summarily as possible.
“And I guess you think it’s coincidence he showed up again yesterday?”
I shook my head. “Not coincidence. He said our talk made him miss his sister. He was inspired to go see her.”
Gideon’s eyebrows arched high. “And you believe him?”
I folded my arms over my chest and glared. Actually, I hadn’t made up my mind about Jonathan Faercourt, but Gideon’s skepticism inspired my stubbornness.
“You’re too trusting.”
“I trust you,” I spat. “Is that a mistake?”
He balled his fists. “I’d rather you trusted no one, not even me, rather than take it for granted that the people crossing your path these days are there by chance.”
“What do you think he’s up to if he’s not doing what he says?”
“I don’t know, but until I find out, I intend to sleep with one eye open—and you should too.”
Dismissive laughter bubbled up in my chest, but I quiet it before it escaped. Gideon’s logic had proved reliable so far, and I really didn’t know Jackie. “I’ll be careful. How much can go wrong on this ship anyway, especially now that we’re sharing a room again?”
Gideon grumbled as he left the tiny room. “You’d be surprised.”
The whole confrontation went better than anticipated. Either giving Gideon time to cool off had worked, or he thought I understood my mistake well enough already. I couldn’t regret meeting Jackie, but I wished our introduction had occurred under more auspicious circumstances. Out of respect for my guardian and his protection of me, I resolved to keep my self-preservation in mind whenever I interacted with Jackie. If he turned out to be as harmless as I believed, then I would have nothing to regret in the end— whenever and whatever that might be.
For lack of anything better to do, I shook out the folded bedlinens and attempted to make up our berths. I might not have folded the corners with Gerda’s precision, but I managed to lay things mostly straight. The linens appeared adequately white and smelled of lye soap. Perhaps that meant an infestation of bed pests wouldn’t attack me during the night. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
***
As the sun sank into the ocean, and the stars broke out overhead, Jackie, Gideon, and I sat down to dinner with the other passengers at a table arranged on the deck-top. The LaDonna’s cook served a spicy dish of prawns and rice with an olive salad accompanied by an extremely dry red wine. The foreign food was exciting and represented the many unknowns in my future.
Among our sailing companions, I recognized the gentleman who had procured his passage with Captain Barilla the afternoon before. “I am Giovanni Sabato,” he said and motioned to the girl beside him. “My lovely companion is my daughter, Ameliera. We are going home to Vinitzia after business on Inselgrau. We miss our home dearly, do we not, Ameliera?”
“Yes, Papa,” his daughter said. Her delicate features and smooth skin gave her a surreal quality, porcelain almost, and I couldn’t tell if she was younger than me or closer to the same age. Her ebony curls reflected the light of the setting sun, and she resembled the figure in a painting in Father’s study—a young mother—La Madre—crowned by a circle of light while she cradled her haloed baby boy.
The other passenger, the one who bought my room out from under me, kept to himself. He gave short, terse answers when Jackie questioned him. The circumspect man confessed his name at Jackie’s insistence. “Vesper Praston, of Shaw,” he said.
I almost gave myself away when he admitted to hailing from Shaw, a village near my hometown. Gideon kicked my shin when he saw my face light up. I scowled at him but shut my mouth. I had almost told the stranger my origins—a stupid mistake. Father had insured I grew up in a guarded home, but I was never a guarded person and protecting my identity went against my nature. Gideon Faust, however, excelled at concealing his personal truths. Would I ever find the key to unlocking him?
Mr. Praston behaved in an aloof matter throughout dinner, but Gideon’s stoicism far surpassed anyone else’s reservations. He left the table when the cook served dessert, a Dundee cake sweetened with black treacle and dotted with dried fruit and nuts. The cake was virtually a staple in the Inselgrish diet. How appropriate that I should eat it on the day I left my homeland. Gideon’s sudden departure bothered me, though I mostly dismissed his absence as his typical anti-social behavior. Still, something in his demeanor seemed off, even for him, and I vowed to question him about it later.
“My daughter, she have a beautiful voice, and I
am not so bad with my violin,” Signore Sabato said after dinner. “I will like to play for you, Miss Faust, Master Faercourt, if this is to please you?” Signor Sabato paused, nodding at both of us. He gauged our interest in his offer before continuing. “I think there is little other opportunity for amusement for us tonight.”
Jackie clapped his hands once. “Well, I think it’s a brilliant idea, don’t you, Grace?” He smiled broadly, his happiness unflappable.
I nodded. “Sounds wonderful, signore.”
We separated while father and daughter retired to their cabin and prepared for their musical presentation. I promised to meet Jackie on deck after I took a few personal moments to freshen up. Really, I wanted to find Gideon and ask him about his stranger-than-usual behavior, but he was nowhere on deck or in our room.
I straightened my hair and brushed stray crumbs from the wrinkles in my road-worn clothes, stalling for a few moments before returning to Jackie’s side to give audience to an evening of Vinitzian entertainment. As I started from my room, my cloak caught my eye, hanging from a peg by the door. I slung it around my shoulders as a ward against the chill in the evening sea breeze.
Twilight arrived and faded into night while Signor Sabato played. Ameliera and Jackie took turns singing or combining their voices for duets. Captain Barilla and a few crew members found their way into the audience. They clapped madly at the end of each song and shouted requests. The performers eventually begged for reprieve and the small crowd dispersed.
Gideon and Vesper Praston had failed to ever make an appearance, and Gideon hadn’t shown up in our room by the time I returned. Before I could worry further, a hand slipped over my mouth, and strong fingers clamped around my wrist. I shrieked a muffled cry.
A strange male voice whispered in my ear. “Shhh, Lady Stormbourne, let us not disturb our shipmates.”
My stomach plummeted at the familiar use of my name. I assumed no one on board besides Gideon knew who I was. Gideon! What had happened to him? How had this stranger slipped past my bodyguard?
“Your companion has been disposed of,” the stranger said as if reading my mind. “Don’t expect his assistance.”
Disposed of, what did that mean? My accoster exhaled in my ear, his breath reeking of old tobacco and rot. “You will come with me now, and you will remain silent. Unless you want to see other passengers harmed, you will follow my instruction implicitly.”
The man bound my hands behind me with what felt like rough hemp rope—the kind found in abundance aboard the ship. Steady swells rocked the floors beneath our feet, and the swaying had grown more noticeable since I first entered the room. Did my fear make the waves seem aggressive, or was a storm approaching? With a few tight jerks, my captor finished tying the knots around my hands, and pressed something sharp into my back.
“Let’s go up, shall we?” He shoved me out the cabin door and pushed me toward the steps leading to the deck.
Once we reached the top of the stairs, I glanced over my shoulder at my assailant. In the moonlight, I recognized the man who called himself Vesper Praston. I cursed. I should have been more suspicious of a man claiming to come from a town so close to mine. He undoubtedly recognized me. Either that, or had followed me to the ship on purpose. Not that it mattered. He had me bound, and I wasn’t likely to get away.
My stomach burbled as fear stirred its contents. Each breath came shorter and shorter as my heart flapped about like a fly trapped under a glass. “What are you going to do with me?” I asked, raising my voice over the disharmony of wind and crashing waves.
“There is a fat ransom waiting for me back in Glennich once I get you home.”
All around us the ship’s crew dashed about, securing equipment and stowing loose items. They paid us no mind. The security of the ship consumed their attention. The gathering storm made walking precarious, and the rocking ship threw us against each other. I prayed my abductor held his knife steady enough to prevent accidentally stabbing me. Did my ransom even rely on keeping me alive?
“The captain is in on this, then?” Why did I ask? Without Gideon I had no hope of escape. The details of Praston’s plan shouldn’t have mattered.
“No more questions. Be silent and you might make it home in one piece.” He tugged my ropes and pushed me toward the railing. The strength of the storm swelled, and he struggled to keep us both upright.
“There she is!”
Praston pointed to the stern. A flash of lightning brightened the sky and revealed a hulking shadow trailing behind our ship. The lightning also showed the familiar shapes of smoke stacks and bow, crashing its way through the boiling sea.
“You’re going to try to switch ships?” I asked. The idea was ludicrous, especially considering the storm’s violence.
My captor gnashed his teeth, but gave no reply. The smaller ship behind us worked to keep up, and black smoke puffed angrily from its pipes. He must have promised that captain a share in my ransom to acquire his cooperation. I cried out silently to my father and begged him for help as Vesper pushed me closer to the stern of the LaDonna.
“Grace!”
I was so intent on the approaching ship and the knife at my back that I didn’t acknowledge the shouting of my assumed name.
“Grace!” That time, I heard it and so had Praston. We whirled around and found Jackie making his way over the rocking deck.
“Stay back!” Praston ordered, brandishing his knife then whipping it to my throat.
Jackie paused and a fierce look crossed his face. “What’s going on?
“Nothing that concerns you.”
“Oh, but the lady is very much my concern.”
“Not anymore.”
Another bolt of lightning cut across the sky and a memory flashed before me: Father holding me at his side as we stood on the stone rooftop of Fallstaff in the middle of a spectacular lightning storm. He often took me to the roof to demonstrate his fantastic abilities. On that occasion, he had explained the Stormbourne legacy as he sent electric blue bolts dancing across the sky.
“Many generations ago, our forefathers were considered gods!” Father had yelled over a splendid clap of thunder. “Our great-great-grandfathers ruled all the heavens with their control of the weather.”
“Father, are you a god?” Awe and admiration wove through my words.
“No, my dear. Evolution and the disbelief of mankind have diluted our powers. I imagine, in a few more generations, our abilities will be gone. I am now merely an earthly king, and you will one day be the queen to take over my rule.”
“Will I play with the thunder like you?”
Father nodded. “With the proper encouragement. I will teach you, little one.”
“When?” My heart fluttered. I was so eager to play with the winds.
“Be a child as long as possible, Evie. You’ll have the rest of your life to rule. When you are ready, the lightning will bow to you as is your birthright.”
The memory collapsed as a bolt of lightning seared across my vision. Vesper and Jackie both cried out and covered their eyes. If the ability to control lightning was my birthright, then never did I need it more.
“Father, help me!” I shouted. Another streak formed in the sky. I reached for it in my mind—a mind half crazed with fury and fear. I imagined hurtling the electricity to ship’s deck, right into my captor.
In my last moments of consciousness, the hairs on my arms and neck rose and stood at attention as static crackled over my skin. An explosion of sound and light and a concussion of energy knocked me overboard. The weightless sensation of falling washed over me. Then the blackness of dark water took me under.
BOOK TWO
A PRINCESS WITH NO KINGDOM
Chapter 11
Swim, Evie! The command in my father’s voice was undeniable. I moaned and bubbles skittered past my face.
My bindings had loosened during my struggle to stay afloat after falling overboard, and the knife Gideon had lent me was still in my boot. I managed to gra
b the blade and cut away the ropes, but the knife slipped from my fingers before I could return it to its hiding place.
Bits of flotsam from the ship swirled around me, indicating storm had damaged the LaDonna, but not so much that it couldn’t limp away as I screamed for help in its wake. The pursuing ship had passed by as well, oblivious to the girl thrashing in the churning waves, struggling to catch her breath and stay afloat in the raging seas. Fatigue from struggling to keep my head above water had almost finished me, but at the last desperate moment, a floating remnant from the LaDonna’s deck bumped into my shoulder. I latched onto it and drifted through the night, but at some point near dawn, I passed out and lost my grip.
Father’s voice shouted again. Kick, girl, kick!
I had never disobeyed him before and didn’t intend to start now. I kicked, thrashed, and managed to break the surface in time to gulp a few desperate breaths before sinking again. Down, down, I descended as I gathered the strength and willpower to make another charge for the surface.
When I broke through the second time, I scanned the waters for my makeshift life raft. Without it, I wouldn’t last long. My arms and legs screamed with fatigue as I treaded in place and the gentle roll of the waves dropped me into a trough before slinging me to a high crest. At the wave’s crest, I kicked and stroked again, ignoring the cramps in my calves, and spun myself about. Finally, I spied the paltry bit of wood to which I had clung throughout the night. It floated a few yards away, but to my tired body it felt like miles. I roused on a last burst of effort and swam close enough to throw my arm over the shard of floating refuse.
Heir of Thunder (Stormbourne Chronicles Book 1) Page 10
