Page 43 of Bloody Black

I t takes forty-seven minutes to sail to Brannalee. In all that time, the crew never stops arguing.

“Mercy is a witch. She could still be alive.”

“We need to turn around,” Holly rasps, her voice hoarse from screaming.

Tremaine grips the railing, knuckles white. “If we go back, we risk another attack.”

“Just admit you’re scared,” Domino snaps.

“The sea could have carried her; she might already be a league away. We’d never find her body.”

“Anyone who faces the sirens is bound to lose…”

“Mercy can swim. She knows we’re bound for Brannalee. She’ll probably beat us to the pier.”

The only sailor not talking is Prudence. She curls against the mast, cheek pressed to the wood, fists clenched, shoulders shaking with silent sobs. Each one carves deep into my soul .

You left her. You left her.

Rokhur retakes her place as the ship’s figurehead, red mist trailing along the sides of the hull like a beast running from slaughter.

“Captain.” Robb’s boots thud across the deck until he’s beside me, close enough that I can smell the coffee scent still clinging to him. Was it only an hour ago that we were together in the stateroom?

“Drop the anchor.”

My laugh is brittle. “You’re not in charge, Lieutenant .”

“It’s the right thing to do,” he snaps, and there’s enough heat in it to make me flinch. “You lost one of your crew, and the rest are shaken to their bones.” He steps closer, voice low. “You need rest. Time to mourn. So do they.”

Domino twinges uncomfortably beside me, then awkwardly slinks away.

“We’ll rest well enough in Brannalee.” My voice is calm.

He steps closer. “Look at me.”

As determined as I am not to obey, he stands there so long that I finally have no choice. “What do you want, Robb?” I meet his sea-green gaze.

“Sorry, I thought I was clear. Drop the anchor, Blackbeard.”

“Strange. I thought my response said it all, but let me simplify it in terms that anyone but a man could understand: No.”

“All sails,” I tell Xandretta, training my gaze straight ahead.

He growls with frustration. “Goddammit, woman.”

I refuse to look at him. I refuse to look back.

After all, they are being ridiculous. Less than an hour to land—why would we stop here, when the sirens could be pursuing us?

It would be safer for everyone, the crew and the ship, to get to the nearest port.

Moreover, Tremaine is right. Mercy knew we were bound for Brannalee.

If she’s alive, she’ll be there. She wouldn’t expect us to return.

Turning around is idiocy.

The fresh sear of another bargain burns on my throat, pulsing in time with my black heart. It might be the first I’ve regretted, and every so often, my fingers drift up to trace its outline.

White sails snap sharply as we near the port of Brannalee. On the docks, vendors sell flowers, fabric, oblivious to the horrors we’ve been through. Holly won’t stop looking over the edge of the ship, like she expects Mercy to crawl up over the rail.

As usual, Teach takes over the helm. Once we’ve tied in at the pier, he gives me a pained smile. “Are we still doing this?”

“I’d rather get it over with,” I tell him. “You can stay with everyone else.”

“Come on now. You never go alone.”

“This time is different,” I say, checking the powder on the flintlock, then slipping it back into its holster.

Teach puts out a hand to touch me, then seems to think better of it. “Maybe it would be better if you’re rested, in a different mental state…”

“I’m going,” I say emphatically. “Mercy being dead doesn’t change anything.”

Prudence, red-eyed and sniffling, lifts her head. Domino glares. Even Holly looks ashamed of me.

With a sigh, I grab my pistols and my knives. There is still justice to be had, which means I have some killing to do.

Home sweet home.

I take it all in—the tidy white paint, the lacework trim.

The well-manicured hedge. An elegant rowhouse, drenched in the golden light of morning.

Its gables remind me of pale fingers, grasping at heaven.

Inside the gate, every breath is an inhale of the sweet scent of ivy and rose.

Water cascades down a copper fountain. It might have been the house of the town doctor, a fancy but not overwhelming abode.

Everything about it screams respectability .

No one passing by would suspect what he’s done.

I know better.

Before I reach the stairs, I turn right, darting in between a row of hedges. Then duck behind a set of bushes into the garden.

Here, out of sight, the ivy has grown wild, unruly. Its green tendrils spread like poison, curling possessively around the home as if to shield it from invasion. Silence folds around me like a cloak. It’s perfectly safe. I can climb up here, and no one from the street will see me.

With a deep breath, I take off my gloves and put them in the pocket of my cloak… then I strip off Holly’s red dress, tugging it down my body to reveal black pants and a leather bodice underneath.

I scale the side of the house easily–a trellis is easy compared to the masts and rigging of a moving ship–and enter through an unlocked balcony door .

His doors give beneath a practiced shove, their lock brittle with age. I slip inside the townhouse, soft-footed and without a sound, linger between the velvet curtains, watchful.

Luck is with me. No one is in the room, and it appears to be his study.

A desk sits in the middle, with a brown leather chair behind it.

Books line the far wall—familiar titles I remember from the castle.

Military treatises, old naval logs, a children’s tale about a boy who tames wolves.

The room smells of pipe smoke, stale brandy, and dust. A saber gleams in a display case.

A plaque underneath reads: “To the Esteemed Captain Soren Caltraine, Royal Guard”.

The hypocrisy nearly makes me laugh. Guard. Vile betrayer, turncoat.

There’s a closet in the corner, shallow and dark, lined with coats stiff from disuse. I wedge myself between them. My breath ghosts against wool. As I wait, my mind drifts back to that night on the docks.

“Stop crying,” Soren whispers the words. “Stop fighting.”

I scream when I feel his hot length prodding me. But he’s the biggest of them, and every time I try to move, he’s pressing. Clenching my thighs against his huge body, trying to will him away.

Venka has my wrists pinned.

“See?” he says roughly. “Almost over.”

Venka, I never really knew. Baldric always kept his distance. Roger, I regarded with disdain. But Soren had been at the castle all of my life. He’d guarded me and trained me and joked with me.

Raised voices from outside the room draw my attention; my head tilts, listening .

There are people here. He’s not alone. My nails dig into my palms. Perhaps I should wait? Slip back out the window, try again tomorrow. No. I don’t want any delay. I’ve waited long enough. I can do it quietly. Fast.

He won’t suffer as much, but then, I’m not in the mood for that.

My fingers brush the garrotte again. I brought it because I didn’t want to look him in the eyes. But now I’m not sure.

A part of me wants him to see my face. To know. Another part—small, but a bit more reasonable—knows how badly this could go. Giving him time to see, to react, to speak, to struggle… is a risk.

Soren comes in minutes later, boots heavy on the floorboards, his figure all too familiar.

Broad, muscular, built like an ox. He locks the door behind him.

Crosses to the desk. Pours himself a cup of rum with the casual ease of a man accustomed to solitude and heavy drinking.

He sighs and rakes a hand through his brown hair.

Even though I should, I don’t want to draw it out. I’d rather get it over with and return to the ship. I slip from the closet, silent as the tide, a choking wire in hand.

He hums to himself as he pours another glass of rum—some nameless tune I vaguely remember.

I am ten. Soren’s watching when I miss, and he laughs. Aim higher, Princess. Hit the red ‘X’.

I notch the arrow again, inhale, and hold my breath. The mark is burned in my mind, branded on my heart. I always miss, every time, no matter what I do.

Close your eyes, Soren says. It ’ s still there. See ?

I let go. The arrow flies. Missed again.

Enraged, I throw down my bow and stomp my feet. See? I told you I couldn’t do it. I hang my head in shame, full of misery.

His heavy hand lands on my shoulder. Someday you’ll never miss, he assures me. And this day will just be a memory.

He’d trained me every day, as ruthlessly as Ben. Was Soren trying to give me a chance against William? Or was it always deceit? Was he swept along, caught up in a plan that he had no control of? Or did he always plan to kill me?

I have to stop questioning. The ‘why’ doesn’t really matter as much as what he did.

Soren doesn’t hear me approach, doesn’t realize I’m even in the room. The wire slips around his throat, and I pull. Hard. Hold it tight.

He makes a strangled sound—surprise, more than pain—and stands, yanking me off my feet. Soren is so big, so strong; I’m clinging to his back like a barnacle, hoping he won’t shake me off.

His chair topples with a crash; fingers clawing at the cord. My teeth clench, and I yank viciously. Harder, harder. Willing the wire to silence him.

Soren throws his head backward, and it hits me squarely in the face, busting my nose, throwing his weight toward a wall. I hit with a thud, the air rushing out of me, falling to the ground.

Unfortunately for him, however, there’s something else on the ground next to me. His dagger, which he’d apparently dropped while I was attempting to strangle him. Near instantly, I’m on my feet, blade in hand. I raise my gaze to his, blood streaming down my chin .

“Annie?” Stunned, he lowers his fists.

Soren helps me up–he’s knocked me down, again. I’m thirteen years old, and we’re doing drills.

“You okay, Annie?”

Annie. Not Princess, not Your Highness, but Annie, as if I were his daughter. As if he truly cared about me. Unlike everyone else at court, who simpered and bowed and stroked my father’s ego. Those who made fun of my weight the moment I left the room.

“No matter how badly you’re hurt, you get up again. You lie down, you lose.” He hauls me to my feet. “Understand?”

I wipe blood away from my lip. “Yes, sir.”

I shove the memory away, ramming his own dagger squarely into the middle of his ribcage.

He grabs for me as he topples over, and we land in a heap, me across his chest. Our fall drives the blade deeper, between his bones, straight through his heart.

He stiffens beneath me, a horrible sound catching in his throat—and reaches up. His hand finds mine, the one gripping the knife, and closes around it.

Press down. Press hard. Any second now, he’ll start screaming.

Soren doesn’t, though. For some reason, he doesn’t even attempt to stop me. There’s no struggle. No clawing. Instead, his hand closes around mine on the hilt and stays, holds mine steady. Keeping his dagger in place.

Our eyes meet. His are a warm brown; I always thought they were kind. Until that day, until that night, I thought he was my protector. One of my few friends.

A knock comes at the door .

“Darling? Are you holed up in there?” It’s a woman’s voice, soft and concerned. “The girls want you to come down and listen to them on the piano.”

She doesn’t give him time to answer. “I hope you aren’t in there drinking again. There’s nothing you could have done, and you can’t bring her back. It does no good, always coming up here and thinking about the past… Soren?”

Soren doesn’t scream. He doesn’t reply. He could have told her I was here, but instead, his gaze holds mine.

After a beat, his wife sighs loudly. “Come down when you’re ready, then. Lunch is in an hour.”

Her footsteps sound, walking away.

“You are not a good man,” I tell him. “Not a good friend. Are you a good father, at least?”

“Try to be,” he croaks.

I don’t know why I asked. Because now I don’t know what to say.

His being good to someone else doesn’t change what he did to me.

I can’t look him in the eye, though; I have to look away.

At the shafts of daylight that play across our hands, at the hilt of the knife, the rug, and the weave of his shirt.

He exhales softly. “I’m sorry.”

Of all the things I ever imagined he might say, that was never one of them. Not even once.

“I don’t give a damn if you’re sorry. I don’t forgive you.” But nevertheless, more memories come back to me.

“Sorry,” he says, pulling me to my feet. “Let’s try it again. Watch my eyes. They tell you which way I’m going to move.” He taps his index finger right between my eyebrows. “Here. Now, let’s not make the same mistake again.”

He’d trained me every day, side by side with Ben. Every day, for years.

“Why did you do this to me?” My voice shakes. “Did you always hate me?”

His grip slackens slightly. It’s silly, but I expect him to answer. I expect him to tell me the truth. And maybe he meant to. If given the chance and opportunity, maybe a man like him would have come clean.

“Tell me, Soren,” I repeat, breath hitching, and look down at him. “You tell me what I ever did to you.”

His brown eyes are still open, gazing at me.

But he’s dead. Whatever reasons he had, now locked away.

I don’t mean to, I can’t even explain what possesses me, but I lay my head down upon his chest. One tear slips out, then another, and another. Weeping. Remembering. Crying for him, and crying for me.

When at last I stand, I’m wrung out, scoured and hollow inside. Mind as blank as parchment.

I leave his knife. It’s embedded so deeply in his heart, I can’t pull it free.