Page 38 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

Kora soaked in the bath for hours. Sweet, blessed relief.

Upon arriving at Cadell Manor, she’d beelined to her bathing chamber and set the hot water running, with jasmine and orange blossom scents permeating the air. Erick had been absent—out on official commodore business—when they’d returned.

Blake had directed Theron and Ivar to the barracks, where they would receive private quarters for their stay, before being ushered into the limelight to oversee the final unification. Many civilians had cast wary glances at their shining uniforms, the symbol of the stag lifting eyebrows and shocked faces.

The final two days of their journey had been quiet, memories of scattered bodies shuddering through them like a repetitive wave. It haunted Kora still. She had killed in a blinded, raging fit. No better than a filthy pirate. No better than Silas fucking Flint.

Mags’ disembowelment flashed and seared into the back of her eyelids. Doran’s weeping scraped her eardrums. As she lay in the bath, her hands shook, flinging warm droplets of water, but all she could see was blood. She was covered head to toe in blood. For the first time in a long while, Kora sobbed.

Gut wrenching, throat clenching sobs. She cried her despair into her hands, wiping beautifully scented water over salty tears. Her nose streamed, her chest pinched, and her heart cracked, riddled with shame, and crushing guilt.

She had to be better. She had to do better. So many souls needlessly condemned and lost to wander Thanos’ weaving threads of Umbra. All because she was desperate to heed Erick’s orders to keep Theron safe, and because Blake’s life had been threatened. Had it been worth it in the name of the Talmon Empire?

She hadn’t realised how many exiles lived in the tundra. How many people the empire had cast out. How many of them were there because they simply favoured the old ways? How many were thieves? How many were raiders?

Kora sank beneath the warm water, letting it wash away her tears. Coated in an arnica salve, she kept her injured arm above the water, resting on the stoned edge of the bath. It’d been built sunken into the floor, with steps at the end for her to ascend. White drapes caressed the rectangular room, with large candelabras descended from the curved ceiling.

Blue light basked beneath the surface of the water and she shot up, running her hands through her wet hair with an exasperated gasp.

And there was that problem.

Callan knew she was a mage, and he was loose in the world. What was to stop him from telling people what he saw? What she did? The only option was to flee to Shannara, not only to dispose of the talisman but, if she were discovered, Shannara might be the only safe place left.

And, to top it off, the exiles possessed empire-grade weapons and armour, and pirates sailed prized ships that were now hidden in the Mist. Erick had said there’d been raids upon outposts during the first week of Hell’s Serpent's scouting mission. Somehow, the stolen goods had ended up in the exiles’ grimy hands.

The cogs clicked together, with the Skytors as the central piece. Why would they enlist the exiles to locate her? They knew who she was, and where she would be, especially with Callan’s tip. She trailed her fingers through the water, her mind churning out scenarios.

What was Finlay’s connection? Had he planned to lure her to The Abandoned Barnacle when they returned from their scouting mission? She flexed her fingers and the water rippled, forming into little beads of comfort swirling in the air, dancing around her.

The three groups formed a triangle in her mind, pirates, Skytors and exiles, all somehow connected to her. But . . . why? She wasn’t special. If they were after her power, there was a room brimming with mages in the tavern.

Kora’s mind whirled and swam with the what ifs, whys, and hows, until she focused her attention on something else. Grabbing a bar of soap, she attacked her skin, scrubbing it raw as dried flakes of blood, dirt, and sweat drifted into the water, churning into a muddied colour. There was no way she would use this water to heal her arm.

Besides, it would be too suspicious if she had a miraculously healed arm after nearly becoming a chicken skewer. Not everyone could heal as fast as Blake. Lucky, gifted bastard.

After feeling thoroughly cleansed, her arm re-bandaged, she emerged from her bathing chamber in a silk robe to find Erick perched on the edge of her unmade bed.

Donning a simple yet elegant dark-green tunic with black trousers, the golden insignia embellished over his left chest blazed, and she swallowed looming bile as Mags’ and Doran’s branded foreheads filled her mind’s eye. She focused her attention on the small medals of honour lining his shoulders, highlighting his accomplishments in the navy.

“I’m surprised you’ve not shrivelled up,”

he joked.

“Odelina fetched me, worrying you’d drowned.”

She waved her hand at the mention of their head servant, Odelina. A fussy, no-nonsense mannered female who tended to dote over Kora. However, she had a strict ‘no servants entering her quarters’ rule. She liked being able to do things for herself, and having her own privacy and space away from the swarming hustle of the world.

“She frets too much.”

“She only frets over you.”

“Jealous?”

She smirked as she sat at her vanity table, raking her hands through her white locks in the mirror. They curled past her ears, and she grinned, finger-rolling them into gentle waves that cascaded around her heart-shaped face. A pair of lapis-lazuli eyes stared back at her, and she whipped her gaze to Erick’s brown, fatigued eyes. He looked tired, and his wavy, grey-flecked hair was tousled, as if he’d been pulling on it.

“Not of this room.”

He observed the piles of books and oddly placed trunks, the clothes casually draped over the partition. His eyes narrowed as they landed on the candle-wax covered bedsides, staining the wood, and the assorted weapons dotted round the room.

“You could let the servants clean in here once in a while.”

“No, thank you.”

“When did you last clean—”

“There are more important things than cleaning,”

Kora bared her teeth in a grimace at the word. Besides, everything had been perfectly placed, her own little world of organised chaos. She faced him, cocking her head to the side.

“Or am I no better than the manor housewives that grace the mid and upper districts?”

“Point taken.”

He awkwardly averted his gaze as she slipped behind her partition to begin dressing, and she winced as she pushed Agatha’s green and blue tomes behind the partition with her feet. She’d have to hide these someplace better lest Agatha smote her like a god.

“Can I . . . ask you something?”

“Of course, my child.”

The endearment from Erick warmed the cockles of her heart. He had no other children—gods, she didn’t even know what his life was truly like before her. He scarcely spoke about it. Whenever she probed, she was met with his icy side, and a stiff indifference causing him to disappear into the basement of the manor, returning with bloodied knuckles after a few rounds with their training dummies.

“Do you know if anyone from my past ever came looking for me after . . . you know? Was there anyone who asked for me?”

Silence. She ducked her head around the partition. Erick sat on the bed, his face pale, his hands clenched on his lap.

“No . . . no one came,”

he spoke quietly.

But Captain James Cannon had come. Finlay had come. The Skytors had come. Gods, they’d sent an unfathomable entourage of exiles after her. She was certain of this triangle of allies. That stone of fortitude beaming in her gut. Perhaps this was part of her essence? An innate, instinctive truth?

“How do you know? What if they couldn’t find me? You said yourself you pulled me from a shipwreck caused by the pirates. Maybe my family survived—”

“Your family are gone, Kora. I searched the seas. But no one survived, only you.”

The words slapped her across the face.

Erick’s warm tone dropped a few degrees. Kora paused as she finished buttoning her tunic. She wore similar tones to his, to highlight her captain status, with silvery buttons curving across her chest and ending at her side.

“What about this?”

She emerged from the partition, her fingers brushing the side of her head.

His jaw clenched and he looked away.

“As I’ve said before, it happened during the wreckage.”

“Was there anything odd about the wreckage? About me?”

her voice wobbled.

“You said I nearly lost an eye. It must have been brutal. And the voices I heard after . . .”

It was dangerous to ask these questions, but she wanted to know more. She needed to know she hadn’t subjugated herself to the same level of the murderers that had robbed her life and ripped away her family’s souls, condemning them to Umbra early. She would’ve been dead along with her family if Erick hadn’t intercepted.

That single token of gratitude had fuelled her desire to follow in his footsteps. To hunt pirates and wipe them from Calypso’s seas. To prevent more children, more innocents, ending up with their lives torn apart like a ship cleaved in two.

“Other than you nearly dying, if that’s what you mean. As I said, your mind was still readjusting to the attack. But you’re fine now.”

It was like talking to a stone wall. The same response year after year.

“But what if—”

“Why are you asking?”

He stood abruptly, his face taut.

“It’s been years, Kora. I thought you’d realise by now you have a family.”

She stilled. Erick’s commanding presence dominated the room, and she bowed her head with guilt. She wasn’t sure why she was asking these questions; suddenly compelled to dig up history. All the while, this male was standing before her as her father. He’d volunteered for the position, for gods’ sake. He was always here, waiting for her to return from her adventures, always worrying over her safety.

And he’d trained her into the most lethal weapon a female could be in this world.

“I’m sorry,”

she mumbled. Her drying hair flicked into her eyes as she kept her head bowed to him in respect.

With an exhale, he stepped forward, lifting her chin, and brushed her growing hair from her eyes. It flopped over the side of her head. His assessing gaze raked over her face, before landing on her neck.

“What’s this?”

Kora’s hand rushed to her neck, panicking that the talisman was visible, but instead, her fingers brushed over lightly bruised skin.

“Did something happen?”

Erick’s tone turned glacial as he inspected her neck.

“Who did this to you? Was it Marwood?”

She was taken aback at the insinuation that Blake could ever be capable of such violent treatment. Little did Erick know about the depth of their bond . . . and Blake’s gentle caresses that caused hot flames to lick at her skin.

“Theron’s right-hand man,”

she strained as she fought to keep the memory at bay.

“He didn’t believe my vagina justified me being a captain.”

Erick’s face twisted as his fist clenched near her neck.

“I’ll kill him. Is he here?”

“Theron banished him into the desert.”

She flinched at his curled fist so near to her face.

“Callan’s gone . . . he won’t be coming back.”

“Cal-lan,”

he sounded out the name slowly.

“is a dead man if he crosses any of the borders.”

Kora loosened a breath as Erick stepped back, his gaze observing all of her for any further injuries. She resisted the urge to touch her bandaged arm beneath her tunic. Maybe Callan crossing the borders would work in her favour. It would be one way to permanently silence him about her powers . . . or spark a conversation leading to her magical discovery. Her heart fluttered.

“What else happened out there? Anything I should know?”

He raised a brow and tapped his foot.

“The journey was quiet out. We arrived early and met Theron and his two lackeys. There was a minor incident,”

or situation, as Blake had called it.

“which resulted in Callan’s banishment.”

“That doesn’t look minor to me. Anything else?”

“Nope,”

she forced a smile.

“Smooth sailing.”

Blake had ordered them all to keep the exile attack under wraps, with Theron in keen agreement. It’d look poor for all of them, slaughtering that many exiles. If the empire wanted them dead, they would’ve been hanged in the first place.

She’d been surprised at the sentinel’s eagerness about the decision. Wouldn’t he want to report it? Or was he filing it away for later, ready to spring it on them in his report to the king? Targeting Aldara as a ‘problem’ island.

After an excruciating pause, Erick finally spoke.

“We have a meeting soon.”

He strode for the door.

“Meet us in my study when you’re ready.”

Kora nodded, words eluding her as she battled her inner screaming demon at the mention of Callan, and the potential hunt for her being orchestrated.

“And Kora?”

He looked back as he opened the door.

“I like the hair.”