Page 29 of Found at Sea

10

Kellan

After the oil lamps were lit and the window opened to reveal the light from the moon, I sat at the table in my cabin and poured a glass of rum. It was a night like any other aboard theCrimson Night. With one huge exception.

Fletcher sat across from me, looking around the room with curiosity ablaze in his eyes. And perhaps nerves as well.

He was the first person, other than Kris and Dax, who’d ever stepped foot in my quarters. I preferred solitude and refused anyone else entrance into my chambers.

“Care for a drink?” I asked, nodding to my glass.

“I don’t care for rum,” he answered.

I chuckled. “What sort of pirate are ya, boy, if ya don’t drink rum?”

“I’m not sure,” he said, arching a brow. “Perhaps the kind who was forced here?”

He opened his journal and flipped through several pages. Stopping at a rough sketch, he stared at it a moment before grabbing his quill and dipping it into the ink.

“What are you sketching?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“Why did you bring me here?” he responded, just as spirited as ever.

“I believe I asked you a question first.”

Fletcher’s green eyes flashed to mine. “And I believe I’m ignoring your question and asking one of my own. Why did you bring me to your cabin?”

I clenched my jaw, unsure how to answer. I didn’t even know the answer for myself.

“You intrigue me,” I finally said. “Out of everyone aboard, you are the least experienced and have the most to fear, and yet you freely speak your mind and challenge those who challenge you. Another man might see that as you rebelling, but you work hard and seem to enjoy being here.”

“Idoenjoy being here,” he said, dropping his gaze to the table. “It’s hard to explain, but the sea feels like home. More of a home than I ever had in Helmfirth.” His sudden seriousness touched something in my chest. I, too, found my home on the sea. “As foryourquestion, it’s a mermaid. Well, a merman, I suppose.” He tilted the journal to show me before saying, “It’s not very good, though.”

Mermaids. A weight gathered in my stomach; an uncomfortable feeling I knew all too well as guilt. Another reminder as to who I was; the demon of the sea who’d butchered mermaids for their hearts.

“And why are you drawing such a creature?” I asked, keeping my composure.

Fletcher cocked his head before returning his stare to the sketch. By the way he studied it I suspected his mind was elsewhere. “When Alek and I went swimming earlier, we saw him.”

“Why do you frown?”

“Because,” Fletcher studied me, “I never knew such myths to be true. Mermaids, magic, treasures of legend: all of it. They are only stories told to make our lives seem bigger than they are, to take us from our realities and place us in another. To escape.”

“All myths are based in some truth, boy,” I said, seeing the struggle in his eyes. “All of them.”

“Even the ones including you?” he shot back. “Men say you’re a sea demon who all men and all creatures fear. That you’re cursed.”

I said nothing—only held his gaze before focusing on my glass of rum. I took a drink, hoping the burn of it traveling down my throat and into my gut would burn away the guilt lingering there.

“Do you wish to know my thoughts?”

Upon hearing Fletcher’s question, I returned my stare to him. “Aye.”

He leaned forward on the table, narrowing his brow. “I believe the tales about you to be false. And instead of telling the truth, you allow the tales to build and build so men will fear you. Obey you. When really…you are a good man.”

Stunned by his statement, I did not respond at first.

Since he’d been aboard, I’d done nothing to warrant him to believe I was a good man. I’d yelled at him, threatened to hang him from the main mast, and yet he sat there and called me good.