Page 14

Nox

After several days of ensuring that we are moving at as quick a pace as possible, I finally crash. Truth be told, I should have left the Audacity in Poet’s tender care after the first day when Morrigan didn’t appear. But I’m nothing if not a control freak, and so I wanted to ensure that we put as much distance between us and Siobhan’s sister as possible. My crew is full of capable people who are the best at what they do, but I refuse to ask anything of them that I won’t do myself.

And it’s entirely possible that I’m an arrogant asshole in addition to being a control freak.

I shut myself away in my cabin and barely take the time to shower before collapsing face-first into my bed. I’ve never had a problem with sleeping, but this evening it eludes me despite my best efforts. I can’t help thinking about Siobhan, about the tension between us. It’s always been there, unacknowledged, but if I’ve been a fool in love before, I have no intention of being one again. Or at least I didn’t. Falling for the leader of a secret rebellion whom I can see only once every season or so is a recipe for a broken heart, and so I refused to allow myself to even dream.

But now she’s on my ship. And somehow the flawed, human version of Siobhan is even more attractive than the caricature of her that I had put on a pedestal. She’s not perfect, and that’s fucking irresistible to me.

And, if I’m being honest with myself, with not a single person to witness except the shadows of my room, I can admit that the feelings for Bastian haven’t dissipated. It feels particularly pathetic to be pining after a man who left me in the dust so long ago. But if my perception of Siobhan has changed, I can’t quite ignore that my perception of Bastian is in danger of shifting as well.

At eighteen, at twenty-one, he was reckless to a fault. It thrilled me even as I feared for him, and when you’re that age, fear and thrill are practically the same thing. Now, though? Now he’s grown up. I don’t know why that surprises me. I’m hardly the same person I was all those years ago. But the Bastian in my head was caught outside of time, unable to change or evolve or grow up. Even though I’ve been avoiding him since he came aboard, I can’t ignore the fact that he has changed. And I don’t know what to do with that.

I’m still mulling over the problem as I slip into sleep’s sweet embrace.

Only to be woken what feels like fifteen seconds later by Poet’s tense voice. “Captain, we need you.” She doesn’t say anything else, but she doesn’t need to. There’s no point in wasting breath when we have a wealth of shared experience between us. There’s only one reason for her to have woken me up.

Trouble.

As soon as Poet opens the door, yells from the crew reach my ears. It’s hard to parse the specific words, but I don’t need to. We’re in danger. I barely pause to pull on a long tunic that covers me from neck to mid-thigh before I rush out of my cabin to find out what all the fuss is about.

I find Poet with Eyal at the helm, him gripping the wheel with white knuckles, his expression tense and carefully blank. “Report,” I say as I come to stand next to them.

Poet doesn’t take her eyes from the horizon. “Crimson sails spotted. Three of them.”

I turn to look, even knowing I won’t see anything. My eyesight is better than most, but it can’t compare to a shifter’s or some of the other magical people we have aboard. “Damn it. I thought we’d have more time before Morrigan found us.”

“Not Morrigan.” Eyal shakes his head. “They’re coming from the wrong direction. From the east instead of behind us.”

The east, which is the horizon before us. Fuck. By my count, we still have another day or so before it’s safe to turn north and follow the line of islands that create the trading path across Threshold. I had no intention of following that path closely, but turn too soon and we’re at the mercy of the storms that rage through the northwestern part of the realm this time of year. With a fully rested crew, I might be willing to take my chances, but we’re all operating on the edge of exhaustion. A storm could very well kill us.

The C?n Annwn will kill us even faster, though.

“Fuck.” I scrub my hands over my face, trying to think of a different option. There’s none. Turning to the south takes us away from our goal, and at this point time is of the essence. Obviously Morrigan reported to the Council at least some of what happened when we took Bastian back. It is a testament to my reputation—and that of my crew—that they’ve sent an additional three ships to bring us down. If this trio fails, no doubt the Council will send the entire fleet, or near enough to it. We can’t afford to waste any time.

I rotate to stare north, as if that would tell me our chances. I must have slept quite a while because the first fingers of dawn are lightening the sky, chasing away the stars. There’s a clear sky, calm seas. That should reassure me, but it only reinforces my suspicion that things are about to go horribly wrong.

“Captain?” asks Eyal.

“I’m thinking.” I scrub my hand over my face again. No good options. Well, we’ve faced no good options before. I straighten and turn back to them both. “North. Now. We can’t afford to sail any closer to the ships trying to pen us in. Especially when we don’t know which ships those are.” Between Siobhan and me, I’m confident that we have information on most of the ships in the C?n Annwn’s fleet. We just need to know who we’re dealing with, and then we can form a proper plan to flee or attack.

Really, though, fleeing is the only option. An attack will slow us down, and even if we survive, it will cut the distance between Morrigan’s pursuit significantly. That’s more dangerous than anything.

Eyal nods. He’s tense as he guides the ship north, a slow turn that causes our sails to dip before the crew readjusts and they snap full again. Within seconds, we’re skimming over the surface of the waves.

The awful feeling in my stomach worsens. We have a fight on our hands, one way or another. “I’m going to check on the crew. Give me a few.”

“Might want to tell them to batten things down,” Poet says, eyes on the sky. “I suspect we’re in for a rough ride.”

“Poet.” I inject a level of charm into my voice that I certainly do not feel. “Keep talking like that and I’ll think you’re sweet on me. A little bit of optimism never hurt anyone.”

Her only response is a tight smile. It’s enough. I go. It feels like so much of my time as captain is spent choosing between one bad option and another even worse option. Understanding that doesn’t make me have any more sympathy for the late Hedd, but damn if my stress level hasn’t risen significantly since I have an entire crew’s safety resting on my shoulders.

An hour later, Siobhan finds me in the process of tying down whatever I can find on the deck. In the time since we turned north, the wind has picked up, slamming at the ship from side to side, causing it to shudder even with my crew’s best efforts. Despite that, Siobhan moves easily. Her long hair whips about her face, obscuring her features. Every few seconds, the light catches her eyes and they shine eerily in the growing light. “Why are we headed north?”

I could remind her that I’m captain and I don’t have to answer to her, but she’s the leader of the fucking rebellion, so I guess I do. I open my mouth, but pause when I realize that my foul mood is going to make me come across as an absolute asshole. If Siobhan were anyone else, I wouldn’t bother to censor myself, but I can’t completely forget the thoughts that circled my mind while I lay in my bed. So I swallow hard and moderate my tone. “We have another three ships closing in. They’re trying a prolonged pincer move. If we didn’t turn, we’d end up in between six ships, and while I’m good, not even I am that good.”

She frowns down at me and then twists to look east, where the sun is a bloody orb in the sky. I can barely see the ships our lookout spotted, but Siobhan goes tense. “How did they recover the Crimson Hag so quickly? We broke a hole in that ship that should’ve sunk it.”

“Magic, darling. What else?” In the short time between the attack on the Crimson Hag and Siobhan and the others finding our ship, I received no word of what happened on Drash. So I have no idea what magic they pulled to bring that ship out of the bay and patch it up in such a short time.

Siobhan sighs. “I don’t have to tell you that the storms are probably going to rip this ship into a thousand pieces.”

“Nope.”

“Even with your crew, we can’t—”

“I know,” I cut in gently. “But it’s a choice between a certain death and a less certain death. We have to take our chances.”

She hesitates as if she might keep arguing, but finally nods. Because she’s a leader, too. She understands that sometimes there are no good decisions, only bad ones measured in mere inches’ difference. “What do you need from me?”

I’m tempted to tell her to go belowdecks and stay safe until this is over. It’s a selfish desire. I should know better than to try to hide away those I care about to keep them safe, but I can’t stop myself from trying over and over again. It’s never worked before. It certainly won’t work now. Siobhan is a warrior. She’s going to be in the middle of the approaching fight, regardless of whether our opponent is the C?n Annwn or a storm. Or, if we’re unlucky, both.

I pat the large crate that I’ve just finished tying down. “Help the crew lash down anything they can find. Things will be challenging enough without someone getting knocked overboard because of carelessness now.” That should be enough to keep her busy, but I find myself continuing to speak. “And keep an eye on Bastian.”

She pauses in the midst of reaching down to check my knot. “Bastian?” Siobhan frowns as if I’ve presented her with a puzzle that she doesn’t quite understand the parameters of yet. “You hate Bastian. If we’re not worried about the C?n Annwn getting him, it would make your life significantly easier if he went overboard. No one to blame that way.”

I blink. Despite everything, a slow smile pulls at the edges of my lips. “Siobhan, are you trying to manipulate me into admitting something about Bastian?”

The blush that rises to her tanned cheeks is confirmation enough. She’s even more attractive when she blushes, and if I didn’t have a dozen dangers facing us, I might be tempted to coax her into my cabin and see just how far that blush extends.

I hadn’t realized that I’d already made the decision to seduce her. I’ve always been awful with timing when it comes to these things, but never quite so bad at timing as this. Then again, if we’re sure to die, why not go out in style?

“Not a manipulation, but…” She huffs out a strained laugh. “Okay, you caught me.”

I don’t point out that she’s furious at Bastian and has been since before we saved him. Love is a complicated thing, and it still shines between them with a strength that I swear I can actually see, even when they’re fighting. They’ll figure this out as long as they survive to see the end of it. That should make me jealous, I think. I’m deeply attracted to Siobhan, and I respect her strength and canniness. And Bastian? Well, there was a reason I loved him, and a reason that when he broke my heart, that pain has echoed through every year that I’ve lived since.

I’ll worry about the lack of jealousy later. Right now, I need to keep us all alive. “Just watch over him. Please.”

Her faint smile fades. She nods. “Okay, Nox. I’ll watch over him. I promise.”