Page 31 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

“Then don’t ask anything of me. Let me give it.” Her immediate rebuttal earned a swift glare. She rushed to say, “I will give you everything I have, Henrik. I care for you, and not just as a friend. But if we’re to be only friends, then that’s enough until you’re ready for more.”

From this distance, the flecks of gold in his eyes created a shimmer, an intensity. He was a lone sailor, and she the siren song.

There was no going back.

Henrik reached up, cupped her chin with his hand. Her heart shivered; breath stalled. She stared at him, wide-eyed.

“Shite, Britt. I don’t deserve you. Give me time?”

“As much as you want.”

She prayed he’d kiss her. Press their lips together and wing her into territories she’d only dreamed about. But he didn’t. Gradually, his hand shifted away. The tips of his fingers slipped along the bottom of her jaw like lines of fire.

“You’re worth fighting for. I promise that I will fight for you until all the blood leaves my body.”

Britt woke up to a tangerine sky. She peered over the edge of her hammock to see the first vestiges of the sunset creeping daytime backward.

Outside of Pedr’s quarters, a tall, lithe body stood at the wheel, staring out, his hair trailing in the wind.

She slipped out of the hammock, grabbed a blanket.

Pedr said nothing as she stood at his side, the blanket wrapping her shoulders. A stiff breeze blew into her face, clearing sleep. Pedr’s shoulder and tawny arm brushed hers. Those deep set, thoughtful eyes, nestled amongst thousands of freckles all down his face and neck, stormed.

“I’m sorry, Britt.”

“You have no reason to apologize. I deserved what you said.”

“I have more reasons for what I said and didn’t say than you know. There are things I can’t say.”

He swallowed audibly.

The simple statement remained unrequited. She tucked it into a corner of her mind to think about later. She couldn’t fathom a single thing Pedr would need to apologize for, but neither had she imagined him bound by . . . something.

“Look, it’s obvious you physically can’t tell me something.” Britt tilted her head back, shaking the hair from her eyes. “I understand that whatever holds power over you, it prevents you from speaking. Don’t respond,” she quickly added, hand in the air. “I don’t want you to go through it again.”

The slightest nod encouraged her. She’d thought about this on and off while she dozed throughout the afternoon.

Whatever bound him must be arcane, and likely powerful.

He didn’t control it, and it worked under specific parameters he couldn’t reveal.

How long had he been operating under these constrictions?

His constant mastering of visible emotions made far greater sense.

She laid a hand on his forearm. “Whatever it is, I want to help. If I can,” she added. “Please, let me know?”

Another terse nod.

For both their sake, the conversation needed to change.

“Do you sleep?” she asked.

“No.”

Of course he didn’t. Pedr never slept. It took years before she realized that wasn’t a facetious fact.

He never slept.

She knew that. As a young girl, it hadn’t taken her long to figure out that folklore tales about Arcanists were real. She’d known her older brother was Arcanist of the Sea for years out of sheer wits and observation. Pedr acted too shy to admit it outright until she was much older.

Yet somehow . . . it didn’t seem quite real. She shielded his secret, understanding Pedr wanted to be Burning Beard, the pirate. Rebel against authority, pain in their aunt’s side, and her eldest brother.

Her hero.

Not Pedr, Arcanist of the Sea. Mysteries and secrets always shrouded him.

“I don’t remember you like this,” she admitted, quietly. “When I was younger, I mean, and we’d go on months-long voyages together.”

“When you were younger,” came his gruff reply, “I hid it better. I had less arcane ability then.”

“Why did you hide it?”

Teeth bruised his bottom lip. “Because you were younger. I didn’t want you to know.”

“I’m sorry I worried you while on the mainland.” She sighed. “Yesterday wasn’t fair to you. I know it was risky, but I wanted the answers.”

“I understand.”

Besides, she silently added, it’s not like you could have helped. Pedr hadn’t left the ship since the time their parents died.

Perhaps that was the beating heart of Pedr’s frustration.

He stared hard at her, and the strained silence settled into long moments.

When it became a burden, Pedr nudged her toe with his.

“Tell me what you think about the wyverns and what you learned. I’m sorry I didn’t give you a chance to say it yesterday. ”

Her story required little time, because she skipped the journey and focused on the wyverns. Pedr remained thoughtful, pensive, while she extrapolated every detail she could recall.

“All that I know,” she concluded, “is that the wyverns were restless. Constantly gazing west. Mean-spirited to each other, too.”

His jaw clenched, neck flexed. He gripped the wheel with greater agitation, his powerful fingers grinding it. Recalling their previous conversation, and his bound tongue, she asked nothing else. Her curiosity piqued, however.

She catalogued the things he didn’t say instead. The wyverns were an obvious trigger to his restriction.

“The Keepers clearly had a hard time with them,” she said in a musing tone. “I’m still not sure whether the wyvern that soared around Kapurnick was an accident or intentional. That’s a very long flight.” More softly, she added. “The rest were chained.”

Her morose words settled in a gray swill. Bothered by the treatment of the ferocious beasts, but not sure why, she sank into a confused stupor. The trip had revealed details, but she felt less certain over what they meant for Kapurnick.

Thus far, she didn’t have enough to report to General Helsing. Or anything helpful, really. No idea why the wyvern flew over Kapurnick, nor insight into the Ladylord’s plans. Arguably, Alma wouldn’t attack Kapurnick unexpectedly.

Would she?

Pedr stared west, a pattern as solemn and drawing as the wyverns. He captured their longing and brought it close.

“Keep at it,” he rasped with a grimace. “Keep checking. Keep pressing. Keep searching. You’ll figure it out, or I will.”

With his promise lingering in the air, Pedr returned to his berth.

The next day, Henrik and Einar gave up their friendly competition over sharpened throwing stars and traded eviscerating weapons for a rowboat.

Britt watched them go, dawn rippling a colorful quilt in the water skirt surrounding them. Henrik’s bare arms worked with impressive strength, giving her plenty to appreciate as he faded into sea and sky.

“Think the meeting with General Nils and Alma will go well?” she asked.

Pedr laughed.

Hard.

The last three days had been charged with intensity, but calm. Henrik dissolved into his thoughts, saying almost nothing. Einar kept an eye on the sky, awaiting Drake with Arvid’s updates.

Time provided firmer ground for their budding friendship. Henrik touched Britt briefly—a hand to the small of her back, her elbow, her wrist—but often, as if challenging himself to get used to it.

“I’m taking us farther out of the bay while we wait for them to return.” Pedr glared at a ship that wisely skirted them in a wide circle. “Too many idiots in here. They can’t sail worth shite. We’ll return when the soldats are due.”

Britt propped her chin in her hand and sighed. While they sped toward open ocean, her thoughts followed a similar speedy track. Henrik and wyverns and General Helsing swirled. Her wandering gaze stared at the sea, but comprehended nothing until it snagged on distant movement.

She straightened. Farther north came a hint of sails and a flash of . . . wing. A wyvern wing.

“No,” she whispered.

Must have been a mistake. She saw something that wasn’t there. Another gray flap appeared, right next to the ocean. Impossible. Wyverns couldn’t swim. Could they? She whipped around, breathless.

“Do you have a spyglass?”

Pedr tapped his foot twice on a floorboard, then knocked on the mast at his back. A rope dropped from overhead, a spyglass tied to the end.

“What in the?—”

He shook his head, unwinding the offering. “Don’t question the arcane. It’s really weird. What do you see?”

She accepted the spyglass and pointed. “There. Do you see that flying shape?”

“Yes.”

Britt pressed her eye to the narrow end. “Is that a wyvern on a ship?” She swung it right, left, right again, and paused when something large and white appeared. The sails of a ship. Behind it, a gray mass rose on wings.

Her breath caught. The same spot, and definitely a wyvern. Another look away from the spyglass, then back through it, confirmed her hunch.

“The bastids!” she cried. “They have a wyvern on a ship.” She passed the spyglass to Pedr. “Do you see what I see?”

“I don’t need that to see it. That’s a navy ship.”

“Too big to be a frigate.”

“Looks like a ship of the line.”

“What’s that mean?”

“The biggest vessel the mainland navy has. There’s no obvious insignia from this distance, and it’s heading west.”

“With a wyvern.”

“With a wyvern,” he repeated.

Britt lowered the spyglass and clutched his arm. “How long will Henrik and Einar be gone?”

“Hours.”

“Do we have time to follow the ship and return?”

Pedr hopped two steps back. “Yes. Keep an eye on it.” By the time she whirled to track it again, he was already spinning the wheel.

The brilliant Arcanist hiding inside her even-keeled brother made itself known as the ship picked up speed.

They splashed through waves, soaring across the sapphire ocean so quickly they skimmed the top.

Wind whipped tears from her eyes. They leaked into her hairline and trailed behind the curve of her ear.

“Hold on!” Pedr yanked a small flute from beneath his shirt. He blew on it. No sound issued, but the ship vanished.