Page 66 of The Sea Witch (Salt & Sorcery #1)

Exhaustion suddenly dragged on Alys with heavy rusted chains. Blearily, she looked up at Stasia, who was reviewing the chart

with their intended course.

After they had fled the naval ship and its kraken, the Sea Witch had put in off the shore of a small cay, seeking a temporary landing place to avoid further encounters with the Royal Navy.

Though she still sensed Ben within her, there had been no word from him. Anxiety had kept Alys from finding any comfort in

the shelter of sleep.

Now, two days after she had seen him sail away from her, worry and weariness churned in her gut, a mix which seemed to suddenly

catch up to her.

“Are you well?” her friend asked with a frown of concern. “You look as though your face is made of melting wax.”

“Can’t...” Alys blinked. Though she was tired, fatigue hit her all at once, with the force of a cudgel to the back of her

head. “Eyes won’t stay open. This your doing? You cast a sleepin’ spell on me?”

Stasia gave her an unwavering stare. “I would never be so trite.”

“Someone else in the crew, then. Susannah? Thérèse?”

“No one cast a sleeping spell on you,” Stasia answered, exasperated. “Your weariness is likely due to the fact that you paced

on the top deck all night.”

“Did no such thing,” Alys said. Or she tried to say, but her words came out in a jumble.

“The middle watch and morning watch told me,” Stasia countered. “You bounded from stem to stern when nearly everyone else

was asleep in their berths. And you didn’t eat your supper.”

“Whoever was in charge of last night’s supper fed us boiled leather,” Alys returned.

“We will find ourselves a new cook when the timing is more ideal. For now...” Stasia walked across Alys’s quarters and

took her by the wrist. She tugged Alys toward her berth.

“Sleep now,” Stasia said with an astonishing amount of gentleness.

Alys could object, and force herself to stay awake. But she wasn’t a child. So, she let her friend push her onto her berth

and lay quietly as Stasia tugged a blanket over her.

“Wake me in thirty minutes,” Alys insisted.

“An hour,” her friend replied calmly.

Alys would have demanded she get her way, except her eyelids were leaden, and she could keep them open no longer. The last

thing she saw before she surrendered was Stasia bending over her, her brow creased with worry.

There was nothing to be concerned about. Or so Alys wanted to say, but she wasn’t able as slumber pulled her down.

She stood on a white beach, sapphire waves lapping at the sand and foaming around her bare ankles. Palm trees gently swayed

as a soft warm breeze drifted across the water.

“Alys.”

She turned at the familiar voice. Her heart leapt as Ben made his way toward her. He wore no shirt and loose pantaloons, and

his markings danced across his sun-warmed skin. His unbound hair blew around his face and even from a distance his eyes were

the same azure shade as the water that ringed the island.

She ran to him. His arms were around her instantly, and she pressed her face against his chest. Inhaling deeply, she caught

his scent of seawater, wood, and leather.

“You’re back,” she murmured into the crook of his neck.

“I wish I was with you now.” His hand cradled the back of her head, stroking her hair.

“You are,” she insisted.

He pulled back slightly. “We dream together, Flame. At this moment, I’m asleep in my berth on board the Jupiter . See? Tea cakes generally don’t fly in real life.”

He pointed toward the sky, where a collection of small cakes sporting gull wings wheeled in circles, crying out to each other.

“Hell.” She forced down the knot of disappointment stuck in her throat. “You’re sound? Any harm come to you?”

“Sound, and no harm. Some hard questions were put to me, but I had answers for them. Strickland even complimented me on my

resourcefulness and courage,” Ben added bitterly. “It was all I could do to keep from running him through with his own cutlass.”

“There’ll come a time for vengeance.” She stroked her hands along his chest and over his face. “Damn dreams. Why isn’t this

real?”

“It is, and it isn’t.” He gazed at her intently. “The Jupiter is currently heading toward Hispaniola, well away from the Sea Witch . With good fortune, neither ship should cross the other’s path for a long while. That is what I came to tell you. With the

Jupiter on its fool’s errand, you are free to move on to the next step in search of the fail-safe.”

“I’ve news as well. I saw a naval ship, not the Jupiter . It had a kraken.”

“Hell.”

“I watched it destroy a pirate’s ship,” she went on. “The sight’s branded into my mind.”

“It’s happening, then. What Warne threatened is truly coming to pass.”

“Your mission’s done. No need to stay on the Jupiter .”

“There’s no way for me to flee the ship,” he said with regret. “Not without having it give chase, and I’ll never lead them to you. Trust me,” he added, his gaze moving over her face, “I swear that when the opportunity presents itself, I will speed back to your side.”

“It’s good to have two navigators aboard the Sea Witch ,” she said. “We know twice as much about where we are.”

His brow furrowed. “I must go. Even though I begged exhaustion, Strickland will not look kindly on his sailing master sleeping

away daylight hours.”

“Kiss me,” she demanded, “before we wake.”

He lowered his mouth to hers. His kiss was soft and reverent, tender and aching. The obstacles and distance between them fell

away. She wove her fingers into his hair and opened her lips to him. He tasted exactly as she remembered, rich and deep, with

the added flavor of yearning.

In the way of dreams, the more she held fast to him, the further away he seemed to get. He turned insubstantial, misty.

“Ben,” she cried out. “Ben.”

“I’ll return to you,” he answered, his voice growing distant. “I swear it.”

She called out his name once more, but she was alone on the beach. The water stilled, and nothing moved, the entire world

trapped in time, neither going backward nor moving forward.

Her eyes flew open and she was once again in her berth, staring at the planks overhead, the knots in wood she knew so well.

She brought her fingers to her lips, yet there was no taste of Ben on her mouth. He was far away from her now.

Something jostled him sharply. Was the ship under attack? Did the sea creatures bound to the mage’s will suddenly revolt and

turn against the Jupiter ?

“Wake up, you bastard,” Oliver barked.

Ben tried to sit up, but strong binding held him down. He opened his eyes. A thick-armed sailor pinned him to his berth, as Strickland, Oliver, Gray, and Warne looked on.

They all wore hard, grim expressions.

“Explain this,” Ben demanded.

“Traitor.” Oliver nodded toward two more seamen standing by. One held a pair of manacles, and the other gripped shackles in

his beefy hand. “Aligning yourself with that whore, that witch .”

“Denial is impossible, Priestley,” Captain Gray added when Ben was about to contradict the quartermaster. “We know.”

Ben struggled against the man holding him down, but he was too large and brutish to be moved.

“I felt it.” The mage sneered. “Your dreamwalking. To her . Everything you blathered to us earlier is utterly false.”

Ben remained silent. There was nothing to be said, and he would tell them naught of Alys.

Warne bent down, placing his face close to Ben’s.

“Without your dreamwalking, we’d have never known where to find her. There’s a line, you see, drawn between your heart and

hers.” He placed his hand on Ben’s chest, and though Ben struggled to shake him off, the mage dug his fingernails into him.

“It has led us straight to her.”

“In the opposite direction of where you pointed us,” Oliver said disgustedly. “Turncoat. Betrayer.”

“And we know that Tanner is after the fail-safe that Little George created,” Warne went on, smiling.

“She’ll take us to it,” Strickland said with a tight nod.

“You’ve no use for the fail-safe,” Ben threw back.

“Others do,” Warne answered. “We find it, and destroy it. We’ll add more creatures to our arsenal. Every ship in the fleet

will have at least one monster as part of its weapons.”

“This has to stop.” Ben turned to Strickland. “This isn’t what the navy is supposed to be.”

“This is precisely the purpose of His Majesty’s Navy,” the admiral replied coldly. “To protect and advance the Crown is exactly our objective.”

“Alys has nothing to do with any of this,” Ben insisted. “She only wants to be left alone.”

“She’s a thorn,” Warne returned. “We have to pluck her out of our paw.”

“She’ll be taken to England,” Strickland said flatly. “Burned in London.”

“A slow burning,” Warne added. “Mages have unique ways of prolonging the agony. We use magic to keep the victim alive for

as long as possible.”

Ben thrashed wildly. He managed to throw off the sailor holding him, and when Warne backed up, Ben went straight for Strickland.

He slammed his fist into the admiral’s face. Blood sprayed from Strickland’s nose and coated Ben’s fist.

“I know,” Ben said through clenched teeth. “I know everything. You killed him. You and your piece of shit mage.”

“What’s this?” Captain Gray looked stunned.

“Stow it, Gray,” Strickland snapped. “Unless you want to be killed by pirates as well.”

White-faced, the captain kept silent.

Before Ben could land another punch, his arms were pinned behind him and he was thrown to the ground. As he lay on the floor,

Strickland pressed his boot against the back of Ben’s head.

“You never held much potential, Priestley,” the admiral said with mock sadness. “I kept hoping you’d turn around, and, in

the absence of your father, I could shape you into something worthwhile.”

Strickland removed his boot and the seamen holding Ben hauled him to his feet and slapped the shackles and manacles onto him.

Hot pain shot up his arms and spread across his chest.

Strickland walked to him and patted his cheek with far more force than a fond but judgmental parent.

“I had hoped you wouldn’t be so disappointing,” Strickland said.

The mage strode to Ben. He placed his hand on the center of Ben’s chest, his fingers digging into Ben’s skin.

“A turncoat cannot be trusted.” The mage closed his eyes and his lips moved. Red light enveloped Warne’s hand. It sank into

Ben’s skin.

Searing pain ripped through him, as though the mage tore his beating heart out. Yet Warne’s hand remained on top of Ben’s

chest.

More agony shot through Ben, crackling into his veins and scouring every corner of his being. Alys’s bright flame within him

suddenly went out.

Warne pulled his hand away, and Ben sagged. Echoes of pain reverberated through him. Physical anguish, and something else.

A hollow, devastating loneliness. An icy cold solitude that left his soul bleeding.

“No,” he breathed.

Alys was gone. The connection between them had been severed.

His gaze met Warne’s. The mage’s pitiless eyes stared back.

She was gone from within him. All her heat and strength. Vanished.

There would be no way to contact her. No means to dreamwalk again to warn her about what was to come. She might even believe

him dead.

Strickland glanced at the sailors holding him. “Take him to the brig. I want a guard on him at all times.”

“If he’s ever left alone,” Oliver added, “I will personally and with great gusto administer fifty lashes to whomever was supposed

to be watching him.”

“Aye, sir,” the sailors gulped.

“The Redthorns are a dangerous—” Ben said.

Strickland’s cheeks flushed. “Warne.”

The mage stepped forward and made a pattern in the air with his fingers.

Everything around Ben went dark. When he next opened his eyes, he was lying on a cot in the brig. A guard impassively watched

him from the other side of the glowing bars.

Ben sat up and put his head in his hands.

Alys and the crew of the Sea Witch were sailing to their deaths, and there was nothing he could do to stop it.