Page 20 of Virelai’s Hoard (The Dagger & Tide Trilogy #1)

Her forgoing dinner to bring Calla food was supposed to be a calculated move.

Trick her into letting her guard down. Because so far Riley had been holding her tongue, and respecting Calla’s personal space, and she’d wasted half of Patch’s imprisonment doing so.

If there was going to be any breaking of walls going on, it had to start from her side.

And Calla had somehow gone and beat her at her own game. This wouldn’t do.

“What do you expect in return from me, then?” Riley asked. At Calla’s look of confusion, she clarified, “For being nice to me.”

Calla’s gaze settled on hers, surprised by the directness. Just a flicker, quickly smoothed over. “What I expect from anyone on this ship,” she said. “Hard work and loyalty.”

Riley had to battle a sudden rush of disappointment.

What did she think?

That she was special ?

“So?” Calla asked once they emptied the plate.

Riley frowned. “What?”

“Do you have something you want to ask of me?”

“Oh.” Her eyebrows rose. She should say no, try to build some goodwill with gestures not meant to be repaid, but a question pushed at her throat and Riley couldn’t stop it any more than she could stop the tide. “What happened, really, during that storm?”

Something in Calla’s expression shuttered, closing off. Shit .

Riley rushed to add, before Calla could dismiss her, “I… saw something.”

Now the captain tensed, the inquisitive raise of her eyebrows too mechanical to be genuine. “You saw something?” she prompted.

Riley sighed, but nodded slowly. She chose her next words carefully, not wanting to put her even more on the defensive. She didn’t know what Calla was hiding, but she sensed she’d stepped into a territory more treacherous than expected.

“I…” She hesitated. Did she really have to admit this?

She took a breath. If she meant to break through Calla’s walls, it needed to start from her.

“I can’t swim,” she said. “I shouldn’t be alive right now.

I should’ve drowned. I would’ve drowned.

I think something saved me.” She didn’t meet Calla’s eyes as a shiver ran through her body at the memory.

It wasn’t an act anymore. She really did want to know what had happened that night, and every bone in her body told her Calla had the answers. If this was what it took to get them…

“What did you see?” The quietness in Calla’s question rose the hairs on the back of her neck.

Riley’s pulse quickened. Was she imagining it, or were Calla’s eyes darker now? Deeper. Dangerous. The sudden memory of drowning nearly suffocated her. A cold, harsh grip of her lungs. The wrong answer right now would make her wish she’d never asked. She was certain of it.

Rule number two: don’t let them see your feelings, unless you can use them as a weapon.

“I can’t really remember,” Riley said. “I just know something dragged me back to the surface.” She sighed, letting her frustration show, using the desk’s shield to wipe her sweaty palms off the rough material of her pants.

The gesture was grounding. “I was drowning, and then I wasn’t.

” A shrug. “I thought you might’ve seen something.

We were clinging to the same barrel, right? ”

Calla’s shoulders lost some of their tension.

She shook her head. “You were already clinging to that barrel once I’d found my way above the water.

” A pause. “You likely saved yourself,” she said.

“The human body can be incredibly resilient when it really matters. People do things they never thought they could all the time.”

Riley nodded slowly, even as she knew Calla was lying through her teeth.

But why?

Later, once she was away and far from prying eyes, Riley pulled out the sheet of paper she’d managed to stick under the bottom of Calla’s now empty plate.

It was a… drawing. A sketch. Of something roughly oval-shaped, perhaps a stone of some sort, with dark veins splitting its surface. A handwritten scribble marked the space under it, its curves much more complicated than Sable’s neat writing and nearly illegible.

Footsteps resounded from the hallway ahead of her, and she quickly rolled and slipped the paper up her sleeve, finding her way back on deck.

***

Riley was tasked with hauling coils of rope from the hold to the deck, probably for no reason other than to make her legs sore from climbing the ladder and shoulders ache from the hard, rough material digging into her flesh.

Ever more frequently, her gaze fell on where her hands were keeping the coil steady as she walked.

She hadn’t been able to find replacement gloves, what with the rest of the crew not owning any, owning fingerless gloves, or not being willing to part with theirs.

The questions had been trickling steadily.

“So what’s with the fingers?” One of the brothers–Draven? Venn? It was hard to tell them apart–asked her one day as they both joined her table for dinner. “Gotta be a story behind that .”

“Bet you pissed off a mutt or something,” the other said, and winced in sympathy. “Pissed one off when I was a kid and it bit me in the ass. Literally. Left a scar and all.” He shifted in his seat as if he could still feel the sting of the bite.

Riley hid her distaste with a smirk. “You’re not far off,” she said, shrugging.

“Except it was a shark, and it wanted the whole ass arm.” She shoved another bite of food, suppressing a snicker at their wide eyes.

“I sneaked a punch in and got off lightly. You should’ve seen the shark’s face.

All shocked I was fighting it back instead of screaming and letting it eat me up.

Almost worth the trade.” She grinned and wiggled her stumps at them.

The next day Pip wanted to hear the story of the shark, and Riley faked confusion. “What shark?”

“The shark that ate your fingers! You punched it and everything?” His face scrunched in thought. “No?”

Riley shook her head. “Wasn’t a shark.” At his crestfallen expression, she took another potato from the pile to be peeled and looked around to make sure they were alone in the galley. “Do you really want to know?”

Pip brightened. “Yes! Please!”

“Well… you know how Patch can get into trouble sometimes? One day, he had a run-in with some blasting powder. I had to grab him quickly before he blew up. He got away with a bit of singed fur and got to enjoy some freshly cooked dinner afterward.” She made a face.

“Apparently they were delicious. He’s been sticking around ever since. ”

The boy’s eyes became big as saucers. “He ate them? Your fingers?”

Riley nodded, all serious-like.

And so it went. Anyone who asked got a different story. Today, when she passed Ignatius on deck, he raised his eyebrows at her and called out, “Oi, Riley. What’s the story today?”

She grinned, almost enjoying the game by now. “A princess!” she called over her shoulder. “The bastard that had her locked up demanded a price in flesh to let her free. Worth it.”

Amused chortling resounded at her back.

Riley’s own smile faltered as she walked out of his sight. The truth wasn’t nearly as funny–or worth sharing.

A moment later, her steps faltered too, for a different reason. She frowned as she observed Eryx, staring at the water beyond the railing.

They’d been there all day.

With a quick glance around to make sure Gadrielle wasn’t nearby, Riley let the coil of rope fall to the deck with a dull thud and approached them.

Eryx didn’t seem to notice her, their pale hands gripping the railing tightly as they stared at the water.

Riley looked beyond too, trying to see what they might be seeing.

The sea had been calm ever since the storm, and today was no different.

Its surface rippled with gentle waves, only disturbed by the passage of the Moonshadow, leaving long streaks in the water that slowly reassembled themselves further away.

The sky was clear too, only a few puffy white clouds strolling across.

Still, Eryx’s intense stare made her shiver.

She remembered their warning on the night of the storm.

How they’d been right about it. If they’d listened to them, then maybe Maren wouldn’t…

“Is there another storm coming?” she asked.

Eryx didn’t react at first, then they blinked, as if drawing themselves out of a daydream. “A storm?” They frowned and then looked up at the sky. A placid shake of their head, not even firm enough to bob the dark hair framing their face. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Oh.” Riley shifted on her feet, unsure about what to do next.

If this had been anyone else, Gadrielle would’ve snapped at them and told them to do something productive with their time quite a while ago.

But ever since the storm, the crew had been cautious around Eryx.

Some of them were suspicious, others reverent, gossipping in hushed voices about the young pirate who had warned the captain about the storm.

About how they were touched by the sea, though no one could tell what that meant, which made them uneasy.

Riley felt that uneasiness too, now. She stepped to walk away.

“Riley?” Eryx asked distractedly, still staring at the water.

“Yeah?”

“Maybe you shouldn’t sleep in the crow’s nest for a bit.”

Riley blinked, surprised they knew about that. Maybe she shouldn’t have been. It was hard hiding anything on this ship. It would only have taken one person noticing her for everyone to find out about it the next day. But why was she still allowed to do it if everyone knew? It was against the rules.

“Why is that?” she asked instead.

“You might fall off.”

A frown. “Why would I fall off?”

Eryx’s voice lowered in a hush. “Because of the sea. It’s… calling.”

Riley couldn’t dig anything else out of them afterward, but the warning was enough to creep her out.

So later that night, she traded the windy crow’s nest for the warmth of the galley. Once she was certain no one would walk in on her, she pulled out the parchment she’d stolen from Calla’s quarters and tried to decipher the writing under the flickering light of a candle.

It took her a while, but a victorious smile slipped on her lips once she figured out the words.

Heart of the Abyss.

Before she’d gone under deck, she could still see the silhouette of Eryx standing at the railing against Nivros’ waning light, staring at the light reflections in the water.

Would they know what this thing was? She didn’t think they’d tell anyone else if she asked, but she also didn’t think they’d be receptive to questions right now.

Carefully, she folded the drawing and nestled it into a cut on the inside of her boot, then blew out the candle. She already knew she wouldn’t be sleeping tonight, but she knew better than to tempt her fate up in the crow’s nest after that warning, that storm she shouldn’t have survived.

In the morning, Eryx was still there. And the air… was different. As if a song vibrated just at the edge of her hearing.

“Eryx?” Pip asked, concerned. “Are you ok?”

Eryx didn’t answer that. Instead, they said, “I think you should call the captain.”