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He blinked wearily at them all and shook himself off like a wet dog.
Next to him, Sorasa curled a lip with disdain. She wrung out her hair with a sniff, as if she had simply stepped in from a rainstorm, and not the black sea itself.
“Captain an-Amarat,” she drawled, her voice carrying over the deck. “Your hospitality has not improved.”
At the forecastle, Meliz an-Amarat was already moving, her dark brown eyes wide, reflecting the distant firelight of Ascal. Though she wore plain clothing, there was no mistaking her for anything but the ship’s ruthless captain. She glared between Elder and Amhara, a crease appearing between her eyebrows. Her teeth gleamed, set at a hard edge between parted lips.
She reached the deck but gave no order to her ravenous crew. Their blades remained, poised to strike.
Her eyes traveled over them, fast and sharp as a whip crack. “You look worse than the last time I saw you,” Meliz said. “And you looked quite terrible then.”
Sorasa sneered. “The Queen’s dungeons tend to do that to a person.”
At that, Meliz’s face dropped, her snarling shield cast away. Her gaze hardened and she took another step, waving a hand to her crew. They released behind her, lowering their weapons, but not their eyes.
The captain’s voice shook.
“Where is my daughter?”
Dom’s heart clenched, his cheeks going hot.
“We do not know,” he said with a heavy sigh. Internally, he braced for the storm that was a mother’s fury.
Meliz an-Amarat did not disappoint. Her own blade snapped from a sheath at her hip, the short sword rigid in the air, the edge of the blade catching the lantern light. She looked wild, seaborn, chaotic as any wave beneath the ship. Merciless as the Long Sea.
Then she glanced back to the black horizon, and the glimmering embers of Ascal. Dom saw the war inside her, raging between her need to escape and her will to turn back.
“Is Corayne in—?”
Sorasa stepped forward, within an inch of Meliz’s sword. She paid little mind to the steel and held out her tattooed palm. As if calming a spooked horse, and not a murderous pirate.
“Corayne is still in the north. Somewhere,” she said, forceful and stern. Her copper eyes widened, filled with resolve. “She is alive, I promise you that, Meliz.”
Lies came so easily to Sorasa Sarn. Dom saw how difficult it was for her to tell the truth.
Meliz’s sword lowered an inch. “You’re going after her.”
“With all we have,” Dom offered, matching step with the assassin. They presented a united front, or at least their own strange version of it. “Whatever that may be.”
The captain’s eyes narrowed as she scoffed.
“My daughter, alone in the wilderness,” Meliz muttered, even as she sheathed her sword. “Alone against all this—I should throw you both overboard.”
I do not disagree, Dom thought ruefully, his shame returning tenfold. He looked to the waves, dappled with lantern light before fading into darkness. Even the burning city on the horizon glowed weaker and weaker, as theTempestbornpushed farther out into the Long Sea.
He swallowed hard, fighting back both seasickness and revulsion. Ascal was the largest city in the world.How many innocents did we leave to burn?
Meliz’s sharp command cut through his thoughts.
“Kireem, clear your cabin,” she barked, waving at one of the crew. “These two look ready to drop.”
In a flurry of motion, the crewmember leapt down from the forecastle only to disappear into the lower decks. Dom recognized him notonly from their previous meeting on the Long Sea, but also from Adira. In the tea shop, when Corayne realized her mother’s ship was in port. Kireem and the Jydi bruiser were there, whispering about the ship’s narrow escape from a kraken. As before, Kireem still wore an eyepatch, his brown skin like dusk in the lantern light.
Dom eyed the deck again, weighing the brutish crew and the menacingTempestborn. One of the masts was new, the wood a different color than the rest of the ship.The work of the kraken.
“Come along,” Meliz grumbled under her breath, indicating for the pair to follow.
They did so without question.
