Unless I wanted to wait for the King to die. And even then, I’d have to kill Hadrian. The thought was harder now than it had been when I signed. I’d thought him pretentious at first. Conceited. But he wasn’t. With some surprise, I realized I liked Hadrian.
Not that thinking about it now did me any good. There was little to do here but listen to the sounds of the ship. The pirates slept in the berth just outside our door. Murmured conversation drifted through the walls clearly enough for Kye to translate to me. Meaningless things. The height of the sun, the strength of the wind. Though sometimes he refused to repeat their words,glaring at the wall instead, the color of his face deepening with anger.
I asked once if they ever named the person who paid for our capture, but Kye shook his head.
The pirates knew Kye spoke their tongue. They were careful with their speech.
I grew accustomed to the shifting sweep of oars against the waves. The lull of boots walking above. The clangor of steel against steel as the pirates practiced swordplay, the sound of which seemed to calm Kye as he stared idly at the ceiling, imagining the fight by the spat of their blades as their feet danced overhead.
The blood in Kye’s lungs didn’t reappear, though he winced and rubbed his ribs whenever he shifted in his seat.
It was me who began to decline. The absence of fish, seaweed, and the moon weakened my muscles, leaving a listlessness in my head. Never reaching a deep sleep, I dozed more than Kye, often waking to find him staring at me, fear in his eyes.
But that was nothing compared to the walls of the little cabin. In the moments Kye and I talked, offering sweet distraction, I was fine. But in the drifts of silence, the walls squeezed without warning. The ceiling shrank towards me. The air in the room thinned, and my heart raced, waiting for the wood to swallow me whole.
But there was nothing to do but close my eyes and wait for the feeling to pass. Sometimes it was there and gone, over in a matter of moments.
Other times, it took hours.
WhenMihaunacame and went, I worsened. The fever I’d experienced over the winter solstice returned, leaving me shivering. A scarlet flush crested my cheeks, the rest of my skin ice-cold.
The pirates noticed, too. Burian reported my condition to the captain, who came down to loom in the doorway, arms crossed.
“What is it?” Kriska asked, his routine lengthy greeting dropped at the sight of me. I stared at the floor, hardly able to raise my head and look at him. Kriska glanced over his shoulder at Burian. “How long has she looked like this?”
The pirate shrugged, shaking his unruly hair from his eyes under the strap of his useless eyepatch. “A day or two.”
Kriska scratched at his whiskers as he surveyed me. “This better not be a trick of yourkind.”
Kye’s jaw hardened. “How could shepretendto be sick?”
Captain Kriska turned a cold eye on him. “I’d keep my mouth shut if I were you. The second I think she might die I’ll slit your throat, throw your body to the fish, and be done with the both of you. Get Demyan,” he said to one of his men.
Kye fumed. He sat back, glaring at anyone daring enough to look his way.
A few minutes later, Demyan lowered himself at my feet, face stoic as he turned my hand over, studying the marks carved into my skin by my iron cuff. He pressed his fingers into the pulse at my wrist. My eyes met his as he stretched his opposite hand across my forehead.
He was taller than the other pirates. Scars marred his face. Deep pockmarks from adolescent acne lay under scores of jagged flesh, torn and healed in crisscrossing patterns over his cheeks. I’d seen him almost every day, yet I hadn’t heard him speak. An air about him made my hackles rise.
I hated speaking with Captain Kriska—but Demyan’s presence filled me with quiet, chilling dread.
Inches from me, he let his eyes wander over the thin fabric of my dress, then glanced back at me. He winked. I jerked my arm away and he tightened his grip, thumb digging into the tendons of my wrist.
“Vynes ju hore palubu,” he said, standing aside for Burian to unlock my chains.
Without warning, Burian shoved me to my feet. Horror lodged in my throat as I realized they were taking me topside. I swung back, suddenly needing to see Kye’s face before they did. He was already upright, fighting his chains to get to me.
Demyan’s fingers hardened like a vice over my wrist. Burian grabbed my other arm, ducking away from Kye’s towering frame. The pirate laughed as he dodged, but Demyan prowled ahead, tugging me with him, my feet scrabbling to stay in the room.
“Kye—” I gasped, wrenching my arm against Demyan’s grip. He dragged me through the berth of pirate mattresses and towards the stairs, his face a void of empty darkness. If I hadn’t known better, he might have been avacous.
Burian stayed behind to blow Kye a kiss.
“Zabijem ta, vy posratí piráti. Zabijem t’a!”Kye snarled.“ZABIJEM T’A! ZABIJEM T’A!”
His voice followed us up deck, where Demyan dropped me to the floor. The bright sun assaulted my vision, driving a nail into my skull. I hissed, curling into the protection of an empty bench like a feral cat, closing my eyes against the current of sea air and greedily gulping it down.
Captain Kriska prodded my bare foot with his boot. He crossed his arms, irritation carved in his brow. I squinted up at him, mouth curled in disgust.
