He found her in a tiny one room house overlooking the cove. It was hot inside. Crammed with people dressed not for fishing or farming, but for celebrating. Families had gathered here for a binding.
Skye sat on a rotting pine bench at the back of the room. Her spindle and wool were gripped tight in her hands and her gaze was fixed so intently ahead, she didn’t feel him sit down.
Crow looked where she looked—to the young couple at the front. The young man had Skye’s raven-dark hair and stubborn chin. He reached tenderly for his new wife, sealing their union with a kiss.
He remembered the dark, plump berry.
What would it be like?
He looked to Skye. Saw the same curiosity in her eyes.
What wouldshebe like?
That question scared him most of all.
Here is danger, he thought. And so he fled.
Eight
Safire woke on the deck of a ship. Though the world blurred around her, she knew it was a ship because the wood beneath her cheek was damp, she could hear the squawk of gulls, and she felt the gentle rock of what could only be the sea.
A pair of black boots came into sudden focus. At the sight of them, Safire pushed herself to a sitting position and was surprised to find her hands weren’t bound.
She immediately reached for her knives—all of which were gone. Even the one she kept hidden inside her shirt, strapped to her torso.
“Well, little spy” came that rough voice from the Thirsty Craw. “Welcome to theHyacinth.”
Jemsin.
Safire looked up into the watery brown eyes of a man old enough to be her father. They were the same eyes she’d seen in the crawl space an instant before that knife flew up through the boards. The raised bump of a scar slashed across his foreheadabove his right eye and on his shoulder perched a huge black raven with bloodred eyes. A silver band encircled its leg, one that matched the silver ring on Jemsin’s smallest finger.
The pirate captain looked Safire up and down, taking in her complexion—which was several shades lighter than Dax’s and Asha’s. “Skral born,” he mused.
She bristled, waiting for further indictment of her mixed heritage—an almost daily occurrence in Firgaard. But the captain only shrugged, as if it meant nothing to him. As if the designation hadn’t shaped Safire’s entire life. “Eris says you’re the dragon king’s commandant, as well as his cousin. Perhaps you can help me.”
I’d sooner throw myself into the sea,she thought.
“What day is it?” she demanded.
“The day after yesterday,” he said, making it clear that he had no intention of giving her information until she gave him some first.
Safire held his gaze. “It’s true. My cousin is the dragon king, and I’m the commander of his army. Which is precisely why you’ll never get away with this.”
“With kidnapping you?” Jemsin smiled, gesturing to the empty horizon. “I already have.”
Safire shook her head. “My king will come after you the moment he realizes you have me.”
He bent over, pressing his hands to his knees, and Safire saw the blood caked in his fingernails. It turned her mouth sour.
“We’re half a day’s sail from Darmoor, love. We left in the night without a soul knowing. Your precious king will just bewaking up, and by the time he tracks you to us—ifhe tracks you to us—there will be very little left of you. Unless you cooperate.”
Safire glanced around, needing a plan. The truth was, she very much doubted Dax would be able to track them. Even if he’d discovered Safire’s absence by now, how would he know it was Jemsin who’d kidnapped her? And even if he figured it out, how would he begin to look for her?
Safire couldn’t depend on her cousin. She needed to get out of this herself.
She checked the sky, but it was cloudy and gray. She couldn’t tell where exactly the sun was, nor the direction they were sailing in. And they were so far out at sea, she couldn’t tell how far from land they were.
“Tell me where the Namsara is,” demanded the pirate captain.
