Those green eyes narrowed, but Eris’s voice was soft as she said, “Who hurt you?”
“What?” Safire breathed.
“Anyone can see you’re afraid to be touched.”
This wasn’t exactly true. Safire just wasn’t used to people touching her. She’d spent most of her life without physical contact on account of her mother’s skral blood running through her veins.
Before Dax became king and changed everything—freeing the skral and abolishing the unjust laws that governed them—the only time anyone ever touched Safire was to injure or punish her. So now, something as little as the brush of a hand, if it came from someone she didn’t know or wasn’t comfortable with, could hit her with the force of a lightning strike.
“Who hurt you?” Eris asked again.
Safire thought of the night of the revolt. Of the knife she put in Jarek’s heart. “It doesn’t matter,” she whispered. “He’s dead.”
Eris’s mouth turned down at those words and she stepped warily back.
“Well then,” she said, studying Safire like she was some kind of puzzle. Turning, she headed for the door. Before she opened it and stepped through, she paused and looked back over her shoulder. “Remy is just down this hall. So don’t try anything.”
The way she said it was less of a threat, more like a genuine warning.
The door shut, locking Safire in with only the lamp, its flame burning low. Safire listened to the lock click into place. Listened to the footsteps disappear down the hall.
Her stomach growled in the silence, making her realize she hadn’t eaten since before she’d followed Eris into the Thirsty Craw.
Safire waited several moments more. When she was certain Eris was gone, she pulled her leg up so her bound hands could reach inside her boot. It took her a few tries, but her fingers finally reached the hidden flap between the leather and her calf, freeing the lockpicks there.
With her hands bound, it took longer than usual to get the manacles unlocked. But as soon as they clicked open, Safire moved through the dimly lit room toward the table. Carefully, she reached for the lamp, turning the thumb wheel until the low flame burned brighter, giving her more light to see by. She then began to inspect the room.
First, she searched for her knives, looking in drawers and between folded trousers and shirts. Her fingers meticulously traced the floorboards and clapboard walls, trying to find secret compartments.
When it became clear there were no weapons in this room, she looked for something that could be used as a weapon. But all she found was a rusted directional compass in one of the drawers. She pocketed it.
Where do you keep your secrets?she wondered, thinking of the thief with the moon-pale hair. It seemed unnatural for someone’s room to contain no trace of their identity.
Thinking of the night the Death Dancer walked into Safire’s own room and stole her throwing knife, she approached the bed, which was little more than a lumpy mattress on a roughly hewn wooden frame. Reaching beneath the pillows, she found a plain wooden spindle there. Drawing it out, she ran her thumb over its smooth curves wonderingly.
Suddenly, footsteps thudded in the hall.
Safire’s gaze shot to the door, her heart thundering. Had someone heard her? Seen the light from the lamp?
Before she was caught in the act, Safire put the spindle back, turned down the lamp’s flame, and returned to her manacles,closing them around her wrists.
But the footsteps came and went.
The door never opened.
Safire ground her heel against the wall, the chains of her manacles clinking as she did. She closed her eyes, trying to think of what to do.
Asha would surely be at the scrin by now, oblivious to the danger coming for her. Dax and Roa would be fully panicked at Safire’s absence. If they tried to pursue Jemsin’s ship—as she knew they would—it would delay their arrival in the Star Isles. Not a good start to their alliance with its empress.
She needed to escape, track down Asha, and warn her. She and Asha could then find Dax and together they could inform the empress about the pirates trawling her waters. The empress, Safire was certain, would send her navy after this ship and sink it to the bottom of the sea.
Safire had a compass in her pocket. She knew the Star Isles were northwest of Darmoor.
All she needed was a boat to get her there.
Yearning
The fisherman’s daughter was seventeen the next time she saw him. She was down on the shore, scraping barnacles off the hull of her father’s boat when she felt a ripple in the air, as if someone had just stepped into this world from another.
