“What is in it?”the woman said.
Fell shrugged.“I am only helping unload.I was not there when it was loaded.”
She huffed and pushed him, using the metal rod to pry at the lid as sea birds squawked above us.
“You will sail somewhere and play thief?”I said.“Leaving me here alone?”
“Onlyskaelknows that.”
I was furious for three heartbeats but then he smirked and his grin was too much to bear while angry.It would seem King Arik wasn’t the only one who lost disagreements with Fell based on expression alone.
“I am trying to be angry; you must stop looking at me so?—”
Fell’s eyes shot to the docks behind me, and he moved so quickly my mind had trouble following things.In an instant, he had tucked himself between me and the docks behind us, having come several paces in the time it took me to turn around and sense the commotion.There was a brawl, and while I was used to that, to some extent, I feared it happening so close to the water’s edge.What if someone were to hit their head and in their dizziness swim poorly or not at all?
I had been backing up, but slowed my retreat as my mind caught on the sight.Something in the brawl wasn’t usual.My eyes tried to follow the limbs as my ears strained to separate the sounds.
One body did fall off the dock.It stood in a flash, rushing up and out of the water, by way of a different dock, but then it stopped fleeing and stared at me.
“Gentlewoman Mira?”
It was a voice I felt like I should have known.I did know it… but from where?
I stared at the bruised face.
The green eyes.
“Rowan?”
It was him.The blacksmith’s apprentice from my childhood kepen.Beaten and bloody and swollen.
“What happened to you?”I said, coming forward.Several rowers moved around us, seemingly preparing for Rowan’s next move.
“Me?What happened to you, Gentlewoman?Everyone thinks you’re dead.”
We’d never held eye contact for so long.
“Leave him!”I said to the Norsern circling us, fingering the blades on their belts.“He will listen to me.I will explain things.How did he end up on your ship?”
“Kaker’s orders,” said someone, shrugging.
I turned back to Rowan.“Are you well?You look… cold.”He looked utterly terrible, but I didn’t want to say that to him.
“Your father, Gentlewoman… I must tell you—” His eyes flicked to the rowers standing nearby, waiting.Watching.“In case they kill me quickly.I have terrible news of your father.He is no longer living.”
My blood forgot how to rush.
“Surely not.”
But I could tell by his face that it was.A flood of memories struck me.My father’s beard when only a little grey wove through it.His hands.The way the hounds would look so sad whenever he left the kepen without them…
I knew parents could be dead, but somehow I’d never believed mine would be.I tasted salt and the musk of his leather jerkin.The breeze brushed my cheeks sweetly.
“Can they understand me?”Rowan said, his eyes leaping from rower to rower.
I shook my head.“I do not think?—”
He stepped close to me, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek.“Dayne is Grainkeeper now,” Rowan said, lowering his voice into a whisper.“He has allied himself with Grainkeeper Loric—his father has also died.They are building a fleet.They seek vengeance, Gentlewoman, for you and the other attacks.They are coming.You need not fear.They are coming.”
