Page 10 of Tempest

“You’re going to shoot them off?” she asked, incredulous.

Before he could answer, the sailors returned from below carrying not pistols or shot, but cargo. Barrels, crates, bound chests, and leather bags. Familiar ones, some stamped with the crest of a blooming rose.

Meedy followed her gaze. “I’m going to buy them off, Lady Rose,” he said, before barking another order. “Strike our flags!”

High above them, atop the main mast, the flag of the Meridian lowered. The larger ensign, flying from the stern of the ship, disappeared too. Cat wanted to scream, watching the Lion of the Empire fold away.

It was a clear signal of surrender.

Taking her elbow, Meedy tried to direct Cat off the deck. “If you’ll kindly step below—”

She flinched off the captain’s guiding hand, surprising them both. But Cat was too infuriated to care for laws of etiquette, or her station, little as it mattered.

“Buy them off with our property?” she snapped, her voice a whipcrack. What little we have left, scraped together from attics and corners. Barely enough for a life, even here. “Lord Rose would not consent to this!”

“Is there something else you’d like to trade?” Meedy fired back at her.

Cat did not miss the way his stare lingered, roving over her bare collarbone. It was not meant to frighten her, but to make her understand. Grimly, she raised her chin, her silence enough.

Meedy gave a shallow nod and waved his hand, dismissing her as so many others had.

“Welcome to the Lyrian Sea, Lady Rose.”

Chapter Three After

THE AFTERNOON RAIN had long passed, leaving only a few puddles to dodge on her walk back down the hill. Cat did her best to avoid the carts rumbling through the streets, kicking up dirty water wherever they went. She arrived home quickly, having taken the direct route to the pink brick townhouse instead of looping along the beach. Just as well. It was too late for sunset, too late to run to the lighthouse and try to spot a flash of green on the horizon. The stars gleamed instead, brilliant between the palm trees.

Cat’s street was mercifully bare of gallows and crows. Only the neat townhouses with their brick walls and freshly painted shutters, their garden hedges bursting green. It was the loveliest street in all Archenport, home to merchants, a few officers, and newly returned government officials. But for the parrots amongst the palms, Keystone Street could be a fine corner of Brycam City, the sprawling capital of the Meridian Empire.

She did not bother to knock on her own door, climbing the stone steps to push her way inside. Her arrival caught Derry unawares, the young maid scurrying out of the kitchen and into the small but well-appointed entrance hall. Cat waved off her apologies. She was early home, and Derry had no way of predicting her once-predictable mistress anymore.

“Is something wrong at the Widow?” the maid asked, her watery blue eyes wide. Derry had the look of a porcelain doll, fragile and pale even after years in the Lyrian sunshine. “Have you taken ill?”

Cat gave her the most reassuring look she could muster. “All is well, just a slow night.”

The maid gave a trembling nod before her eyes darted to the dining room off the entrance hall.

Cat hardened, her body tense. One hand closed into a fist, and she thought of her pistol upstairs, or the rifle in the hall closet. But before she could open her mouth to speak, another voice cut her off entirely.

“A slow night?” a man drawled from the dining room. “Must be dire straits at the Widow Rose.”

Cat’s fist unclenched and she drew a fortifying breath, her eyes shutting in annoyance. Would it kill him to give me some warning, she thought, gathering her wits.

“How long has he been here?” Cat said, handing Derry her ledger and shawl. She did not bother to lower her voice.

In the next room, the man huffed a laugh.

Derry gave a small curtsy, an apology in her eyes. “He arrived only a few minutes before you, madam. By carriage.”

“Of course.” Cat rolled her eyes.

Indeed, there had been a rare carriage outside in the street, but she’d been too deep in her thoughts to notice exactly whose. Grimacing, she dismissed the maid with a curt nod. Derry turned tail, eager to be out of the line of fire.

Cat walked into it headfirst.

Warm candlelight filled the dining room, turning the floral wallpaper to gold. The mahogany table reflected the candles, the wood polished to a high shine. Catrine Rose had a taste for fine things—painted porcelain from the Rijkstad factories, gleaming Esperese silver cutlery, Anticlean lace to edge her curtains. Oil paintings, shell goblets. The ticking clock, rare in its gears and gleaming face. Her home was like stepping across a bridge, leaping from the wild edges of the Lyrian Sea to the gilded staterooms of Brycam City. Until one looked closer to notice the chip in an opalescent cup, a crack through crystal, a missing set of saucers, or a scratch across painted canvas. Damage that spoke of ship holds, not showrooms, finery bought with a saber instead of coin.

At first glance, all was in place in the dining room. Then her eyes fell on a tricorne hat alongside her silver tea set. And a Meridian officer seated at his leisure, his black leather boots propped up on the table.