Page 115 of Tempest

Cat eyed the markings, trying to memorize the seemingly random pattern. On closer inspection, she realized they were not dots but tiny diamonds, black as oil against tanned and freckled skin. She suddenly wanted to run a finger over them, tracing the invisible paths between each. She told herself it was only the rum talking, though she had only consumed a mouthful when Brimley wasn’t looking.

“Holy to whom?” she wondered aloud.

Captain Kane recoiled sharply, dropping his arm as if burned by her scrutiny. He turned into the shadows, the lantern casting odd shapes on the wall. It made his face impossible to read, his silhouette shifting and changing.

“No gods of yours,” he said, unlatching the door.

Weak light spilled across the floor of his quarters and Cat winced, remembering the absolute wreck of a room left behind. His papers, his maps, and his books were still splayed out where she had left them, in piles she understood but would seem chaotic to anyone else. Even shadowed, Cat could see the look of consternation on Kane’s face, his lips opening and closing like a fish on the shore.

The lanterns turned his eyes to molten gold, chasing away all remnants of storm green. It was like looking into the heart of a forge, into the sun itself.

“I asked you to put my things back where you found them, Cat,” he growled.

His voice was enough to make her knees tremble, low and rough, the kind used to give commands on deck, in storm or battle. She could easily imagine such a voice calling for a round of cannon fire or sentencing a man to die. And yet it was all undone by the last word, said with equal ferocity, but none of the fury.

Her true name.

Cat.

Her heart thundered in her chest. She pushed past him, squeezing between man and doorway. It was terrifying and thrilling in equal measure, her shoulder brushing the hard lines of his chest. He felt solid as a plank of wood, smooth as the planes of the ship itself.

She glanced up at him, inches away, his eyes hot. “I will when I’m finished with your things, Valerian,” she replied, latching the door in his face.

Chapter Twenty-One After

AFTER TEN YEARS in the Lyrian Sea, Cat was hardly sick on ships anymore. Even in the worst of storms, and of those she had her share. But now her stomach roiled, nausea climbing up her throat like a sailor through rigging. She turned into the wind, hoping the fresh salt air would calm her a little. Until she caught the familiar scent. Seagrass. Dying flowers. Rotting wood. And the sweet grove of phoenix trees, still casting a bit of shade across the southern tip of Rosby Island.

Even Lieutenant Whisten was good enough to look away and let Catrine Rose empty her guts over the gunwales in peace.

It was not the smell that disgusted her but the memories that came with it. The first six months of her life in the Lyrian Sea were a ghost Cat thought had been put to rest. But as she eyed the horizon, shivering in the warm sun, she had to admit that was far from the truth.

Cat could still remember what it felt like. To stand on the crumbling veranda and look out at the taunting sea, wishing it would carry her away or swallow her up. To gallop her old mare Sparrow back and forth across the island, like a tiger pacing a cage. Worse still, she remembered the feel of Ryman’s eyes and Ryman’s hands. The sound of his voice, as good as a slap across the face. And the heavy thud of his footsteps up the stairs, followed by the creaking whine of her bedroom door.

She was sick again, retching bile into the waves.

I should have burned the island, torn up every root, salted every patch of stubborn grass.

She wondered if she might be better served in her narrow cabin, to sleep or stare at the walls until Rosby was behind them.

But that felt like admitting defeat. And Cat was done being defeated.

Jaw clenched, she raised her eyes.

The small island was just as she remembered. Shaped like the gentle rise of a whale barely breaking the surface, with a little nub of a hill for a fin, and the smudged shadow of a house where an eye would be. She suspected the building would be little more than splinters now, the wooden frame a skeleton, with only the brick chimney still standing tall. Wispy grass lay green and golden across the sandy soil, the only thing that grew in abundance.

Her hands closed on the portside, nails digging into the wooden railing. Overhead, the sails flapped as the helmsman set a dead-on course for what passed for Rosby’s harbor.

“Would that we had a better option.”

Fell’s voice sounded at her ear, and Cat jumped in her skin, whirling to see the navy captain standing stoic at her side. He looked gray as she felt, hands clasped behind his back, squinting out at the horizon from beneath his hat.

“It isn’t like you to sneak up on people,” Cat muttered, trying to steady her galloping heart. “Usually, your snide comments precede you.”

The captain glanced down at her and frowned, a bitter look on his face.

“I’ve been standing here for five minutes.” He softened a little, silver eyes round. “I suppose you were preoccupied.”

“With what?” Cat replied with icy sarcasm. She wiped her mouth with a handkerchief. “Hopefully your men can be quick about their business.”