Page 117 of Tempest

Her teeth gritted. “So what is the wager?”

“Will you be able to do it?” Silver eyes pierced bronze, and Cat felt cornered. “Will you betray Valerian Kane?”

“That’s an easy bet, Fell,” she snapped, jabbing him in the chest. He did not wear the ridiculous merchant vest today and his shirt was thin. There was no hiding the firm muscle beneath her touch, nor a chest sculpted by years of life at sea.

He did not move, daring her to finish.

“I’ve already betrayed him before.” Her voice carried across the deck, but Cat was well beyond caring about the opinion of Fell’s crew. “What’s a second time?”

He glared down, trying to read her. “That isn’t an answer, Cat.”

“Leave me be, Jasper,” she said abruptly, putting a step between them. “You’ll get what’s promised, and so will the governor. So long as I get what I’m promised too.”

A sudden hunger passed over his expression, as if he were a man starved and stumbling towards an impossible feast. From another, Cat might have mistaken his look for lust. But not Fell. This was ambition.

“I know you don’t like to admit it, but we are alike in our nature, Cat.” He closed the gap between them again, the smell of his sandalwood oil enveloping her. “Perhaps even the same.”

Her first instinct was to laugh in his face, to dismiss the concept outright. But with Rosby looming, their past and present so terribly entwined, Cat could not find it in herself to deny his words.

“Perhaps,” she murmured, reluctant and begrudging. “We both do what we must to keep our heads above water.”

Fell nodded, eyes never leaving her face. “To survive.”

“To survive,” she echoed. It felt like a confession, if not an apology.

My head or theirs.

“Well then,” Fell said, and his mood shifted like the wind. Whatever concern he carried, his intensity seemed to melt away. With a careless flick of his wrist, he gestured out to Rosby. “Would you like to go ashore?”

Cat clenched a fist instead of slapping him, her anger eating up her worry. “Would you like me to be sick again?”

Fell shrugged. “Better on land than my ship.”

“This isn’t your ship,” she said, annoyed but also relieved by their return to familiar ground. It was better to nip at Fell than to suffer his compassion.

“I can’t believe you were ever a Meridian lady,” Fell said, a spark of mischief in his eyes.

Cat only sighed, putting her back to Rosby, her elbows braced behind her.

“On that, we can agree.”

She would not turn around again until they were back at sea, the water stores replenished, and Rosby swallowed up in their wake.

* * *

THE DAYS OF sailing blurred, as days at sea tended to do. And while Cat felt a peculiar sort of pride for the Fledge, their commandeered little merchant vessel turned clandestine navy ship, she also grew weary of her limited size. Compared to Fell’s Scorpion or the Covenant, let alone grand warships like the Seadragon, the Fledge was a rowboat. Cat certainly felt it, her pacing the decks becoming more maddening by the second. Her cabin was too small, the lower deck too cramped, the main deck narrow and crowded. She was not alone in her sentiments. Like her, Fell and his crew were used to far more impressive vessels.

So, despite their misgivings, every soul aboard was glad to see Arcayo appear on the southern horizon, her green spine of volcanos rising up out of the Lyrian Sea. Even Lieutenant Whisten, staunchly loyal to the Church and suspicious of anything beyond it, looked relieved at the sight.

But it would not last long. Cat knew that keenly.

Most of these men have never been on any island beyond Meridian control, she thought. And Arcayo is not Esperin. She has no god but the sea.

The first song tower was smaller than the one in Alvaris harbor, but a mile away from shore. It stood upon a rock far beyond the curve of the island’s natural harbor, buffeted by the open waves. Like the others, it was white stone, carved with swirling geometrics, a wonder to behold for its artistry. And its resilience against crashing water. As they sailed past, Cat watched a wave splash up over its foundations, sea spray raining against the bone-white walls. Whatever song priest lived there was certainly brave to face the changing tides so far from land.

Or they are confident in their beliefs, Cat thought.

There was no priest in the tower today, unneeded. The clouds were gentle and few, the Furies hardly living up to their reputation during storm season. Cat did not like this false sense of serenity. It felt like being rocked to sleep by a predator, who would devour her as soon as she shut her eyes.