Page 151 of Tempest

They felt like daggers to her heart.

It was the same flag Valerian flew six months ago, before the Meridian returned and set their world to ashes.

Before I betrayed him.

Why didn’t he change it? she wondered, looking mournfully up at the flowers, red as the flowers on the sign above her tavern door.

Red as the tattoo on her arm.

And the matching tattoo on his.

Without thinking, she turned over her shoulder, finding Valerian’s eyes in the darkness. He was already glaring, his mouth pressed into a grim line.

Then the longboat was alongside the hull, and there was no more time to think.

Every step up the ladder was a knife, and the deck itself a sword. The lanterns swung with the tide, and swaying globes of light ran down the ship, illuminating pockets of the Covenant. Not that Cat needed the light. They could blindfold her, and she would still know her way around the vessel. Certainly to Cook’s galley, and the captain’s cabin.

Her vision blurred and she blinked fiercely, hoping no one saw the tears she refused to shed.

Tears for what? she scolded herself. Pull yourself together.

She was still a mighty thing, the Covenant. While the ships in Archenport harbor were certainly larger and grander, fresh from the rebuilt shipyards of Allisport, with more firepower and filigree, Cat had to admit the Covenant still beat them all in her eyes. They were only cubs, gigantic but clumsy, while Valerian’s lion still prowled the sea. There was no ship to match the smooth lines of her hull and rails, her intricate spiderwebs of rigging, or lethal rows of cannons along the decks.

And no captain to match the one who stood before her now, the last to climb over the rail.

My head or his, his head or theirs, she told herself, bracing for whatever he decided to throw her way.

She did not miss the crew giving her a wider berth. But same as their captain, they had not attacked her on sight. If they were out for revenge, they did not show it. Brimley even gave her a thin-lipped smile, the reassuring kind.

In spite of herself, Cat returned it, sick as it made her feel.

“Have the prisoners brought up on deck.” Valerian gestured to Adelo with a finger. “Make sure Captain Fell gets a good look at them before you bring him to me.”

“Aye, sir,” Adelo answered, disappearing at once.

To the brig. Cat could hardly picture the collected crew of the Fledge crammed into the ship’s jail, but it was an amusing image all the same. She only hoped Whisten got the worst of it, squashed in the corner with the piss bucket.

Then she realized Valerian stood at the quarterdeck, door held open beside him. He said nothing, only waited, the lanterns casting shifting shadows across his face. As they swayed, his features changed, somehow angry, worried, despairing, and entranced all at once. In the darkness, he seemed younger too, the dim light smoothing out the lines of care she knew as well as the ship.

Or even better.

Cat felt the curious eyes of the crew studying her. She would give them no cause to question the captain’s coldness as little more than another quarrel between lovers. After all, Cat vastly preferred being seen as capricious to being known as a traitor.

At least until Fell arrived and blew the last bits of her escape plan to smithereens.

“Captain,” she drawled, taking long strides towards him. “Shall we?”

A muscle feathered in his cheek as he ground his teeth. It was a small point scored, but a point all the same. Smiling, she entered the council chamber, but not before Valerian scored a point of his own.

Again, his hand trailed, grasping her upper arm, palm pressed to the exact spot of her single tattoo. The rose beneath her sleeve burned again, as if freshly inked. Now his touch was gentle and lingering, a tease.

Then his scent hit her, and Cat’s head spun. This time, there was no blaming the cigar smoke or alcohol. Such was Valerian’s way. He wore no perfumed oil like Jasper Fell or the more flamboyant captains, nor did he smell of fish guts like the rest. Somehow, beneath the tobacco smoke and stinging taquil, there was always the sea clinging to him, fresh and salty and filled with the promise of a new horizon.

Her steps faltered and she cursed, stumbling into the room beneath the quarterdeck.

While Valerian lit the lamps, she took a steadying breath, only to be hit with the smell of him again. Chewing her lip, she forced another gasp, and another. Drowning herself with him, until her body finally adjusted to his presence again.

There was no antidote to Valerian, the only cure more poison.