Page 179 of Tempest

To her relief, she found many a sympathetic eye amongst the Covenant crew. Not towards the lieutenant or the man dead on the ground.

But me.

Something stirred deep in Cat’s heart and birthed a feeling she had never known before.

Control.

Steadily, the tremor in her hand stilled, her poise returning as her spine turned to steel.

Cat raised her chin, eyes sweeping from Fell to Valerian, the two men opposite sides of perhaps the same coin. And equally advantageous to her own ends.

“We go ashore,” she said, stern and steady. “We go ashore and Rosby Island is yours to use as you see fit. Water, stores, a port in a storm or for ships in need of repair. All yours,” she added, raising her voice to address the crew. “So long as Captain Kane commands the Covenant, you have safe harbor.”

It was no small thing, to offer up the island to pirates. Less than a great treasure, but far more than a ransom that never existed. A few heads bobbed, nodding their agreement, and Cat almost collapsed with relief. Ana was among them, her eyes glimmering as she smirked.

I am playing by the rules of a new world, Cat wanted to say, feeling a burst of gratitude towards her.

But Valerian kept silent, painfully so. Enough to make a bead of sweat trickle down Cat’s neck as he weighed her fate.

“Your offer is accepted.”

It was the same voice he used in battle, offering no quarter. No argument. There was only command. All down the deck, the crew shouted in acquiesce, submitting to his judgement without question.

Cat felt her knees buckle but fought to keep upright, even as her head spun.

“Thank you,” she breathed. Suddenly the feel of blood on her skin grew worse, sticky and corrosive, as if Ryman had acid in his veins.

He might as well have.

She gingerly tried to dab it away, but it came away thick and red, and her stomach rolled.

“May I—may I clean myself up before . . . ?” she mumbled, her mouth filling with a sour taste.

Valerian’s hard demeanor remained, but he nodded. “You may, Lady Rose.”

I am not a lady anymore, she wanted to reply but held her tongue. Instead, she took a mute step, fleeing back over the quarterdeck before she could be sick in front of the entire crew.

Door after door slammed behind her, loud as a cannon. Her breath came hard and fast, her eyes stinging, her throat threatening to close as she almost collided with Valerian’s desk. She dropped the gun onto a pile of papers, her empty fingers clawed as if still pulling the trigger. Steadily, she flexed her hand, trying to forget the feel of the flintlock as it recoiled, her fingers still dusted with gunpowder. Everything took on an odd sheen, the sun too bright through the windows, and the cabin spun, mirroring the maelstrom inside her. She forced another breath, staring at the gun.

Ryman’s blood was on the barrel, a red constellation to match her face.

Cat wheeled to the basin in the corner, splashing old water and scrubbing herself raw with the first rag she could find. It helped very little, but enough to make the room stop spinning.

“He’s dead,” she whispered, trying to find her reflection in the window glass. “He’s dead.”

Her silhouette was shaky, clouded by the glare off the sea. Cat felt the same, shapeless and undefined. Ryman was a cage but a cage she knew. And now that she was free of him, the world seemed far more frightening, wide and dangerous. Filled with possibility. For better or worse.

Once thing was certain.

The path ahead, the horizon—it was hers to choose.

Cat squared her shoulders to her reflection, drawing herself up in her shift, to stand tall as a lady would. As a free woman would.

“He is dead,” she said aloud, her voice the last nail in Ryman’s coffin.

“That tends to happen when you shoot a man at close range.”

Her body moved of its own accord, whirling from the gallery to face Valerian at the door to the cabin. As always, he towered, seemingly too big for the low ceilings of a ship. He stood half in the open door, one boot planted in the next room, the other across the threshold. Waiting for an invitation.