Page 36 of Tempest

But for her rigidly held composure, Cat would have laughed in Osprin’s face. Judging by the stiff set of his posture, he could do with some demeaning himself.

“I will not bother to recite the names of your associates; there are simply too many.” He eyed her over the page, lip curled with disgust. “All great crimes against the Crown and Empire. And one cannot forget, of course, the charge of murder.” Osprin’s voice was steady and sure. “That is not a stain even you can wash away. No matter what deals you struck, or what promises Captain Fell made you.”

A thousand responses died in Cat’s mouth, each one more useless than the last. She wanted to deny the charges outright or revel in them. Both would end the same way—the gallows.

“Am I to be permitted a trial, at least?” Cat said, clinging to her air of detachment.

“Were this Brycam City, perhaps,” Osprin replied, shrugging broad shoulders. “But we are a long way from the Empire.”

His meaning was infinitely clear.

I am the law here.

In her head, Cat turned over her last card left to play. She hated that Jasper Fell gave it to her.

“Then ask what you must ask about Valerian Kane,” she said, forcing the name out, no matter the pain it brought her. “Or let me hang.”

For the first time since she entered the study, the governor startled, surprised by her response. Something flickered across his face, something like respect.

It felt like a point won in whatever game he was making her play. And it gave Cat a heading.

Which point on the compass to follow to her advantage, and her survival.

Osprin was not a man who wanted a subject.

He wanted an opponent.

“When I was an admiral in His Majesty’s navy, I served through the wars with Anticles and Esperin and the Rijkstad, year after year, decade after decade,” he continued. “There was blood. There was hardship. But there was order. Victory, surrender, treaties. Lands ceded or won.”

His fingers curled, his hand becoming a closed fist.

“It is not so here.”

Cat felt a wry smile spread across her face.

“Welcome to the Lyrian Sea,” she said, an echo of the same words Valerian had told her long ago.

The governor huffed.

“The Lyrian Sea. You speak of this place as if it were its own kingdom and not simply another land to conquer,” he added, grinning wide. His gums were bright red, unsettlingly so. “That is why I was sent here, after so many lords just like your husband. To tame this place. They were not conquerors, as much as they thought themselves masters of the world. But I am a conqueror, Lady Rose. So say the flag in my harbor and the corpse king in front of your door.”

Cat tried not to think of Morovant nailed to his post, and the little boy tasked with fighting off the hungry crows. She saw them both anyway, a pair of rotting ghosts.

“The pirate republic lies in ashes,” he pushed on, some frustration lacing his words. “Or at least it should. Their great leader, this Captain Morovant, lies dead in my city. His ship is at the bottom of the sea. Most of his fleet sank with it. Any kingdom would surrender under such circumstances, their king and their armies ripped apart.”

“And yet,” Cat muttered, trying not to remember the sound Morovant made when his limbs were torn from his body.

“And yet,” Osprin repeated, sliding a piece of paper forwards.

Not a map but a short letter scratched out in harried script. Written quickly, without any formal introduction, or the usual trappings of military communication. Written in desperation, Cat knew, scanning the page.

Her eyes lingered on a single line, and a name—not of a person, but a ship.

The Covenant, spotted off Silver Key.

“Valerian Kane is alive,” Osprin said. His voice hung in the air, echoing off the bookshelves in a way that made Cat’s skin crawl.

“Or someone has his ship,” she offered reflexively, her old instincts difficult to smother. To protect Valerian, even now. “Command of a pirate vessel can change with a tide.”