Page 43 of Tempest

“He knows these waters better than any sailor, the reefs, the storm breaks, the tides and currents.” The words scattered like errant gunfire. The faster they came, the less she had to think of them. The less they hurt. “He was born in Meridia among the docks and the gutters. But he is no son of the Empire.”

Osprin’s black eyes narrowed. “Where do his loyalties lie?”

“With his crew. With his own flag,” she answered quickly. It was an easy question. “With Captain Morovant, before he was executed.”

Osprin pursed his lips. “Can he be bought?”

“Bought?” Cat balked, shaking her head in disbelief.

You bastards won’t even pay me what I am owed, she wanted to snap.

Fell seemed just as disturbed. “My lord, that is not a precedent we should set with these animals. What kind of message does that send to pirates still clinging to their old ways? Hold out long enough and the King’s treasury will open for you?”

Behind this desk, Osprin gave a dismissive shrug. “It sends the message that the pirate republic is gone, its king dead. To see their prince bought and paid for would shatter them, Captain Fell, and end this all for good,” he said neatly. “Lady Rose?”

Cat felt her heart in her throat.

If only.

“No, Kane cannot be bought,” she muttered, her eyes lowering. “Not with Morovant dead. He will want vengeance more than anything else,” she added, warmth creeping over her cheeks. She dared not raise her face, lest the governor and his officers see her shame.

But she felt Jasper Fell’s glare like a brand.

“Fine. Then what of Kane’s ship?” The governor pushed on. “The Covenant?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “I do not know it well.”

Fell’s silver-gray eyes threatened to burn a hole through her. His lips parted, an accusation dancing on his tongue.

Cat cut him off, lest Fell speak for her, and remove whatever credibility she had left.

“But I remember it in the Archenport harbor,” she offered, hoping it was enough. “Perhaps a fourth-rate ship of the line, sleek. Smaller than Morovant’s vessel, the Seadragon.”

“You seem overly familiar with Captain Morovant’s vessel,” Carley sneered.

Cat held her ground. “Captain Morovant raided my ship on the crossing from Meridia ten years ago. What little my lord husband and I carried with us was plundered before our very eyes. It is a memory I will not soon forget.”

That seemed to shut Carley up, his white cheeks splotched red.

The governor was undeterred. “Who might Kane be sailing with?”

Too many names ran through her head, each one worse than the one before. The faces leered out of her memories.

Who will I send to the noose next?

“I do not know who lies at the bottom of the sea, or which ships escaped your fleet, my lord,” Cat said slowly. “But I know who hung, and who will never sail under the black flag, or any other, again.”

Behind his desk, Osprin’s face fell, his annoyance palpable. He raised one hand as if to dismiss her.

That, Cat could not allow. She could see it on the governor’s face, and Fell’s too. If she left this room now, she would return to a jail cell.

My head or theirs.

“Captain Rawls was still in the Furies, last I heard.” Her voice strengthened, cutting across the study. “Before Your Lordship arrived with the fleet. Jade Belloq would not have been with Morovant either, when the hammer fell. Nor was Captain Garedo. Perhaps Eddie Wells escaped too. He was far from Beacon Island when the Meridian fleet arrived—he could not have returned in time to fight. But again, I cannot be certain.”

“Rawls, Belloq, Garedo, Wells.”

Osprin repeated each name sharply. In the corner, Groust jotted them into a small notebook, his pen scratching the page. Carley only rolled his eyes.