Page 68 of Tempest

It was an easy card to add to her hand, and Cat tucked it away to be played later.

Valerian took steps to meet her, his sea legs giving him a swaying gait. One hand rested on the pistol at his hip, long fingers drumming a rhythm only he could hear.

“Very well, Lady Rose. If you would parlay with the captain of this vessel, so be it,” he said, coming to a halt in front of her, leaving only spare inches between them.

At such a distance, Cat expected him to smell like death. Instead, there was only ocean and sweat, and something deeper, like woodsmoke or tobacco. It seemed to cling to her, and Cat could not help but lean into the scent of him. But that was oddly comforting too. To know Valerian Kane was just another man, flesh and blood as much as anyone else.

His arm swept again, this time pointing behind Cat. She followed the gesture, turning to look at the quarterdeck of the ship. A set of doors in its face led within. To the captain’s quarters.

Flesh and blood, she reminded herself. It was a less comforting thought than a second ago, but Cat held firm.

“No harm will come to them while we speak?” she asked, eyeing the two men still bound on the deck.

Fell gritted his teeth, while Ryman screamed into his gag, his face turning redder with every passing second.

Cat hoped he would faint with the effort.

“None,” Valerian answered sharply. His jaw clenched, the hard edge of it like an anvil. “Or at least no harm they do not give themselves. You have my word of it.”

Lady though she was, Cat was not naïve. She did not trust a pirate captain. But she trusted his crew’s loyalty and ability to follow orders. It was enough. It had to be.

It was all she had.

“Lady Rose, you should not—” Fell bit out, trying to get to his feet, only to be shoved down again with one strong, annoyed push from Valerian.

“His Lordship is in hysterics,” Cat answered neatly. Indeed, Ryman was now cross-eyed and struggling to breathe. “I will do what I can to solve this matter, even if I am just a woman.”

Jasper Fell was hardly satisfied. He glanced between lady and pirate, cheeks flushed, eyes darting and desperate.

“Cat—”

“To the brig with them,” Valerian barked, motioning for his crew. They jumped to attention, hauling both men to their feet. “Safely.”

“Cat—” Fell said again, barely getting her name out before being gagged too.

She could only watch as they were marched away, her heart ramming in time with their footsteps on the deck. Until both Jasper Fell and Ryman Rose disappeared into the bowels of the pirate vessel, leaving their lady to stand alone.

Cat lifted her chin.

“Shall we?”

Chapter Thirteen After

STORM SEASON APPROACHED, and the constant threat of hurricane hung over the Fledge. Cat was no sailor, but she squinted at every band of clouds and suspected every change of the wind as they sailed south. She knew the look of an angry sea. And knew to fear it.

But above all, she feared a certain black flag on the horizon, one she remembered too intimately. It beckoned every time she closed her eyes.

The white skull with a golden tooth, and red roses beneath, intertwined with crossed bones.

But storms and flags lay silent, Cat’s fears dormant if not forgotten.

The Fledge left the calm waters of the Stills for the sharper currents of the Furies. Flat, sandy islands filled with marsh and scrubland became jagged, green mountains, their ridges like spines poking up out of the sea. The Furies were named for crueler winds and harsher storms, and for the islands themselves. Most were dead or dying volcanos, their heights wreathed in mist or smoke. Once their waters raged, not just with weather, but war.

Cat remembered that too, the long conflict between Esperin and the Meridian Empire. Fought on both sides of the ocean, across country fields and island shallows, through old cities of the Continent and new harbors. With saber and pistol, gunpowder and cannon, fleet and cavalry. And blood. So much blood.

But those years were over, the truce finally made.

And all the Lyrian would pay the price of such a peace.