Page 70 of Tempest

Fell shrugged her off and straightened his plain merchant’s jacket, looking sore. She didn’t know which was more insulting to him—being called a whore or posing as a civilian captain.

“You don’t have a good nature,” he snapped back.

Cat laughed openly, turning to face the ship’s wake.

“I did once,” she muttered, her voice nearly lost with the wind. “I am glad to be rid of it.”

She felt his eyes on her face too sharply.

“I remember the girl you used to be,” he said, his voice trailing away.

“Of course you do,” Cat replied, matter-of-fact. “You were there to watch her die.”

Even now, she could still feel the kick of the recoil, the flash and acrid burn of gunpowder. The weight of a pistol in her hand—the same pistol that sat at Fell’s hip now. It looked exactly as it had that day, almost ten years ago. Fell was so precious with his things.

She expected him to scold her for such dramatics. Instead, he leaned forwards on his elbows, bracing himself against the taffrail, leaving spare inches between them.

He removed his hat, a few locks of hair falling across his forehead. The scar through his left eyebrow glinted white. Not for the first time in so many years, Cat wished the scar was worse, marring his handsome face as he deserved.

No, she thought. He deserved to die with Quine and the rest of the Venerable crew, his bones left to reef-growing off Pearl Key.

“I do not like this plan, Cat,” he whispered.

“You do not like Prospera, or Esperin. And I do not blame you,” she muttered back. “But I need information, and we must try to find it.”

And find her, Cat reminded herself, thinking words she could not say aloud.

Fell gave a grim nod, still refusing to look at the steadily approaching city.

“Well, where do you propose we start?” he said. “Alvaris is a proper city, and while I trust your ability to weasel your way through the worst of circumstances, even you have no advantage here.”

“Thank you for your confidence,” she clipped. “The Esperese fleet patrols different parts of the Lyrian Sea. If the Meridian navy is losing ships to Kane, he may be preying on the Esperese navy too,” she said. “If they have reports of missing ships or pirate movements, we can at least collect more pieces of this puzzle.”

Over her shoulder, the port of Alvaris loomed. The harbor was a maw of teeming ships, both merchant and navy, civilian and fleet. She scanned the hulking silhouettes, looking for the floating fortress of a treasure galleon. To her relief, there were none in port. But the ivory flag emblazoned with the green cross flapped from many masts, and a ridiculously large flag flew at the mouth of the port. There was no mistaking Alvaris for anything but a monument to the King of Esperin.

Still, Cat looked for a stone arch in the water, or sparse ruins in the jungle, remnants of what was. Of the peoples who came before and were swept away by bloody hands.

Fell finally turned from the stern to face the city with her.

“And how do you propose a merchant captain and his crew approach the commanding officer of Alvaris?” he said bitterly, eyeing an Esperese warship as it glided out to sea.

Cat gave him a smirk. “Don’t tell me you left Archenport behind without something to mark you as a Meridian captain? You are allies now, are you not?”

“Besides this, you mean?” Fell huffed, rolling up the sleeve of his coat and undershirt.

His forearm, tanned and muscled from years at sea, bore the usual tattoo of a sailor. The Meridian lion, with an anchor and sun in its paws. Most men of the imperial navy had it.

Most lowborn men, Cat reminded herself.

“It is not often you see an officer with such . . . decoration,” she said.

Fell hissed, pushing his sleeves back into place. “Less often than you see a lady with it. Don’t look so smug, Lady Rose, we both know I’m not the only one bearing ink.”

Cat’s smirk dropped, and Fell smiled, triumphant.

“Not to worry, I also have my orders and a writ of passage,” he added, reaching into his coat, producing a sheaf of parchment sealed with familiar blue wax. Osprin’s symbol. Cat could only nod mutely, remembering her writ of execution, with the same signature and seal. She still felt the rope around her throat. Not tight, not strangling, but always present, never fading.

Beyond the prow, the Alvaris breakwater came into view, a stone wall against the waves. Lighthouses marked each end, one of them beside a ridiculously gigantic flag of Esperin. White foamed against the north face of the break with calm waters on the other side, the harbor like a still pond.