Page 74 of Tempest

Buildings leaned together, red shingles and pink stone giving the city a rosy haze. It was not so crowded here, but still bustling with foot traffic and horse-drawn carts. Storefronts and warehouses lined the way, with apartments cramped on the higher floors. Washerwomen strung laundry across the alleys while a few children played dice on a stoop. Lively music spilled out from one tavern on the far corner, two brawling men from another.

Fell looked back and forth, his gaze lingering on the fort to the west, situated above the city.

“I don’t suppose you know the way to the naval offices, do you?” Fell muttered.

With a scowl, Cat unraveled her arm from his.

“No,” she answered, lying.

The crowd and the noise made it too easy. Fell’s trust, spare as it was, even easier.

Cat was gone before he noticed, slipping off, disappearing into Alvaris with little more than a gleam of amber eyes and trailing skirts.

She was two streets away when she heard him calling, his voice a roar above the din. But it did not follow, the sound of him and the city fading with every step south, up the ridge of the volcano. Into the jungle and a church she could no longer see. But she remembered the way.

Towards the church tower, and the woman she was sure to find at the top of it.

Chapter Fourteen Before

VALERIAN LED HER through a broad council chamber running the width of the deck, the walls paneled oak, the windows thick-glassed, with the image of a golden lion holding the anchor painted on the ceiling. It wore the crown of the Meridian Empire, a double band of gold set with yellow diamonds like the pointed rays of a burning sun. If Cat questioned the origins of the Covenant, there was no mistaking it now: this was a stolen Meridian vessel, a battleship of the line, a fourth-rate if she counted decks correctly. And fairly new, judging by her exterior. Perhaps fresh from the burned shipyards in Allisport, newly delivered to the fleet in the Lyrian Sea. Pride of the Crown and Empire.

But no longer.

There were scorch marks in the rich curtains, which were now mismatched, a thick red brocade on one side, and light cotton on the other. The latter was hastily replaced, and Cat ventured they were not curtains at all, but bedsheets procured at some market. Or plundered from another ship. Sunlight spilled across the floor, casting a soft glow on the dark wood. Though polished, it was scuffed and scraped, a testament to dragged furniture and hard boots. So it was, the trappings of piracy layered over imperial foundations.

She did not miss the bullet hole in the wall, at precisely the height of the average man. Her heart thundered. At least the wall around it had been scrubbed over, leaving only the ghost of bloodstains behind.

Valerian did not stop as they passed the long table set across the room, with a dozen mismatched chairs. Instead, he pushed open the door into the next chamber without so much as a backwards glance.

Gritting her teeth, Cat followed, though every instinct told her not to.

She knew what lay beyond the last door.

In her mind, she remembered her books and the whispered warnings of Meridian society. Pirates were not just criminals but scoundrels, ravaging maids and ladies without thought for propriety or etiquette or honor. They sought their pleasure not just on the seas but in the gambling houses and brothels of the islands, in every ditch and gutter, until their lust for blood and gold and flesh was slaked. If it ever truly could be.

Cat trembled as she walked.

She expected a bedchamber done up in garish red and black, a den of debauchery, where not even the Lyrian sun could penetrate. Perhaps even a whore still between his sheets, sleeping through the assault to serve the captain later. Bright as Valerian appeared, Cat could not ignore the darkness in him, within his stormy eyes and beneath his chest, in a cavernous pirate heart. She had seen enough of the Lyrian Sea to know what dangers lay beneath still waters or behind serene clouds.

Her footsteps halted on the threshold, breath catching.

There was no red, no black, no shuttered curtains or enormous bed. No curled toes peeking out from the sheets. She doubted any companion could even fit in the shockingly small bunk, hidden away in the corner amongst shelves overflowing with bound books and rolled parchment. Certainly not alongside Valerian, who seemed too tall for his own bed, alone or otherwise accompanied.

Next to the bunk was a chest, the wood crisscrossed with iron banding and more locks than could ever be sensible. At a second glance, Cat realized it was screwed into the floor, held fast with planks. Whatever Valerian valued most would go down with his ship, should the Covenant face the same fate it gave the Venerable.

Against all her expectations, the cabin was warm and yellow with sunlight. Glass windows faced the sea on three sides, battered curtains thrown open to the horizon.

If not for the desk pulled to the center of the room and the maps scattered across every flat surface, the cabin might seem disused. The only personal items seemed to be clothes, along with a scattering of strange trinkets and artifacts. A few were clearly plunder, starkly out of place in the room: a porcelain plate painted in the Rijkstad style, blue patterned on white, with a sizable chip at the edge. A water-damaged gilded book, an ornate clock ticking so slowly it was almost frozen in time. Then were items she could not place at all. Smooth stones mostly, green and blue, a few of them carved with symbols Cat did not recognize. They were not Meridian make, or even Esperese, that much was clear.

Valerian dragged a chair across the room, legs scraping a fresh line over the floor.

“Well,” he muttered, gesturing to the chair. It was missing an arm, but otherwise finely made, the polished oak inlaid with gold scrollwork.

Silent, Cat sank into it, her focus narrowing from the room to the man in front of her.

To her surprise, Captain Kane seemed more awkward alone, indoors, away from his crew. He bustled around the desk, his shoulders hunched a little so he did not hit his head on the broken lamp dangling from the low ceiling. Cat almost laughed. Valerian was simultaneously too small and too large, looking boyish behind the desk of a navy lord.

Captain though he was, he did not wear the mantle like Quine or Meedy or even Morovant. They all bore the weight of command with ease or smug satisfaction. Not like Valerian. The captain’s title hung off him like an overlarge coat.