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A headache starts to pound between my eyes. My carefully built walls will crumble soon. I can’t keep them up forever.
“Kearan, keep us steady. Niridia, come get me if a ship follows us out of the keep.”
“Aye, Captain.” She comes to my side. Quieter, so no one else can hear, she adds, “We should talk about what just happened, Alosa.” She calls me this when addressing me as a friend rather than my first mate. I know she means my mother leaving, but I’m barely keeping it together as it is.
“Later,” I say, though I’ve no intention of discussing it. “Right now I need a moment. Alone.”
“Do what you need to. I’ll see that everything runs smoothly.”
She always does.
I finally get a door between me and the rest of the world. And the walls come tumbling down.
My breathing turns to rasping. I grind my teeth and glare at everything in sight. My drapes. My glass-framed pictures. My bed. There’s this pressure building inside me, as though I will explode.
I don’t know how to let it out. I don’t think I’ve ever been so furious in my whole life.
A knock sounds at the door.
“Get away if you don’t want your head bashed in!” I shout. I punch a feather pillow on my bed. It’s not enough, though. It doesn’t do anything to let out the pressure. I need to hit something hard. Sturdy. Something that’ll push back. I want to scream, but the crew will hear that.
I’m so distraught that I don’t realize my door has opened and shut until a hand comes down on my shoulder. I spin around and thrust the low part of my palm outward, connecting with—
Riden’s chest.
He rubs at the spot but doesn’t complain. He won’t take his eyes off mine.
“I heard what happened,” he says.
“I told you not to come in.”
“I didn’t listen.”
I send an elbow at his gut, but he turns sideways and catches my arm.
“It wasn’t an empty warning,” I say.
“I know.”
“You’re an idiot.” I swipe his legs out from under him. “You haven’t fought against me before.”
He takes a few moments to find his feet. I think I knocked the wind from him. “We’ve fought many times,” he rasps.
“Aye, and I was going easy on you.”
“Then do your worst now, lass.”
I do. At first. I move like an unbreakable current, forcing wave after crushing wave upon him. My legs lash out, my arms strike, even my head connects with him at one point. But he doesn’t come at me with his own blows, only tries to deflect me as best he can.
“Fight back, Riden.”
“No,” he says stubbornly.
“Why not?”
“It wouldn’t be right.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
