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“Send her out!” A wild-eyed woman points at me. “She’s just a shit shoveler.”
“Excuse me?” I snap.
“For House Voldren.” She points to Arwin Voldren, the daughter of the lord I served. “She cleaned the kennels, isn’t that right?”
Arwin’s been lost in her own world for the entirety of our time aboard the ship, but for once, she speaks.
“She rarely cleaned the kennels.”
“But she did—”
Meg glares at the woman. “I don’t care that she’s cleaned kennels, Amber—she’s held herself together throughout all this better than most, and if we’re going to ‘send someone out,’ it will not be the only one of us that has actual skills outside of hosting tea parties.”
For the first time in my life, someone made me feel good about myself. Like I belonged.
Nori adds, “Besides, that will alert them that at least one if not all their prisoners are free.”
“Any other ideas?” Meg asks the others.
Emboldened, I say, “We grab anything that can be used as a weapon. Right the fuck now. Then, together, we’ll sneak out onto the shore, staying quiet, going unnoticed for as long as we can, until we meet our captors. With any luck, we’ll be the ones left standing in the end.”
They look at me with fear-lined faces, stunned by my words.
But Nori looks contemplative, analyzing my suggestion.
I should have known these women would be useless.
Finally, after an excruciatingly long minute, Nori speaks.
“No matter what we do, there are risks. Elena’s plan is our best option.”
The girls scatter, scouring the wrecked hull for anything that can be used as a weapon. The few trunks in the room are filled with dresses, probably meant to display us when we get to our destination.
We settle on arming ourselves with boards. The one knife we retrieved from the rapist’s corpse goes to a girl named Fiona, who seems to come to life when her hand wraps around the hilt. She is the only daughter of Lord Bolton and spent much of her time with her five brothers, playing as boys do.
The board I grab has several nails sticking out from it, and I take obscene pleasure in the thought of ramming it into a slaver’s skull. What that says about me, I do not know.
Once we’re armed, we round up everyone, even the weaker ones, and force them to the breach, slowly exiting the wreckage, weapons in hand.
About forty feet inland, we see five men seated around a fire, roasting a boar. We close the distance by half before one spots us and shouts to his friend.
They grab at sabers, charging toward us. We clash, their metal thudding against our wood. Blood sprays on me, getting in my eye, blinding me. I swing the board, back and forth, back and forth until I hit something soft and hear a strangled gasp.
Time moves differently when you’re in peril. The battle only lasted a minute, but it felt like an hour.
In the end, we felled the men, but at the expense of three women who are lying in pools of blood. Several more are injured.
Thankfully, I killed a slaver, as did Araelya, and a girl with ratty brown hair. Fiona killed two.
By the looks of it, the ship was torn in half during the storm. We were lucky to be on the side that didn’t sink to the bottom. Or perhaps that makes us unlucky. Time will tell.
We scour the bodies for keys to undo the shackles but find none. Perhaps a nail will be able to undo the lock, but that will have to wait. There are things that need to be done.
Despite the warm climate, occasional gusts of cold drift through the air, making those caught in their path yelp. The guests aren’t just cold, they’re icy. Bone chilling. Not at all natural.
“We should have Fiona and two others stand guard,” Nori commands. “In case someone’s out scouting.”
Fiona, Araelya, and the girl with mousy brown hair move to the tree line.
