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“Oh, Miss Hostage,” Adrian sang, waving his hand back and forth as if it were a bell. “My soup is a bit cold.”
I sighed, going back to the table with a hand on my hip. Adrian only smiled, ignoring my obvious annoyance.
“And a moment ago it was too salty, and a few moments before that it was too soggy,” I replied. “You’re a sailor. Not a king. Just drink it down.”
He gave a fake pout. “Ahh, but how can I be a captain if I have no strength? I need a hot meal to keep myself going.”
“Then don’t be captain,” I said over my shoulder as I handed soup to the rest of the crew. “See if I care.”
His tone dropped an octave lower, suddenly serious. “Maybe I wasn’t clear when I said that I wascaptain.”
I turned to meet his eyes. Even though he was leaning back in his seat like a man of leisure and grace, his eyes looked at me like a man who would love to slit my throat open just to watch me bleed.
Which may have been the case four days from now.
For Father’s sake, I clenched my teeth, put on a fake smile, and nodded.
“As you wish,Captain,” I said, adding quickly under my breath, “Captain Jackass.”
I returned to the kitchen, leaning against the counter and looking at Luc.
“His Royal Highness would like hotter soup now,” I said flatly.
Luc growled. “Is he trying to punish you or me at this point? I don’t appreciate the extra work, you know.”
“You think I’m enjoying it? I’ve been kidnapped by pirates and sentenced to kitchen duties before having my body slicedopen to find some, what, magical stone that controls fish? Shall we trade places?”
I huffed, sprawling across the counter in emotional exhaustion. I could feel Luc’s eyes on me as I watched his hand on the ladle, stirring the soup.
“You don’t believe in the powers of the spirit realm,” he commented, not a question.
I gave a lazy shrug. “I always enjoyed the myths and fairy tales my mother told me. Father always talked about his life on the sea as if it were a magic carpet ride. But…”
He raised his eyebrows. “But?”
“But then Mother died. Slowly. Painfully. She told stories to keep her spirits up as her own soul left her. None of those stories could save her, and none of them could put together the pieces of my father’s heart.”
There was a pause.
“It’s not your responsibility, you know,” Luc said.
“What?”
“To keep your father together.”
I straightened to look at him, swallowing my frustration back down my throat.
“Your father grieves because it’s part of life,” Luc continued, his eyes—deep as the sea—looking straight through me as he spoke. “But in his grief, he also remembers beautiful things that he wouldn’t change for the world. His strength comes from that. He’s broken, yes. But he’s not fragile, my dove. And there’s nothing you can do to put the broken pieces together. That’s his own journey.”
I clasped my shaking hands into fists.
“What do you know about my father?” I threw back. “Or my family? He’s lost everything.”
“At some point, we all do.”
“You don’t know the way he’s suffered—”
“Life is full of suffering,” he said far too apathetically. “The objective is to accept it and become stronger.”
