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Now, Gavyn, a fresh horn of ale in hand, joined. “What’s all this? Is it time?”
“No, but if a damn disagreement takes from the moment, I will string you all up.” I was in no mood for more strife on deck. “Away with your bickering. Stormbringer, if you’ve done something to offend Sewell, be done with it.”
“I never meant no disrespect,” Stormbringer said. “I didn’t know she was yours . . .”
Gavyn perked at once. “Pray tell, did you unknowingly speak of my sister in front of my father?”
“Had a want for his own,” said Sewell.
“Wait.” Celine pushed away from Sewell’s hold. “You spoke to Stormbringer about me?”
“Weeks ago,” Stormbringer said, his voice cracking.
Sewell’s lip curled. “Thought he could take a taste of you—”
“Idid notsay that.”
Gavyn waved him off. “Means you spoke like you thought of her as something more than a crewmate. Like youwantedher.”
He wagged his brows at Celine, laughing when her skin deepened to a dark flush with embarrassment.
“That true, Finn?” Celine asked, voice soft.
At that, even I paused. No one used Stormbringer’s given name. He detested it, said it made him sound like he belonged with the merfolk.
Stormbringer looked down at the deck. “I meant no disrespect, Tidecaller. It’s just . . . we’ve . . . we’ve got our connection with the storms and all, but I says to Sewell it could be more. Least it seemed so. I thought I was speaking to our cook, not your damn pap.”
Celine glared at her father. “Oh, and what did Sewell have to say?”
“Nothin’,” Stormbringer said. “Told me to keep to my tides, and I took that as I ought not to be fraternizing with the lone lady aboard and left it at that.”
“Not the proper heart for my Thunderfish,” Sewell grumbled.
Gavyn gripped Sewell’s shoulders, giving them a slight shake. “Is anyone going to be worthy of your precious Thunderfish?”
I readied to snap again, shout, curse, demand they cease talking, until Valen’s deep chuckle brought me to my own unease.
“Sewell,” said the earth bender. “Father to father, if my daughter found such an upstanding man as . . . Stormbringer, is it?”
“Aye, Earth King.” Stormbringer grew paler, smaller as he slouched.
Valen propped an elbow on the rail, grinning. “Well, I’d take no issue—”
“Quiet the tongue, Wolf,” Sewell grumbled.
“Not so pleasant when it’s turned on you, is it?” Valen struck Sewell’s chest with the back of his hand.
Celine seemed ready to dissolve between the laths, Aleksi and Mira laughed as Gavyn kept trying to nudge Stormbringer nearer, and Sewell hissed at the man before stalking toward the hatch, leaving us with all the arrogance of a house lord.
“I didn’t know,” Stormbringer muttered. “How would I know he’stheFleshripper? How would I know Tidecaller is his blood?”
“Be done with it,” I snapped. “Keep your eyes on the stars, you sods.”
Stormbringer cast a wary look at Celine, who’d already raced away, pretending to be preoccupied with a bit of rope, then he, at last, sat beside Prince Sander.
“Found this, Earth Prince.” He unfolded a large sheet of old parchment. “An old runic spell to reveal lost things, well its direct translation ishidden desires. Still, figured we desire to find what’s hidden, and it’s damn close to thatsymbol there.”
Stormbringer pointed to a long, angled rune at the edge of the breastbone.
