CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alōs leaned over his desk in his quarters, studying his maps of Aadilor’s far west lands. After returning to the anchored Crying Queen outside Barter Bay, he had given the rest of his crew leave for the night. His ship now sat quiet in the early hours of dawn, a light pink stretching into his windows. He knew most would not be returning until late afternoon, Niya included. She had been more than pleased to go exploring with Saffi and the rest of his pirates.
Alōs had yet to tell his crew where they were next to sail.
Pirates took bad news better after a night of mischief. But to be safe, Alōs had divided up the bounty from Cax Island for when they returned. He might be a ruthless leader, but he was also a fair one. He knew when to put honey in his pirates’ pots. People followed their leaders easier when they believed they were treated equally among their own. It was strenuous work, being the Crying Queen’s captain. A constant balancing act between assuaging other people’s egos and exerting his strength to keep the ornerier pirates in line. Alōs was good at it, however. Being a leader. But perhaps it was merely in his blood.
Twisting his compass over previously marked lines, he outlined a few new routes they could sail to the Valley of Giants. He would double-check each with his helmsman, Boman, but he knew only one would get them there the fastest.
As he studied the jagged coastline of the west lands, he stared at the River Pelt, which led to their destination. It was wide enough that they could sail a large distance in, but getting there would be the tricky part. The air was drier in the west, the sun hotter, promising treacherous storms through the cooler waters as they mixed with the heat. Cold clashing with hot always caused tension.
Then there was the Mocking Mist.
This, more than the length they had to sail or the rough sea, was what his crew would not be pleased about. Few could handle what the mist had to say if they didn’t take precautions.
His mind drifted back to last night, when Niya had repeated all the information that had flowed through Cebba’s pliable lips.
She had let slip that someone from the Valley of Giants had come to the trader, seeking a stone worthy of the royal family’s daughter—the next in line to be queen. They had left with the most valuable gem Cebba had, the bloodred one, making her pockets grossly fat for years.
Alōs could imagine; it was this original trade to Cebba that had afforded him his ship and the first of his crew.
Though it was not much information, it was all he needed for this next leg.
In spite of Niya’s recent performance provoking unwanted, heated memories, Alōs had been right; she was a valuable asset.
And she was his for a year.
A rap at his door brought Alōs back to his quarters. A cool sea breeze filtered through an open windowpane at his back. “Enter.”
Kintra stepped in, face grave. “You have a visitor.”
A figure floated in behind her, their magic a metallic pulse funneling into his chamber. Cold, but soothing. Familiar. They wore a hooded robe of rich blue that hid their face, with an intricate silver pattern sewn along the edges.
Alōs straightened, his focus sharpening. “You may leave us.”
The room hung in silence as Kintra walked out, the door shutting with an audible click.
“I thought we agreed you were never to come here.”
“We did,” said a man as he pushed back his hood. “But when I saw it empty, I could not resist.”
The visitor’s hair was as white as the moon, his skin brown like Alōs’s, and he had similar glowing turquoise eyes. A silver tattoo started at the tip of his nose and expanded up and over each of his brows. It was the marking of the High Surbs from Esrom, the hidden underwater kingdom. Alōs’s homeland.
He watched the man’s gaze fall to the silver sandglass on his desk.
Alōs’s chest tightened with unease. “What are you doing here, Ixō?” he asked.
“It is your parents.”
“I have no parents.”
“You soon may not.”
Alōs went very still as he forced down a sharp pang of panic. He was ice. Stone. He did not feel. “Tell me.”
“Your mother became sick after the last moon letting. She passed last night.”
Alōs remained silent. Numb.
“As you know, it is common with our kind that are bonded with such love,” Ixō went on to explain, “that one cannot live long without the—”
“I remember the teachings you High Surbs spouted. I do not need another lesson.”
“Yes, well.” Ixō’s chin tipped up. “We fear your father is quick to follow.”
“And?”
Ixō appeared momentarily appalled. “Your father bade me to find you. He wants, needs, you to come home, to see him.”
My father. Home. The armor around Alōs’s heart thickened, his magic swirling through his veins to protect him. “It is no longer my home,” he said. “Hasn’t been in a very long time. You and I both ensured that.”
“Esrom will always be your home. It is forever in your blood, despite your banishment.”
“It is precisely my banishment that keeps it thus. My place is now on this ship and wherever the sea takes me.”
“Please, Alōs.” Ixō stepped closer. “If not for your parents, then for your brother. Come for Ariōn.”
Ariōn. The center of Alōs’s heart, which he locked up tightest, shivered. He leaned forward, digging his knuckles into his desk. “All I’ve ever done is for him. Where I am now is because of him.”
“And he knows this,” Ixō assured. “Your parents do . . . did as well. Why do you think no guards have disturbed you whenever you’ve made anchor in Esrom? Despite how fleeting your stay or how well you try to hide, they have always known when the Queen sails in.”
This knowledge did little to help ease Alōs’s growing frustration.
“Because I never step onto Esrom’s shores, and I never let the citizens know that I am there. I keep my ship in the sanctuary waters as law decrees for unapproved visitors. Are you saying I will have sanction to step onto the islands if I do return?”
Ixō’s eyes lowered. “No.”
Alōs laughed, humorlessly. “So my brother and my dying father are meant to come aboard this ship? Crawling with pirates? I think not.”
“I will organize your safe passage to them. You know there are ways in that will not be watched. The private beaches to the west have not been used since you’ve left. Please, Alōs, do you not wish to see your parents one last time?”
His magic jumped along with his rage. “I have already made peace regarding my final meetings with Tallōs and Cordelia. Why should I ruin that with a memory of one dead and one ill?”
“To comfort Ariōn,” pleaded Ixō. “You know he grows weaker when he’s distressed.”
Alōs closed his eyes, the fight leaving him, as it always did when it came to his brother.
Finally, he met Ixō’s gaze. He didn’t need to speak his answer for the surb to know he would come.
The Crying Queen rang with the shouts and scuffles of his crew preparing to set sail. Getting to Esrom was not like getting to most places. They wouldn’t glide along the ocean waves but rather under them. In an air-pocket tunnel where no sails would be needed for their journey.
Alōs stood at the wheel beside Boman and watched the fluid coordination between the cockpit and foredeck, his crew boss yelling commands. This was the part he always reveled in, the commotion before setting off to a new destination. Even scoundrels could be choreographed.
Saffi paced the main deck below him, yelling instructions to her team, who worked with grunts and groans to secure the cannons. Alōs’s gaze locked onto Niya as she pulled ropes tighter, the heat glinting off her hair, painting it a bright orange.