Niya straightened with her quickly lit irritation. “Your door was open,” she pointed out. “Who washes themselves with an open door?”
“Someone who employs crew who knock. Am I to believe my pirates have more manners than a highbred lady?”
Niya pursed her lips. “I take no pleasure in finding you indisposed.”
“So you’re here to talk of how you find pleasure?” One of his dark brows rose.
Her mouth opened and then closed as she felt a shameful blush fill her cheeks. By the Fade, he is intolerable!
“What can I help you with, Niya?” He drew closer, bringing forward more of his cool power, which was only amplified by his well-defined chest. “Something must be very important to have brought you charging in here.”
“Don’t you want to put on a shirt?” she asked as she warily watched him approach.
“I’m not done washing,” he said. “Why put on a shirt when I’ll be taking it right back off? Unless you don’t mind watching as I finish?” His grin was taunting.
Niya took a step back as he filled the doorframe, her magic spinning in her veins with her unease.
But unease at what? This is Alōs, she reminded herself. It wasn’t as though she hadn’t seen him shirtless before, or countless others in the Thief Kingdom during parties, for that matter.
She needed to quickly do what she’d come here for and leave.
“I came to warn you that I feel a storm coming.”
Alōs cocked his head. “You feel it?”
“Yes.” She nodded. “And I think it’s going to be a big one.”
His eyes flickered over her shoulder to the windows behind his desk, to the calm waters and blue sky. “Interesting,” he mused. “You can sense such a thing even when it’s still a good sand fall away?”
“The air . . . there’s a particular movement to the wind as storms gather,” explained Niya before she drew her brows together. “Wait, you knew we were going to sail into one?”
“Aye.” He leaned against the doorframe, arms crossed. “There is always a storm when entering the western waters toward the Valley of Giants.”
Niya blinked. “But . . .”
“Yes?”
“Well, everyone on deck seems so unconcerned? Shouldn’t they be, I don’t know, hurrying about more?”
Alōs smiled at this. “It is not the first storm this crew has sailed through. Nor will it be their last. Though the western storms are notorious for sinking many ships, my pirates still know what to do once they see one on the horizon.”
“Oh.” Niya frowned, his words not doing much to ease her worry.
“What is it?” he asked.
“Nothing.” She turned to leave. “Sorry to have wasted your time.”
“Niya,” he called, stopping her.
She met his blue gaze. “Yes?”
He rubbed his lips together, assessing her for a moment as his brows puckered in thought. “Wait there,” he said. After ducking back into his room, he reemerged holding a small brown bottle. “Here.” He extended it for her to take.
“What is it?” She turned the bottle over in her fingers, the liquid inside sloshing.
“Seaweed oil.”
Niya’s eyes snapped to his, a twist of confusion flowing through her.
“It helps with—”
“Wounds,” she finished quietly.
Alōs kept his attention on her, his tug of energy wrapping around them both, twisting with her own. “Yes.”
She wanted to ask why. Why would he give this to her? Was he remorseful for whipping her? For inflicting the very wounds this was meant to heal? But that would be ridiculous.
Niya had purposefully disobeyed orders, betrayed the crew, and held the knowledge of Alōs needing to save his homeland over his head.
There had been no avoiding her sentence or his wrath.
Niya herself would have punished anyone just the same. Probably worse.
A disquieted confusion ran along her spine.
Do you think he’s a good captain?
He’s the best there is.
But this is Alōs Ezra, she reasoned. The cold, ruthless pirate who’d broken her heart, held her and her sisters’ identities hostage, and blackmailed her king.
Niya glanced back at the bottle. “Saffi said she was going to give me some of hers.”
“I see,” said Alōs slowly. “Then I guess you do not need—”
“Given the extent of my scars”—she tucked the bottle into her pants pocket and away from his extended hand—“I need as much as I can get.”
When she looked up, she caught a flash of something in his gaze, but it was gone too quickly for her to identify. “Yes, well . . . if you need more . . .”
“I’ll ask around.”
Alōs’s features hardened with his nod. He took a step back. “If you want to help before the storm, find Kintra. They do get quite bad, and there’s always plenty of crates to tie down.”
The tension that had gathered in the room loosened at Alōs’s words.
Back were they to their roles of pirate and captain.
Gone was whatever strange moment that had been building.
“Now if you’ll excuse me,” said Alōs as he turned toward his private quarters, “I’m sure you can find your way out, as you so easily found your way in.”
“It’s always easy when the door is open!” she called out in annoyance just as his bedroom door shut, removing the image of his half-exposed body.
With clenched fists, Niya stalked from the room, regretting entering in the first place. Because as the bottle in her pocket could attest, perhaps Saffi was right—maybe Alōs was a good captain. The idea didn’t sit well.
Him being the best captain, however, Niya would no doubt deny until her death.
And if these storms were as bad as he said, she might not have long to wait for that day.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The Crying Queen surged over a wave, rain slicing like knives against Niya as she gripped tightly to a rope tied to the mainmast. The sails whipped loud as thunder against the wind. Despite their vigorous preparation when they’d spotted the ominous clouds on the horizon, everyone was yelling, running, falling, getting up, and running more. Ropes were constantly flying free and being retied. The ship tacked back and forth, back and forth, as waves tall as the mainsail smacked against the hull.
Niya now knew the reason why trade was light in the west of Aadilor. She was drenched to the bone. Rivulets of water ran across her face, spraying into her eyes, the taste of salt water filling her mouth. A crack of lightning overhead lit up the ship, the white sails screaming bright in the storm.
She held tight, feeling drunk on the motion. Her body was collecting as much power as it could take from all the movement. There were even moments when Niya fought to not pass out from the pandemonium of energy. Despite the ice-shard touch of the rain, her body was burning with her magic, her skin sizzling for it to be free.
A scream rang out above her, and she tipped her head up to watch Bree hit the edge of her crow’s nest and tumble out. Niya whipped up her hand, throwing out bright-orange surges of her power to catch Bree’s falling form. The weight of the small girl tugged at her gifts as they wrapped around her like a coiling rope, bringing her safely down to the deck beside her.
“Niya,” breathed Bree, her eyes wide, her skin pale with cold and fright. The rain plastered her short hair across her forehead. “You saved my life!”
“Hold on to this!” yelled Niya as she grabbed a free-flying rope that swung against the mast before them.
She handed it to Bree as an overwhelming sensation hit along her side. She turned to see a large wave surging over the starboard side of the boat.
Spinning, Niya gathered more energy before pushing it from her core, hot surges of power extended through her arms to hit against the wall of water.
The two forces clashed, a glowing red shield blocking the towering churning threat, before it fell away, back over the rail and into the sea. In the next moment, crates broke loose from netting, tumbling toward them, and Niya swung a hand around, knocking them out of the way with a burst of magic. Her muscles screamed at the exertion as well as the exhilaration as more of her power gathered and lashed out at falling debris and encroaching waves.