“I’m still not seeing how you claiming my kills is a kindness to me.” Riden thinks I’m up to something, eh? Guess I will have to up my act. I need to rid him of the idea.
“You don’t know my brother. So allow me to explain something to you. If he thinks you’re up to something, he’ll kill you. Now I owe you my life. So consider my silence part of my repayment.”
“There’s nothing to be kept quiet. You’re overlooking a third option, Riden.”
“And what’s that?”
“I was looking out for myself. There was no guarantee I could trust those men. If they found out who I was, they could try to use me for leverage just as you do, especially if they’re smugglers, as we suspect. And if something were to happen to you, Draxen would have someone else question me. And there’s a good chance I’d hate him more than I do you.”
Riden watches me. No amusement. No gratitude. No anything.
What is he thinking?
Finally, he says, “I suppose I didn’t think of that. Of course I should have considered that your only concern was for yourself.”
“I’m a pirate,” I remind him.
“Yes. I just can’t figure out if you’re a good pirate or a really good pirate.”
“I’m not sure I know what that means.”
“Just know that whatever it is that you’re hiding from me, I will figure it out.”
Clinking metal beats a steady rhythm. Not that of swords, but of chains. I know the sound well, as I’ve spent much time practicing how to get out of them.
At the sound, Riden goes ahead and locks me into the cell. Did he decide that our conversation was over, or does he not want Draxen to see him talking to me through an open door?
Draxen and two pirates—one who I’ve never seen before and the third pirate who helped bring my things down with Enwen and Kearan—lead two of the smugglers, who are clad in manacles, down the stairs. The conk to the head I gave them must not have been enough to kill them. ’Tis a shame for them, because death likely would have been better than whatever the pirates could have in store.
I may also be a prisoner, but they need me alive and in good health if they expect a ransom from my father. These two smugglers, however, do not need to be traded. Nor do they need information from them because the gold has already been found. The fact that they were brought on board alive, then, spells disaster for them.
“What is this?” Riden asks.
“Ulgin’s getting a bit restless,” Draxen says. “I thought he could use this.”
Riden nods, though he doesn’t look happy about what he knows will happen next. Yet he opens a new cell far away from mine. The pirate I assume is Ulgin leads the smugglers inside.
“And I came down to collect you,” the captain continues. “What with our fortunate find and all, I figure the men could use a payday on land. There’s lots of gold to be spent. I want you to oversee the distribution of each man’s share. We should be upon the shore by nightfall.”
I knew we were close to land, despite everyone’s misleading. The smugglers who left their shipmates aboard their broken ship would have had to take the time to find a new ship and then find where their old one had drifted off to. It’s no wonder they haven’t come back to it yet. And rather fortunate for Draxen and his crew that they happened to stumble across it.
“What are we to do with the princess?”
“Nothing at all. That’s why I brought Sheck down here. He’ll be guarding her until we reach land.”
“Is that really such a good—”
“I think she’s been having too good a time of it, Riden. It’s time we remind her who we are. Don’t know why you chose Kearan and Enwen, of all the crew, to primarily oversee her. If they didn’t have their particular talents, I would have tossed them overboard long ago. Almost bloody useless.”
Riden looks like he wants to argue. Very badly. But he doesn’t. “Let’s see to the gold, then,” he says instead.
For the first time I turn my attention to Sheck. And nearly jump away.
He’s pressed up to the bars, staring hungrily at me. I feel as though rats crawl across my skin. Actually, I think I would prefer it if rats were crawling against my skin.
When I was little and faced with a new challenge each day, I would look to my father for help. He would instruct me and then send me into the fire pit—figuratively speaking. I always got burned. And I learned quickly that turning to him for help was useless. He never assisted. I either succeeded or suffered the consequences of failing. There was no relief. Long afterward, I might be given some advice and encouragement. Sometimes even comfort. But in the moment, there was no aid. It wasn’t long before I learned to stop turning to others for help. It’s never an option, so I don’t even think about it.
Which is why when I am faced with the hot-blooded pirate, my first response is not to look to Riden. Or to ask Draxen to have someone else guard me. No, I handle my problems alone because that is the way things are.
“There isn’t a problem, is there, Alosa?” Draxen asks. His sneer is full of poison.
I say, “I’ve never had a problem I couldn’t handle myself.”
Chapter 6
THOUGH MY TIME SPENT with Sheck and Ulgin was only a few hours, it felt like much, much longer.
It started with Sheck walking back and forth in front of my cell, never taking his eyes off me. Occasionally he would reach through the bars, as if he could grab me. He was trying to get a response from me. To see me afraid. I never gave him the satisfaction. I stayed to the far end of the cell the whole time. Though I was tired and could have used a rest before I sneak out of my cell tonight, I didn’t nap. I couldn’t risk rolling over in my sleep, coming within reach of Sheck’s searching hands.
But that was not all that prevented me from sleeping. There was also the screaming. Ulgin, like Sheck, is not a complicated pirate to figure out. Each pirate has their vice. For some it is drinking, for others it’s gambling, for those like Sheck, it is deriving forced pleasure from a struggling woman.
But Ulgin—his is seeing pain in others. So I sat, facing away, while Ulgin tortured those smugglers to death.
Draxen keeps vile men in his company, but I am neither surprised nor terribly bothered by it. My father has much worse men at his disposal. Some of them I know enjoy the taste of human flesh, right off a living body.
I have no such creatures within my own crew. I value other traits above an affinity for torture and power over those weaker than oneself. I value brilliant minds, honest souls, and those with long endurance. I forge relationships based on trust and mutual respect, not fear and control.
Empathy for human life is something my father tried to beat out of me. He thinks he succeeded. Most people do. And while I can kill evil men without guilt, the suffering of others pains me as well as it does them. It hurts, but I can handle it. Bad things happen to people who may not be deserving of such punishment. The world continues on. I continue on. Because if nothing else, I’m a survivor.