The sky was still dastardly blue as gulls dove at the sea, cawing their song. I stepped out of the carriage. A shelf of land surrounded the port, rocky and dire, capped in clusters of graying snow that clung to its sides like the last of my hopes. Fated to fall into the sea and cease existing at all. Where the land met the waves. This was the end of Oakhaven.
A cool air wafted off the ocean, snapping my hair with its strength. Before me was docked a great ship adorned with a gilded bear with a fish’s tail, snarling on the front of its hull. The Gyldfords’ heraldic beast. Bile rose in my throat. Soon to be mine.
Then I saw a man on the dock in the distance, tall and broad, stalking in demanding strides. At his side, a pathetic figure draped in black tried to keep pace until they both stood before me.
He looked me up and down, unblushing. Unlike his counterpart, whose gray, protruding eyes widened at my attire. They peered from layers of black silk that wrapped her head to toe, a veil drawn tight across her mouth, stifling any further expression. She was unmistakably a drucia.
“I’m Captain Arlo Fynn,” he said with a terse nod. “And you must be the lady I’m to escort to Whiterok?”
He was barely older than myself, young for a captain, but looked quite fine in his leather captain’s coat. He was tall, towering over me, sun-kissed and handsome in a worn way. It was like the sea had chiseled his featuresinto dull but dire angles over millennia, like the cliffs that hung around us here.
But handsome or not, I clung to my anger. Because without it, reality threatened to take hold.
“No, sorry, wrong lady. But I saw her run that way. If you hurry, you may catch her.” I jerked a thumb over my shoulder.
A smile tugged at the corner of his lips and those damned eyes shone on me, honey-warm like the sun just before setting, encircled in amber, with golden rays beaming from the center, straight into my soul. At that look, absolutely against my will, a gust of air seemed to blow, extinguishing the ire I desperately needed.
He swallowed that smile down the thick column of his throat. I was desperate to have it return. “This drucia shall be your chaperone.”
She shrugged off the shawl around her shoulders and wrapped it over mine. I wanted to fight her, but realized how uncomfortable the voyage would be, undressed as I was.
The captain turned abruptly, stalking back to the dock.
The woman finished tying the wrap, then gave a small, silent dip. Great. A babysitter. Drucias were overly religious members of a sect of The Guarded. They honored only Terragos with their muteness in temples built near sacred sites. They were staunch believers that only the one Guardian was the true ruler of all. Which went against everything our religion stood for. This earth belonged to four Guardians, equally and in balance. They lived a miserable existence of heavy,judgmentalsilence. I sighed. Not exactly the most riveting ship companion.
“Where am I to go?” I called to the captain.
“Aboard,” he said, not turning to me, and then he swung a solid arm to the ship.
The mute drucia led me to a room below the ship’s deck and pointed to a simple wood door with a large metal lock. A stool sat beside it.
“Are you going to lock me in there?” I exclaimed.
Her eyes were sympathetic as she nodded a small yes.
Pure, hot vexation overtook my body. “Guardians fucking be!” Red, searing indignation burned my cheeks.
Yet the drucia pulled out a silver key from deep within the folds of her drapery and unlocked the door.
“I absolutelyrefuseto be locked in there,” I roared defiantly.
“What’s that noise?” the Captain's voice boomed from the deck above in forced authoritarianism that threatened to make my eyes roll out of their sockets. He leaned on the stair’s railing.
The drucia glanced at him, silently pleading for help.
“I refuse to be locked away like a prisoner,” I answered for her.
He descended the stairs swiftly, boots echoing on the wooden planks. “These were my direct orders for escorting you. We must voyage on with you under lock and key.”
“Absolutelyfuckingnot,” I spat.
He blinked away the curse and laughed. “Well, you’re not what I anticipated.”
“Let me guess, you were picturing some meek, polite little woman who would listen to whatever order you sent her way,Captain?”
In a heartbeat those eyes were on me again. Devouring me head to toe as he tongued something in his mouth. Then he smiled. The bastard. Broad and beaming.
I bit down the bliss it sent racing through my body.
