She wasn’t the only one who’d been practicing…Cullen was stealing the man’s air.
The nameless lutenz kept his eyes locked with her, smiling his cruel grin the entire time. It grew more and more wild as his final seconds ticked on. As if he could somehow transfer death’s gaze from himself, to her. Eira clutched Cullen a bit tighter.
The man’s eyes rolled up into his head and he slouched.
“Get this garbage off my ship.” Adela turned and slowly began walking back to her cabin.
It was Adela’s words that spurred the crew to movement, carrying the man to the edge. They tossed him over the railing with the grace of a sack of refuse, casting him into the dark sea, never to be seen again.
26
Eira lay awake in her hammock as the ship continued its course, plodding along toward a distant island—Black Flag Bay—that Adela had mentioned they’d be restocking in before continuing to Carsovia. But her mind was still in the sea behind.
The lutenz’s eyes were seared onto hers. It didn’t matter where she looked, or if she closed her lids, she could still see him and his cold, almost inhuman stare. What stripped a person so cleanly of anything that even remotely resembled a soul? What loyalty demanded the cost of one’s humanity and why were so many willing to pay it? Those were the questions that kept her awake. She searched for an answer…one she wasn’t entirely sure if she wanted to find.
Eventually, she gave up on sleep.
Eira swung her feet over the edge of her hammock and eased herself down. The creaking of the ship concealed her steps. But she didn’t even check to see who else might have been awake. She wasn’t trying to hide from them.
A few other pirates were up on deck, of course. Working. But they hardly had any reaction to her now. After the battle and surreal aftermath earlier, they had resumed their duties asif nothing had happened. Though, for pirates, sea battles and murdered prisoners were business as usual.
Still, there were questions left unanswered for all of them. Namely around Adela and Eira. She could hear their wonderings because she carried the same. The looks they cast her way were felt, more than seen. And the only person who had any insight into the game she was playing was the pirate queen herself. Who…wasn’t about to tell.
So there was little point in her agonizing over it. Yet, agonizing was something Eira was very good at. And it had kept her alive by keeping her mind and feet moving, always one step ahead of the people who would kill her. So she wondered and plotted and planned anyway.
She made her way to the bow of the ship, determined to force herself to look forward, rather than back, and was surprised to find that she wasn’t alone. Varren sat at the bow, legs over the edge, leaning against a railing. Had she been so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t heard him leaving? Or had he never come to bed and instead had remained on deck as the night bled on, and she’d been too absorbed in herself to notice?
Varren acknowledged her with a glance and a small nod, one she returned. Taking his slight shift as permission, Eira sat next to him, but said nothing. She felt like his guest—one infringing on his contemplative solitude. She didn’t want to be the one to break his thoughts and she had plenty to muse over herself.
After an indiscernible amount of time of Eira just letting her mind go blank, Varren said, “I’m sorry.”
Eira was so startled that she nearly jumped off the ship. “Excuse me?”
“I shouldn’t have put that man’s blood on your hands or Cullen’s; I shouldn’t have told you to kill him.”
She inhaled sharply, realizing what he was saying—what he thought. “It wasnotyour fault that he died. I made my owndecision, as did Cullen. And before you said anything, I’d already reached the conclusion that there was no point in keeping him alive. Cullen offered to end it faster.
“Carsovia wouldn’t have negotiated for him, he wouldn’t have helped us. And if he had any information, I’m sure Adela extracted it before she even asked me,” Eira repeated all the things she’d been telling herself. It was odd that, despite having fought Pillars to the bitter end, despite having slain Ferro before men and women from around the world,thisdeath was sticking with her…probably because it wasn’t about the man at all, but about what acting on Adela’s behalf had meant. Another step into a world that she was still figuring out where she stood within. “It wasn’t on any of us, really. Circumstances unfolded. It is what it is.”
“Still—”
“Varren,” Eira interrupted him. She hated being firm with him when he was clearly agonizing over it. But she also needed him to understand he had nothing to worry about. So Eira held up her right hand, halting him. “We have all done things we might not be proud of to survive—things that haunt us. Don’t let the ghosts win.”
“Thank you for saying all that.” He still seemed slightly unconvinced.
She dared to rest a hand on his shoulder. She hadn’t exactly been close to Varren and didn’t want to overstep any boundaries now. “I’m not just saying so; it’s all the truth. I understand how guilt and doubt can make you cast unfair blame on yourself—make you second-guess your every action because it isso easyto think what you might have done with the luxury of hindsight. But please believe me when I say you havenothingto feel guilty over. I’m all right, Cullen—” She snorted. “He’s sleeping soundly in his hammock. All is well.”
He nodded and looked back out at the sea. Eira allowed her hand to slip from his person.
“If the roles had been reversed, he would’ve done the same to us or worse.”
“I’ve gathered as much about Carsovia,” Eira murmured.
“It’s been years since I left the empire, yet their monsters still keep me up at night.” He chuckled softly. “They live in my mind and never let me be, to the point that I’ve practically named them. I know them by the movement in the corners of my eyes, or the sound of a creaking floorboard. And you’d think, after coming to know them so well, having long accepted their presence, they would no longer bother me…”
“And yet they still haunt you as much as always,” Eira finished.
Varren glanced at her. “The Pillars?”
