I want to see if the man I become is someone worthy of you. If I can make you fall in love with me all over again. That was what he’d said, wasn’t it? More or less? The words felt like a lifetime ago now.
Who was the man he was now, and had she been paying attention?
Her thoughts had muffled the rest of the conversation. So Eira blinked with surprise as everything returned to focus solely on Cullen. Lavette and Varren were halfway down the docks, returning to their new, old life. And he just stood there, smiling up at her. In that little curl of his lips she saw shades of the man who had taken her to Court, who had shined so brightly. And the outline of the man who had shattered her heart.
A thousand questions swelled in her like the tide and Eira didn’t know if the answers circled like sharks or shone like a clear sky.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” Cullen arched his brows, as if, somehow, he saw the swirling uncertainty.
For a second, she nearly told him no. How much simpler would it be if she had just cut him out of her life, then and there?
“Permission granted,” Eira said.
Cullen ascended the gangplank and halted right as he had been about to step around her. Without a word, he reached up. Eira’s brows furrowed, trying to make sense of what he was reaching for. His fingers hooked on the strand of hair she’d tucked behind her ear that morning and promptly forgotten about. Tugging lightly, he freed the streak of white.
“What’s this?” The question was unreadable. There wasn’t worry, anger, confusion, or any other strong emotion. A mild inquiry at what was certainly a notable oddity.
Eira plastered on a bold smile and shrugged. “Getting old, I guess.”
Cullen laughed and shook his head. “It suits you.”
“Being old?” She tilted her head.
“If that’s what you want to call it, then certainly.” He released the strand of hair, knuckles brushing against her cheek as he did. “You shouldn’t hide it.”
With that, he stepped around her, setting out to put his pack down belowdecks and then help prepare the ship. Eira hovered, her cheeks unexpectedly warm. No questions, no worries. Just…admiration.
She turned out to sea, gathering herself and running a hand through her hair. Then, she commanded, “Pull gangplank. Cast off!”
The crew set to work. As those thick ropes unraveled, it was Eira who felt their departure—not the wood of the vessel. She was the one who turned toward the unbound freedom that beckoned from the open sea.
Their movements were instinctual, a rhythm that was almost like a song of calls and callbacks. Of clacking rigging and the quick rumbling of hasty steps across the deck. With little more than a beat of her heart, the ship eased away from the docks. The vessel was alive with her magic, moving through water without need of sail or oar.
She paid little attention to the larger vessels that anchored in the wharf of Qwint, save for avoiding their lines. There was a sense of isolation that swept over the ship like a cloud over the sun. They were on their own once more. But rather than being unnerving, Eira found peace in the solitude. They had all they needed.
A sigh of contentment escaped her lips as they glided between the watchtowers of Qwint. The stoic soldiers continued to regard them with uncertain stares. But none moved to stop them.
Her heart echoed the thrum of the waves against the hull. Her spirit soared as free as the wind in their sails. Her magic propelling them toward beckoning blue.
“Where to, Captain?” Crow asked, coming up alongside her.
“To Adela,” Eira announced, certain others would hear.
“Then I would suggest we head?—”
Eira held up a hand, stopping Crow. “I know where she is.”
“You do?” Crow arched her dark brows in surprise.
The ocean beneath them was a map unraveled. Beyond the walls of Qwint, laden with their runes, there was nothing to impede Eira’s senses. She swam through the vastness and raced along the surf. It expanded her awareness and, in the far, far distance, brushed against the familiar hull of a much larger vessel.
“I can feel her,” Eira said with an enigmatic grin, and offered no other explanation to Crow’s questioning gaze.
19
The tempest-tossed sea posed a unique challenge, one Eira was eager to throw herself and her ship headfirst into. She didn’t know if Adela had willingly run into the storm, or perhaps conjured it herself, but the pirate queen was most definitely using it as a tactical advantage against the three Pillars vessels that were desperately trying to sink theStormfrost. Ulvarth’s hubris was a poisonous mix with the zeal of his followers.
Roars of gunfire echoed between thunderous cracks of magic over the seas. Eira and herWinter’s Banebore down on the chaotic melee. Even if Adela had the matter in hand, she wasn’t about to sit idly by and leave it to chance.
