The Lady’s eyes traveled up my face, then past me, pleading for help as I laid my hands around the shaft, willing tiny filaments of chaos into a restorative order they did not wish to take.
“Can you heal her?”
The voice behind me was gruff.Jax.I didn’t turn. I couldn’t.
I could hear the grief in his voice.
“Not like this. If you help me remove the shaft—”
Jax pushed me aside roughly, light flashing in my eyes. Before I could so much as whimper, his sword drove home into the Lady de Gorm’s heart.
“May the gods commend you for your loyalty,” Jax said, the words clipped. “You served well, and died even better.”
The Lady’s eyes went blank, a faint curve on her bloodstained lips.
She was gone.
“Why?” I demanded, gasping, voice breaking. “I could’ve—”
“You would’ve prolonged her suffering. The Lady and I had a deal. Be it natural or from battle wounds, there was never to be any agony on the deathbed for her.” He sheathed his sword without cleaning it, his throat bobbing. “It’s what she wanted.”
I couldn’t look at him. Instead, I reached out and closed the Lady de Gorm’s eyes with a shaking hand.
Moments later, I was standing again, searching for anyone Icouldsave. I was so determined to stop Jax from enacting a similar agreement with others onBlue Moonthat I didn’t understand what was happening.
“Get your essential things, madam,” Jovus said, the cabin boy’s habitually dirty face clean where his tears had fallen. “She’s sinking.”
I felt as though I was in a dream. Some horrible, wretched dream tainted by the Bride. Not even the sight of Safira, stumbling up the steps from below deck, could wake me from it. For she was carrying a great burden behind her, dragging it. Even as she continued to labor, she was sobbing.
Omar. Oh, gods, please don’t let Omar be dead.
Jovus tugged at my sleeve.
“Time to go, madam. We’re abandoning ship.”
In a daze, I let him lead me toward the cabin, passing by more fallen members of the crew I’d gotten to know over the lastcouple months. Cyan was dead, a bow still clutched in his hands. Oasis’s face was ashen as she dragged herself across the deck, burns on her skin and a crossbow bolt in her hip. And Aoki—
“Wait. Where…”
My words fell short as I stumbled past Jovus, throwing open the door to the captain’s cabin.
Aoki lay dead on the floor. Run through, just like the Lady de Gorm.
I stared at his body numbly for half a moment. He’d tried to help me. He’d woken me…
He’ll want you alive.
At the time, I thought he’d meant Jax.
Blackbeard knows.
The doubts crept into the back of my benumbed brain.
Never trust a pirate.
Had Aoki betrayed us to Captain Blackbeard?
And when had I started thinking of it asus,as if I were part of the crew ofCarabosse?
