It wouldn’t be appropriate for us to share a private cabin any longer. My marriage to Sofie—a desperate farce—was coming to its natural end. She’d done what she’d said she would. She’d broken the curse.
In return, I’d promised to bring her back to Aegle. And if she hadn’t quite followed the spirit of our agreement, neither, then, would I.
My future had disappeared along with that curse. I hadn’t expected that. All this time, I’d told myself that things would go back to normal, or bebetterwithout that dragons-blasted curse.
Instead, I had nothing. No Queen of the Sea to open the world to me and my crew. And above all, no wife I could trust.
I thought we’d come to an understanding these last few days. I thought she understoodme,and what I was about. As a pirate lord, I was hardly an ordinary man, but here I was, faced with a common problem: A woman was trying to change me.
Because the woman was Sofie, she was trying toforce meto be who she wanted me to be. A man who didn’t care about the treasure, about his future, about the freedom the seas of Duskhold offered. Every withering look of disappointment she now leveled at me whenever our paths crossed on deck—or worse, one of heartbreak—said I should’ve been grateful for what she’d done.
She would never understand. I’d given everything for this voyage. I’d givenlivesfor it. My crew had done the same. There were dark stains on our souls none of us would be rid of now.
As a balancer, she should’ve understood. She should’ve known that in order to be worth the last seven years of our lives, in order to be worth the lives it had cost, that treasure was meant tosavelives. We could’ve ferried wasting elves, fae and other magical creatures to the City of Nox, where they would not fade away—for a price, of course, but we were bound to let a few charity cases through. We could’ve united families. Could’ve bridged the divide between east and west known as the ship-breaking Diam Sea.
Instead, we had nothing to show for our sacrifices. Fortheirsacrifices.
My brides. My crew. All gone for nothing.
I couldn’t forgive that. Nor could I stomach Sofie’s betrayal. How could she look at me as though she loved me one moment and destroy everything I desired in the next?
I knew the answer, even if I didn’t wish to. Sofie had said it on the beach: I needed to choose between her and the treasure. Sheexpectedme to choose her as proof of my feelings. Further proof she understood nothing about me.
She wasn’t just asking me to choose between her and some prize. She wished for me to choose between her and the life I led. She’d fallen for a pirate and expected him to be somebody else.
And I’d fallen for my doomed bride, expecting her to be my savior.
She’d ruined me instead. And I’d been too caught up in my feelings for her to see it. This is what Sofie did: She destroyed things.
Jovus set up my new quarters below deck. And I avoided Sofie as much as possible, because I knew what needed to be done.
“Are you certain you want to stay on the same ship with her?” Violet asked, hanging in the doorway of the first mate’s cabin she’d lately been occupying.
“I have to see this through,” I answered stiffly. I’d given Violet our destination yesterday, and already we moved north at an impressive pace.
From the lack of flush on Sofie’s cheeks, I suspected she was using her magic to that end, summoning wind. On the heels of all that fire she’d summoned on the Hidden Isle, it was leaving her drained.
The wind continued anyway, always blowing northward. Once or twice, Violet spoke to her in low tones, and the wind’s direction shifted.
She had no idea what was coming.
After two weeks of angry silence, Sofie spoke to me at last, with the following words, delivered immediately after she’d kicked in the door to my cabin:
“You vicious cur of a sea dog! How dare you go back on your word!”
I lifted my head blearily from my pillow, as if I’d been able to sleep. It was late morning, and I’d had a pounding megrim all night. Even now, it threatened a resurgence.
Trying and failing to shake off the fog of both sleeplessness and head pain, I began to sit up and slide out of bed, only to hear a surprised yelp from Sofie.
“What?” I demanded, slow to catch up.
Ah, yes, I was sleeping in nothing but my small clothes, now that I wasn’t sharing a cabin with anyone. “Don’t be silly,” I said, standing and searching for my trousers and shirt anyway. I found them discarded on the floor. “You’ve seen me shirtless before.”
“You were injured. That’s different.” Her back was still to me, and her hands lifted to cover her eyes for good measure.
“We’re married,” I pointed out.
“A sham of a marriage, that you tricked me into.”
