Gripping the rope, she swung with more grace and agility than Reid had ever seen across the gap separating their boats, not bothering to wait for further words. Her boots thumped on the boat opposite them. She sauntered across the deck, weaving through the swath of people darting this way and that.
“You know she’ll likely kill us and keep the salt, right?” Koen said.
Reid only pursed his lips. He finally got a good look at the pirate’s vessel across from theirs. It was Icrurian by design, no doubt fabricated in Sigguth like the rest of their ships. He was familiar with the hull and oarsbank, his fingers itching to get ahold of one of the oars that would help propel the ship forward. At least fifty stuck out, half in each direction. Except it wasn’texactlythe same; there were mechanisms on it that he’d never seen before. Metal fixtures on the oars that attached them to the ship. Furrowing his brows, he inspected each inch he could see, making a note of the iron hinges.
“I’ll go first, then,” Reid said.
“Reid—” his mother tried.
“Stay. Here.”
She huffed, muttering something under her breath. Reid avoided the body of the dead captain and grabbed ahold of the same ropes the pirate had used. In one graceful jump, he swung onto the opposite deck, his shoulders burning with the familiar motion, his numb hands scraping on the rough texture.He kept his eyes to himself, but a few of the pirate’s crewmates whispered something at his arrival. He’d grown up on ships, had sailed them through the rivers in Icruria with his father, but this striking cold lent to a different kind of endurance. His body ached. He needed new clothing.
Koen and his mother waited across the platform the pirates were using to offload the ship. The pirate was nowhere in sight. People moved in every direction. Men and women both worked the vessel, so un-Asteryan in nature, and added further to the confounding puzzle in Reid’s mind. A man with sharp, onyx eyes and broad shoulders sauntered over to them. He had dark-brown skin and a sturdy build, seemingly honed from his work on the ship. Others moved out of his way as he approached. He gestured toward the hatch. “Captain says you’ll stay down there,” he said in Icrurian, and Reid almost sighed in relief. He’d felt out of place listening to the indistinguishable Asteryan earlier and had an even greater appreciation for Vaasa. He was grateful to be back in the company of a language he understood.
The man placed his hand on Reid’s shoulder. “The captain will see you in her quarters.”
Reid turned to where Koen and his mother stood.
“We don’t kill without reason,” the man said. “Especially not another witch.”
Reid met the man’s eyes. He extended an arm, an Icrurian gesture, and Reid thought the show of it was pointless if he didn’t mean it.
“Will you help my mother across?” Reid asked, taking the man’s arm and giving one strong shake.
He nodded as if he truly meant it. “I will.”
Reid turned, gesturing for Koen to start the journey across the narrow board. Reid walked the main deck and climbed until he found the low entrance to the captain’s quarters. Heat waftedthrough the air, emanating from a firebox next to the desk. Reid almost sank to his knees in relief.
Warmth.
He wanted to walk up and hold his hands to it, but instead he surveyed the room. Inside was anything but simple—ornate silk curtains hung along stained glass windows, and oak furniture stood bold with carvings of leaves and roses in each piece. The lushly dressed bed boasted bright pinks and yellows.Cheerywas the word that came to mind, so at odds with Reid’s predetermined image of a pirate. But it was ostentatious, and he realized that whatever price this woman demanded would be large enough to make him blink.
Covering the opposite wall, there was artwork made entirely of iron, except as he gazed closer upon it, he realized it was a map. It depicted the entire coast and the Loursevain Gap, and then every river in Asterya and Icruria. It was the most accurate rendering he had ever seen, the offshoots perfectly scaled, the Sanguine curving until it hit the Settara and opened to the salt lake he had called home his entire life. Whoever these people were, they had sailed the entirety of this side of the continent. Had successfully navigated both warring nations and made it out alive.
The pirate sat behind a redwood desk, her knife out and spinning along the flat surface. She looked up, white teeth flashing as she asked, “So tell me, Reid of Mireh, do you have a plan for seizing the Iron Fortress, or are you just going in blind?”
CHAPTER
8
When the lords arrived, Vaasa did not curtsy or shake hands like the men; she lifted her chin and waited for them to bend at the waist.
Only one did not: Lord Vlacik. He reigned over Pryviske, a region not far from Mekës that wore its arrogance like a badge of honor. His family maintained access to the mines along the coastline that delivered much of Asterya’s construction resources, and they were gifted Barken Palace, the old capital of Asterya before her grandfather had built this fortress on the Iron Bay. They’d held favor with the Kozár family for generations. There had been a time she was worried about being married off to the Pryviske estate, but Ozik had assured her of theimpossibility.We do not want them to grow any bolder, he’d told her years prior. Now, as she gazed upon Lord Vlacik, she fought a shiver. His father was dead, and his younger sister had already borne an heir, making her and her husband a threat to Vlacik. He needed to marry, and quickly. Given what Vaasa had learned from Dominik’s notes—that Vlacik’s late father had been studying magic with her own father, that Vlacik and Dominik had carried on the tradition—he was a prime candidate.
Of all outcomes, a marriage to him was possibly the worst.
He stepped away from the dais, chin raised, and took his familial seat. It was one of the closest to the throne. They were surrounded by the other families just like them. Old Asteryans, they called themselves, a designation those families swung like hammers in a war room. They were one of two major political factions, always opposite the New Asteryans—the younger families who governed the northern territories her father had conquered. The New Asteryan families had been powerful merchants and sentinels, people who had not inherited their land, but instead had been given it in exchange for their assistance in her father’s endeavors.
The Asteryan throne felt as sturdy as sand beneath her.
Vaasa ran her hands over the wooden armrests, the tips of which were dipped in iron. Now cold. Sharp. This had been what everything revolved around. This seat had been the catalyst to the learning of six languages. The purpose of her schemes and the tarnishing of her soul. The very reason her brother set out to kill her. The reason she had been sent into an enemy country and left there for dead.
It was only a chair.
She pictured her magic curling over the edges in tendrils of smoke, yet the power wouldn’t stir within her. One after the other, local nobles and wealthier members of the middle class filed into the Sanctum while Vaasa sat and listened to themcomplain. Once upon a time, she’d had a taste for this sort of afternoon: one where the wine flowed and she sat near her father, taking diligent mental notes to better understand every predicament.Be useful, she would tell herself.You must always be useful.She would review it all with her father afterward, some twisted consolation prize where he turned her into both the son of his dreams and the daughter of his nightmares.
What a waste that you are a woman. What a tragedy that you will never rule.
