Sachia skimmed over the papers, jostling them in her hands as she switched from one letter to another.
“Who are they?” Reid asked. Neither name was familiar, but given they still spoke in Icrurian, Sachia and Jonáš weren’t hiding anything.
“Lord Vlacik of Pryviske,” Sachia said with a lip curled in disgust, not bothering to take her eyes from the papers. “In these waters, it’s always Vlacik.”
She said nothing on the other name: Sutherland. Instead, she handed the papers back to Jonáš and sauntered to the other members of her crew. As if it were second nature, she helped them transport goods across the gaping drop between ships.
“Who is Sutherland?” Koen asked.
“A pirate king,” Jonáš explained. “One of the nastiest. Neither Sachia nor I have ever laid eyes on the man, but he has more control over the trade in these waters than just about any other crew. The day he dies is the day Sachia and I beach that ship and live our lives on an island somewhere away from this wretched continent. Somewhere warm.”
“Is he the reason Sachia’s brother is in the Mekës prison?” Koen asked.
Jonáš glanced at Reid from the corner of his eye, though he seemed unsurprised that Reid had told Koen of the details of his and Sachia’s agreement. He stared directly at Koen as he answered the question. “Yes.”
Reid wasn’t sure if it was any of his business or if Jonáš would spill a word of truth, but he asked, “What for?”
“We left his crew,” Jonáš muttered before walking away. “And now it’s him or us.”
CHAPTER
11
Vaasa woke in the early afternoon and stood at the edge of the right hallway, staring at her mother’s door down the dark corridor.
Was the necklace inside?
She took a step forward. Her body felt disconnected from her, like she was floating above it and staring at herself. The seed of her panic sprouted.
She could see her mother’s body. Could smell and taste the acrid magic. The quick rewinding of time brought her right back to this place, staring at the remnant of her mother’s life, Vaasa’s future hanging in the air and suffocating amid all the wicked power.
It was my mother. Her curse passed down to me when I found her dead.
Vaasa’s breath came quicker.
Like roots bursting from a shell, they plunged down, an invasive species, this panic strangling all the life inside her. She could feel it again—her magic bursting like a dam inside her body, spreading like blood in the water, sliding down each muscle and winding around her bones. The visceral fear of that moment. She’d believed she was dying. She had been convinced of her fate.
Her legs wouldn’t move. This paralysis was entirely against her will. She tried to lift her leg but she couldn’t, she—
Vaasa turned away, gritting her teeth. She let out a frustrated groan and covered her face with her hands. Her chest rose and fell with her breaths. “It’s okay,” she whispered to herself, pretending her voice was Amalie’s or Melisina’s. Pretending for a moment that she wasn’t alone. “It’s okay to be afraid.”
She stood there for minutes. Maybe more. Everything swirled in her mind—Ozik, Lord Vlacik, Roman.
Reid. Amalie. Her coven.
Vaasa retreated to the couch and buried herself beneath her blanket, shutting out the sunlight, shutting out anything and everything at once.
She didn’t emerge from her rooms for the rest of the day.
She didn’t see Ozik. She didn’t see Roman.
And when Lord Karev called on her, she told the attendants she was ill.
The next day, Vaasa followed the path her body had finally deemed safe into her father’s office down the left hallway of the emperor’s quarters. Sleep had evaded her, though she’d knownbetter than to go seeking Roman again. She had been too close to her past.
She would need to rest today, to reserve her energy for more pandering with the lords. She couldn’t fake ill with Lord Karev for long, given what was at stake.
She parsed through every single thing Dominik had written, and in a file deep in a drawer, she found the letters he’d exchanged with Mathjin, Reid’s traitorous advisor. The man’s face flashed behind her eyes—the ice of his irises, the twist of his mouth. The sheer terror she’d felt at finding herself tied up beneath the colosseum of Dihrah, left for dead at the hands of her brother.
