The rowboat is empty. All my supplies are gone.
A hot weight lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Balanced perfectly between warning and reassurance.
I rip away, hating that I step back as I face him. “How did you find out?”
He sets his shoulders, his huge chest rising and falling as he looks down at me and sighs. The soft sound wraps me in a childish dread, especially as his attention darts to my side, and I realise I drew my dagger without thought. The look in his eye says he’d welcome a challenge, but he waits for a moment, a quiet dare. We both know he’s the only one on this ship that could best me in a fight. But he’d win. He’d subdue me andthrow me in the brig with no food. The only water offered would be spilled onto the cell floor to mix with old piss. Days without sunlight—without the wind on my skin.
I can’t fight him. The certainty seizes me and suddenly I’m eight years old again, crying, begging him not to make me use the weapon he put in my hand.
“You’re my daughter. And you’ve been scurrying around, hiding like a bilge rat for days.”
“As if I’d want to be noticed by the newrecruitsyou picked up in Thornreach.” The whole lot were a thumbless handful of unwashed, leering criminals who’ve wasted their chance at a normal life. Piracy lends itself well to the type. I won’t watch another round of pointlessly cruel cannon fodder get their dicks hard by doing more harm than is necessary. Once, we’d have taken what we needed and gone. But as soon as my father brought in fresh meat, it was clear he’d planned another massacre. I’d argued—of course I’d argued. But it’s always the same answer.
Our reputation is what protects us. Keeps the others too afraid to risk a fight.
His grey eyes deaden as my voice carries. Embarrassing him is a worse offense than lifting my blade, but I need time. Need to think. The map is still in my boot and the mainland isn’t far now. I could beg for supplies, or forage in my shifted form, maybe, though I haven’t given into that side of me for years. I feel it, just under my skin, all smothered instinct and jagged-edged fear.
Run.
I could—should—leap over the side. Should take my chances with the waves and pray to whatever god might listen to a woman with enough blood on her hands to have survived in this life.
“Nisse.” The threat in his voice draws me back. “If you’d have made it off this ship, you’d have died a slow, lonely death. Is that what you want?”
I swallow, letting my eyes fall to his stainless frock coat. The black linen is strangely crisp, despite the time and the fingers of wet fog that curl around him, dulling the gilded buttons. Once, I would have let his doubt become my own, but this time the words numb me, extinguish me. Exhaustion rushes in, tucking itself into the empty spaces the frustration leaves behind.
“It’s the same fate I face here.” I sheath my blade and give him my back, issuing a challenge of my own as I tug the rowboat cover the rest of the way and let it fall to the deck. No matter how this ends, I’m done with this ship.
Behind me, his blade sings. The waves seem to sense the tension, growing larger, lapping the sides of the ship in uneven pulls. “Do not test me.”
I spin to him, the laugh bubbling out of me before I can stop it. “Or what?”
His voice is even as the tip of his blade rises. “I’d rather end you here than allow you to suffer at the hands of another.”
Again, the ship shifts unevenly, still caught in whatever strange current that angered the waves. I study the scar on his face, the one that runs from his right eyebrow to the middle of his cheek. I’d been ten years old. Things had gone southafter he boarded a merchant vessel. The wound bled so much I thought he would die. Hoped he would.
It was always going to end this way. Foolish hope let me believe I had a chance. But fools only ever find one fate.
“Then kill me, Captain.” My voice is soft. “And let all the world know you put Nisse down like a rabid dog.”
His eyes flash. I’ve struck a nerve, and despite my words I back towards the edge of the boat as he moves towards me. “A dog would be more grateful!” he spits, and a twisted sense of triumph threads alongside the fear in my gut as his voice rises.
I laugh again. “For what?” My back hits the ship railing, but I can’t keep this inane smile off my face, doubling down on a fight I can’t win. His longsword could reach me now. His face is sun-scald red, his shoulders curled under the weight of his anger. Now he’s just a man. Not invincible. Not infallible. Just brittle rage.
“For what I have made you!”
“A killer? A cheat. A fraud—” I spit the words, every bottled emotion I’ve felt in the last sixteen years rising like a tidal wave. Sixteen years since she’d died, and the bladed grief had yet to dull.
His hand snakes out to clench my shirt and my feet leave the ground, then the world tilts and I’m clinging to his fist for dear life, gritting my teeth against the bite of railing on my spine as he pushes half of me over the edge. “ALIVE, Odelia!” he roars. “You’re alive because of me.” My cowl is a noose, its weight tugging on my neck as the hood dangles towards the water.
The waves crash below, taunting, sending the mist of sea spray to tickle my cheek. Its playfulness isn’t tempting—I know what lies beneath. Darkness. Deafness. Breathless, monster-laden death. “My life doesn’t pay for hers.”
Again, he stills. Again, I’m assaulted by the twin spikes of victory and fear.
He really is going to kill me this time.
But instead of pitching me over the edge, he screams, then hurls me onto the deck. There’s a brief moment of weightlessness in which I realise the impact is going to hurt like hell, and brace, trying to tuck in.
My shoulder takes the hit, then the side of my head slams the hardwood and I slide, agony shooting down my arm and neck. Instinct pushes me up, but the world spins and my hand is completely numb. All I can do is twitch my fingers as he stomps closer, shrouded by the fog.
