It should’ve thrilled me.
It didn’t.
“Something wrong?” Destin asked.
I glanced at him, the mirror of myself: same dark hair, same sun-worn skin, same calloused hands from a life builton whale blood. We were both twenty-five. Too young to have seen this much death and carnage. Too rich to care.
Still, I’d never tell him.
Or anyone.
“Nothing,” I said, turning back to the sea.
“Do you regret not closing the deal with the queen?” Destin asked, prying like a sailor picking apart crab legs for dinner. He knew better than to do this.
I gave him a warning look, enough to put him in place. He took a step back.
“I don’t regret anything,” I said. Although… my mind wandered to a few days ago, moments before we left the port at Moanalei Kingdom.
The sky hung low, with clouds that foreshadowed a storm.
The port, once so full of life and color, had changed under Sereth’s rule.
Guards patrolled the docks, always keeping track of who came and went. They acted like seagulls circling over the sea, looking for something to feed on.
And at that moment, standing at the port not so long ago, the bird’s voices wailed across the sky.
Ships groaned against their moorings.
The whole place smelled of rot and grime.
And then there was Sereth, standing beneath a black parasol. Her skin nearly matched the color of her white gloves, her lips the color of blood, and her hair black as ebony. Her cloak billowed in the breeze, dark as a funeral.
But even her beauty could not hide her past.
She had blood on those snow white hands: the blood of her stepmother.
It haunted her eyes. Haunted her kingdom. She couldn’t walk anywhere without a guard at her side. Her peoplefeared her. Most had already turned to me for protection, for hope.
But I wasn’t a savior. I was a whaler. Not a leader.
Sereth had tried to strike a deal before we set sail: flashing those cold eyes, offering investment in my fleet. She needed my power. My reputation. She wanted to buy back control of her crumbling reign.
No one fooled me.
Everyone was afraid of me, even her. But still… she was fierce. Her armies rivaled the size of my crews. She ruled with an iron hand, a sharp tongue, and the shadow of her own crime behind her.
I could’ve been that crime.
I’d once sworn to her stepmother that I’d take Sereth to sea, kill her, and toss her overboard.
But I didn’t.
And I’d kept one vow ever since: I’d never bow to a crown again. I followed laws, not rulers. I lived on my own terms.
“I don’t bow to the queen,” I said.
Destin nodded. “I know, Alaric.”
