Total pages in book: 210
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 200096 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1000(@200wpm)___ 800(@250wpm)___ 667(@300wpm)
“Aye. It did. After the rest of the lot, but they made it.”
“And was Princess Annika on the ship?” Zander pushes.
“That, I don’t know. But Captain Aron and some of the crew’s right over there.”
We follow his nod toward a table of four, just as a tall man with pocked skin stands and rushes for the door.
“Let me guess—that’s Captain Aron,” Zander hisses, charging after him. “Secure the rest of them!”
56
Zander
His heartbeat gives him away.
“You honestly thought you could hide from me behind a door?” Grabbing the sizable man by the neck, I haul him out from the stable. “Captain Aron of the Tempest, is it not?”
He holds his hands in the air in a sign of surrender. “I don’t know what you want with me, but—”
“Oh, I think you do.” I shove him hard, and he sprawls onto the dirt. Passersby in the street scatter with gasps and shouts, forming a spectators’ ring around us. I could not care less who witnesses what I do to this mortal if he does not give me the answers I seek. “My sister, Princess Annika, left Cirilea on your ship, not by her will. She was taken by the Ybarisan prince. Are you denying this?” I slide my dagger from its sheath, twirling it in my grasp.
Aron winces as he stands, brushing the dust from his breeches. “Aye, they sailed with me. The prince was wounded, I believe by her dagger.”
The one our father gave her for her birthday, no doubt. I demanded she always keep it on her. I think it’s the only time she’s ever listened to me. “Tell me more,” I demand.
“They paid me in jewels to sail them out of Cirilea quickly.”
“Which jewels?”
With resignation, he fishes into his pocket and produces the gold and white pearl pinky ring I gave Annika for her birthday. I recall it well. The craftsman, I found in a tiny village off the eastern coast.
I also know this wasn’t the most valuable ornament in her possession.
With my blade against the captain’s throat, I fish through his pockets, pulling out a sizable ruby ring and a pendant. Also hers. “It seems you were well paid to deliver them here. So, where are they?”
“They hired another ship to take ’em to Westport,” he stammers, his erratic heartbeat fluttering.
“Why didn’t you take her?” I hold up the ruby ring. “This alone is worth a trip.”
“With the sea sirens? That is a death sentence!” He swallows. “I told ’em I’d bring them here and they’d have to find their way elsewhere. They agreed. Said they’d find someone else crazy enough to sail those waters with them on board.”
“I do not believe you.” I can taste his lie in the air. “You do realize the many excruciatingly painful ways I can get answers from you.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know what else to say. Go look in Westport. They might be almost there by now.”
He’s so convincing, for a split second, I’m tempted to dismiss my suspicions as that of a distraught brother. But then Romeria and the others close in, Abarrane hauling a bearded man by the scruff, blood trailing from his lip and a split across his cheek.
The pale look on Romeria’s face sinks my stomach.
Even Abarrane’s expression is especially morose. “This is Sye, the Tempest’s cook.”
Captain Aron’s eyes squeeze shut and a curse slips from his lips.
“Tell him what you told us,” she insists.
The cook’s lips flap but no sound comes out.
Abarrane kicks the back of his knee with her heel. He buckles to the ground with a howl, bracing his falling body with his hand. The two-crescent moon emblem glows.
I step forward, into the captain’s face. “What is your cook trying to tell us?”
“Whatever it is, it’s a lie.” Beads of sweat trickle down his forehead.
“Speak!” Abarrane shouts, drawing her blade.
“The sirens came and they threw ’em overboard. Both of ’em!” Sye admits through his blubbering.
A burst of cold washes over me. “You fed my baby sister to the sirens.”
“It was them or all of us!” Captain Aron explodes. “I wanted to sail here an’ they wouldn’t let me! I warned them, and they just kept pushing.”
I step back, struggling to keep the tremble of fury and grief from overtaking my body.
Annika is gone. She survived Neilina’s scheming, the near drowning, the poisoned blood—everything—only to succumb to the sea, at Tyree’s doing.
And here, I found this captain enjoying his pint in the tavern, a king’s ransom worth of jewels in his pocket, likely never losing a moment of sleep. “You figured that in the chaos, no one would miss a royal princess?” My voice has grown deathly calm.
“After all that you and your royal family have done to Islor, she deserved it, and far more.” Captain Aron lifts his chin and throws out his arms. He knows he’s about to die, so he figures he might as well say whatever he wishes. “Go ahead. You bring death to us all, anyway.”