Andres’s jaw tightened. “I have no brother.” He spat before turning to Saarik, who still panted from the effort of shredding Piranha. “Dump him with the livestock, Saarik. If he can think no better than a mutt, there is little reason to keep him from their company. And get my deck clean.” That last was accompanied by a snap of his fingers at Nile, who obediently translated the command into Diante and Lyron before following Andres to the quarterdeck.
Nile, who’d paid for her new position on Andres’s quarterdeck with Piranha’s blood and Kyra’s honor.
“You realize our survival requires killing the Bevnians, right?” Catsper said once they returned to their hold for the evening. However he’d worked through what must have happened, he seemed neither surprised nor appalled at the result. When Kyra remained silent, Catsper began his evening exercise routine, his shoulders rising from and lowering to the deck in the corner of the holding cell. Around them, the Diante found their own privacy, some curling up to sleep, others talking softly, their backs turned. The usual orchestra of sneezes, snorts, and farts filled the room. Catsper paused in midmotion, stressing his abdominals. “Nile infiltrated the quarterdeck without killing anyone. Given the high value of that position, I’d say it came quite cheaply.”
Kyra’s face twisted to him. “You call that cheaply?”
Catsper’s eyes chilled. “Yes.”
“You weren’t the one responsible for shredding the flesh off the one Bevnian on this ship who has a moral compass, a hint of compassion and humanity.”
“The others were too likely to take their pain out on the prisoners. To question too much.” Catsper turned over and started on push-ups, as if they were discussing the damn weather. “Saarik hates Piranha and laid the blame on the young man happily. Do not dare blame Nile for taking action.”
Kyra’s hands curled, her blood simmering hotter with each of the marine’s words. Around them, the Diante prisoners kept to themselves, murmuring too quickly and quietly for Kyra to understand. The familiar stench of bodies mixed with the coppery memory of Piranha’s blood, some of which was still on Kyra’s clothes from cleaning the deck. Catsper was right—it hadn’t been Nile who’d ruined that rope. Kyra had done that. Set a decent man up to be tortured. Destroyed.
“Plus,” Catsper paused in midmotion, holding his body on flexed arms, “Piranha is Andres’s little brother. Tension between an enemy’s top cadre is never a bad thing.”
Kyra punched him. Slammed her fist right into the man’s jaw. As hard and viciously as she could.
Catsper’s head rocked with the blow, but he remained still, only his brow twitching in questioning demand.
Kyra cradled her bruised fist to her chest, her chest heaving as if she’d sprinted. She’d…hit him. Hard. Not in self-defense or desperation, but because she’d wanted to hurt the bastard. Wanted to hurt him still. Stars. Blood left Kyra’s face, leaving it tingling and cold.
Catsper snorted, resuming his exercise. “What, no apology? No declarations of self-loathing? Am I more worthy of being struck than a man keeping hundreds enslaved?”
“You are a stars’ damned bastard,” Kyra whispered. Her knuckles pulsed. “You and Nile both.”
Catsper was on his feet faster than Kyra could draw breath. His nostrils flared, his hair—sliced short with a Bevnian knife—rose like a mane around his shadow-sculpted face. The Diante, who’d already left a corner of the cell to the two Lyron prisoners—pushed themselves farther into the bulkheads. As far away as they could get. Catsper was angry. Furious. The taste of it filled Kyra’s mouth, where she usually sensed nothing from the marine at all. “Maybe it’s time you stopped complaining about having to get your hands dirty.” The words were a growl, barely human. “The imaginary world you live in, the one where everyone is good inside and we talk our problems away, it doesn’t bloody exist. I knew as much by the time I was five. That you still don’t makes you either an idiot or a coward. Take your damn pick and keep your fists to yourself until you decide whose side you are fighting on.”
She rose to meet the marine’s gaze, not flinching away, though even at full height, she barely came up past Catsper’s shoulder. The Diante averted their eyes from her. Whatever the argument between the two Lyrons, the Diante men said without speaking, they wished no part of it. Especially not on her side.
An unkind smile touched Catsper’s face as he too marked the distanced Diante. “I don’t think your friends have any intention of coming to your aid. I think they’d sit on their asses even if I splattered you against the wall in retribution for the blow. Should we try, or has the reality of people and wars finally sunk in?”
Kyra swallowed, knuckles tingling as she rubbed the bruised flesh. Her mind hummed, her whole body hot and cold and numb. Catsper was right. There was a cost for everything, action and inaction. Piranha paid it today, but others had been paying it for a longer time still. Even leaving Kyra’s home village had had a cost—for, with her gone, Kyra’s brother would have certainly found a new target for his desires. There was always a cost. And Kyra was the only one not paying it.
“Kyra?” Something had changed in Catsper’s voice, caution replacing threat.
She retreated, the hand that struck the marine reforming into a fist. She understood. Why Catsper had knelt on cold stone that first night, why he sought every danger, every punishment. The raking need to balance the scales of whatever cosmic force decided to charge one being for the sin of another.
Catsper stepped toward her. Slowly.
With a spin, Kyra slammed her curled fist into the bulkhead. The sound came before the pain, but that followed quickly enough, the split skin already bleeding as the bones sang. Tears stung her eyes, crept and rolled down her cheeks. Kyra pulled back her fist and struck again.
Catsper captured the blow midstrike, his other arm wrapping around Kyra’s body.
Kyra braced herself for the growling, for a slam into a bulkhead or deck. She welcomed it.
Catsper pulled her into himself instead, his muscled body encircling hers. Warmth seeped through the thin layers of shirts between them, the arm he had around her back. Releasing Kyra’s wrist, Catsper slid his calloused palm to cup the side of Kyra’s head. “Have you lost your mind?”
Kyra blinked, her pulse racing her thoughts. She put her hands on his chest, trying and failing to shove herself away. “Let me go.”
Catsper ignored the demand, staring down at her, his gaze hard. “There was no other way, Kyra. The Bevnians’ insistence on everyone speaking Tirik is strategy, not vanity. They know the risk of channeling their orders through a prisoner, of trusting her to yell things from the quarterdeck they might not fully understand. And the only way for that to have happened was to show a greater risk lay in not allowing it.” He swallowed. “So you don’t get to do this, to claim ultimate responsibility for events so much greater than you.”
“And you do?” Kyra countered.
To Catsper’s credit, he didn’t try to deny it. “It’s different.” His lips pressed together, the muscles shifting beneath orange cloth. For a heartbeat, Catsper said nothing more, his gaze looking into some other world before returning to Kyra. Even then, he said nothing, though a crack somewhere inside him leaked that familiar salty tang that once called Kyra to the top of a stony ridge.
Kyra touched his elbow.
Catsper nodded. Not to Kyra but to himself, as if making a decision.
“I was in charge of a training unit.” Catsper’s words came quiet, slow. “I’d been too vocal in my opinions, especially when it came to training youngsters, too good at stretching orders to do as I like. The assignment to the Aurora, a distant, irrelevant ship with an idiot of a captain and nothing to do but herd a unit of wayward boys, was intended as a punishment. A message to teach me to keep my opinions to myself. After the Battle of Siaman, Spardic Command believed me reformed and had a new assignment for me. I…I went around them. Again. Committed to a detail more in line with my preferences.”
“
You stayed to guard Nile’s back, you mean,” Kyra whispered carefully.
The marine nodded, a fine shudder running through him, his gaze distant and hollow. Whatever he was seeing now, it wasn’t this prison, or this day, but something that tore him more deeply than the Bevnians.
“Command couldn’t touch me for political reasons,” Catsper whispered, powerful shoulders curling in, flooding Kyra’s senses with salt. “So they went after my trainees instead. After the boys. Sent them to the front lines. I received the nineteenth death notice the day we met.”
“So you left the Spades.” Kyra kept her voice even, not daring to show a grain of compassion lest she make things worse. “Resigned your commission.”
A ripple of fury. “There is no resigning from the Spades. The division commander was supposed to have killed me when I threw my epaulettes at his feet.”
Kyra pulled her wrist gently out of his grasp and laid her palm against his cheek. Her skin tingled where his stubble prickled against it. “I’m glad he didn’t.”
Catsper’s eyes met hers, a penetrating green despite the gloom. His free hand rose, the fingers brushing over Kyra’s knuckles and coming away damp with blood. With each breath, the rise of his chest pressed into her body, steady if a bit quick. A leashed power, so close to the surface. Catsper swallowed. “You are wrong,” he said, releasing his hold on her. Pushing her away. “I’m not who you imagine me to be.”
The sudden inches of space between them were freezing cold. Kyra raised her chin. “Don’t assume to know my mind.”
“No?” Catsper’s arm uncurled from his side, bracing on the bulkhead beside Kyra’s head. “You think I’ve not done to others half the things the Bevnians do to this crew?” he purred. “Do you imagine I’ve not killed? Not made people bleed and cower? The beatings the Bevnian bastards deliver to their underlings, do you think I’ve not delivered to friends?” He stepped closer, invading her space. “The next time you feel like punishing yourself for condescending to join the war, let me know how to help.”
Kyra took a step to the side, cleanly moving around and away, her heart still pounding in her ears.
“There is a reason Spades aren’t permitted to resign,” Catsper added to her back. “We aren’t fit for civilized company.”
Chapter 35
Nile
“You took the quarterdeck.” Domenic’s voice is a soft rumble against my ear. A tight, strained congratulations, just like the arms he has around me in this cold, miserable morning. Not a lover’s embrace—we aren’t lovers, can’t be lovers, shouldn’t be lovers—but a practical cocoon of privacy and warmth in a dark hole filled with squirming, caught, farting prisoners all waking to another day of misery. The thin stream of light leaking from a horizontal slit near the overhead paints a stark line on the deck. Polman crouches beside the light, twisting her hand back and forth as if having a conversation with the rays playing off her skin. The others huddle against bulkheads and each other.
I squeeze Domenic’s arm in what would be an apology if I was sorry. But my remorse is only for his hurt pride, not my actions. “I didn’t tell you the whole of it because you didn’t need to know,” I whisper finally. “It was safer for you not to—especially if the episode ended differently. Plus, I needed to keep you from being too helpful in correcting the disaster, lest Saarik and Andres started to wonder whether you hadn’t been anticipating it.”
“And?” Domenic prompts. The man knows me better than I should ever have let him.
I bite my lip. “I think you are too good a seaman to let a ship slip further into danger than it has to, much less knowingly sabotage a main line.”
Domenic’s cheek rests atop my head, his muscles tense. “You didn’t tell me because you don’t trust me.” His chest tightens as he exhales. “I’m arrogant, not blind.”
My chest aches to find the right words to make things all right, even when I know the impossibility of it. “I trust you with my life,” I say too quickly.
“Which is a remarkably narrow scope in the sea of all decisions you make,” he says dryly. His arms tighten around me. “I understand why.”
“Listen up, mutts!” Saarik’s voice sounds from behind the door a moment before it opens.
Domenic and I spring apart, the loss of his warmth and presence painful enough to make me conceal a wince.
Stepping inside, Saarik wrinkles his nose, surveying the cowering prisoners with a mix of approval and disdain. “Quarantine is over. You will now be allowed to mess and sling hammocks with the other livestock. One word or foot out of line, and you’ll be right back here with a few stripes to keep you company. Now, move.”
Domenic stays close to me, watching warily as we follow along with the others up one ladder to the main gun deck and are issued hammocks and form messes. After two weeks sleeping on hardwood in a dark, rat-infested prison, the change to a hammock and eating at tables—swung to hang between guns during meal times—sounds luxurious.
“Ash. Dana.”
Catsper’s call guides us to where he, Kyra, and Vikon are already claiming a territory. Pushing between disoriented prisoners swarming the gun deck, we make our way to the sternmost table that neither requires nor attracts additional company. The men and women of the Tirik crew, who had enjoyed the gun deck to themselves until finding it crowded with a hundred more souls, glower. Some do, anyway—the others are too vacant to care.
“Why the new accommodations?” Vikon muses, glancing around to ensure no Bevnian overseers are close enough to mark his language. They aren’t—though I suspect their distance is part of its own calculation: stopping prisoners from speaking to each other over meals is not feasible, so the Bevnians must either spend their days punishing everyone or feign strategic ignorance. They are wisely choosing the latter.
“I imagine Andres is settling in for a long cruise,” Domenic says, his gaze weighing each table with an experienced eye, as if he sees more than I do amid the crew. “His ultimate goal is efficiency, not mindless torment.” He taps two fingers against the tabletop. “Plus, with a turn toward winter, fevers will be rising enough to make separating sick and healthy vital.”
Vikon nods. I’ve not spoken to the boy directly since leaving the Stardust, and against all odds, he seems to be holding up better than I imagined. He’s been assigned to duty aloft, often stationed in the lookout platform given his keen eyesight and at least the ability to differentiate a sail from a rock—most of the time.
“Did anyone see what happened to Quinn?” Kyra asks softly. “Is he… Did he…”
“He was alive the last time I saw him.” I tighten my jaw. Many friends who were alive the last time I saw them might not be so any longer, depending on how far into Lyron the Bevnians had penetrated. Depending also on whether, between the Thorn’s reports and other news, the Lyron kingdoms have worked out by now that our enemy has changed and the rules of the war with it. “He was taken to Lester’s ship. Possibly marked to go to a place called the village that seems to be a holding camp for prisoners.”
Beneath the table, Domenic’s knee brushes against mine. I press my lips together and knock a ship’s biscuit on the table, evicting a host of five weevils who scuttle across the hanging table.
“If you are done playing with your food, Ash, might you condescend to tell the rest of us your plan?” Catsper swallows a spoonful of lumpy stew. The slimy mush has a slightly rancid taste and is best swallowed quickly with plenty of water to wash it down. “I presume there is one?”
I stare at the scurrying weevils, searching out the lesser one. We might be free to use the Lyron tongue for a few minutes, but…
“We aren’t in Felielle, and I’m not the same man who started the cruise.” Vikon leans back on his bench in nonchalance only to hunch over again a moment later to contain his warmth. The Bevnians better start issuing coats and blankets to prisoners or risk being without a crew shortly. The boy presses his lips together and meets each of our eyes in turn. Even Kyra’s, though the latte
r recoils. “You’ve little reason to believe me, but little choice too,” says Vikon. “This table is all we have.”
We. I didn’t know the young lord even had that word in his vocabulary. From the way Kyra tenses, I don’t think she did either.
“We need Andres to seek out the Helix,” I say, explaining the plan I hinted to Domenic earlier. “I hate putting another ship in danger, but if we are to play with anyone, Zolan is the ideal dance partner. Smart, capable, quick on his feet, and far enough from the mainland that we don’t risk greater disaster by guiding the cat right into the mousehole.”
“Zolan is long gone,” Vikon says.
“I doubt Zolan actually left,” I say, Domenic confirming my speculation with a nod. “But he is smart enough to keep his distance.”
“Will Andres risk attacking anyone with this crew?” Catsper muses. “I’d be drilling morning to night, not seeking out an engagement if I were him.”
“Andres is under pressure. The tension is so thick on the quarterdeck, you can cut it.” I let out a long breath. “The Helix is an ideal prize. Most of the Arrow’s crew is Diante and Tirik, so by targeting a Lyron ship, Andres avoids pesky worries about forcing prisoners to fire on their own countrymen. Also, in going after the Helix, Andres would need worry neither about reinforcements nor about Lester coming in to snatch the prize.” Seeing Domenic’s questioning brow, I clarify. “From what I heard yesterday, Lester has his fleet on the move. Wherever Lester’s fleet is, it’s not here.”
Catsper nods, his green eyes thoughtful. “Beside the minor matter of sabotaging twenty-four guns to keep flesh-melting explosives away from the Helix, have you an idea how we sell this tasty Helix morsel to Andres? Unless he is asking you for strategy advice in addition to translation now?”
I give Catsper a vulgar gesture, but it’s Vikon, of all people, who speaks next.
“I can help with the latter.” Vikon straightens, brushing biscuit crumbs off his orange shirt. “Put my smarts and looks to good use.”