Change of Course
After the last swell of pleasure rolled through him, Sebastian lay for long moments over Selena, his face against her neck and his hands in her hair he’d waited so long to touch. It was still braided but they’d made a mess of it. He moved off of her, still trying to catch his breath, as a fresh agony swept in to steal the peace she had given him. Her kiss alone had been the most exquisite thing he had known in so many dark years, but it turned sour in his mouth as a question resounded again and again in his mind with a voice that sounded like Mina’s.
What have you done?
He held his head in his hands. Selena had risen from the floor, what little clothing left on her askew and rumpled. She went behind a small partition, to the privy. He heard the rustle of soft material and she emerged wearing a plain silken shift. The outline of her breasts through the thin dress was obvious even in the dim light cast by the lamp and despite his anguish, desire flared in him again. He quickly looked away.
“Julian?”
Julian. His false name. The ocean of lies between them seemed boundless. She knelt on the bed and held out her hand to him. Against every instinct, he rose and took it and let her draw him close.
“This is better, yes?” she said, indicating the sleeping dress.
“Yes,” he said. Better. He wanted to tear it off her and kiss her everywhere. Kiss her on that damnable wound even, and…
Make things worse? Betray her a second time?
Mina’s voice was just as he’d remembered it: sharp and smart and dry.
“Julian, what is it? What’s wrong?”
“You’ve had…a tough time of it.” A tough time? He wanted to kick himself. “I meant, with your healing and Accora…I shouldn’t have taken advantage.”
Selena frowned and sat back on her heels on the bed. “You did not,” she said stiffly. “I’ve endured loneliness for far too long, but I did nothing I didn’t want to do…”
“No, I know that. Gods, I meant…” He shook his head. “It was…”
“Perfect,” she said. “It was perfect, Julian.” She glanced down at her discarded Aluren tunic. “Though it remains to be seen if the god agrees. We are forbidden to have relations with those who are not Aluren.”
“You think the god will punish you again? After ten years?” Anger suffused him in a great sudden burst. “For what? For breaking some stupid rule? You’ve endured enough.”
Her smile returned and with it, his anger faded, as if she were some calming balm that smoothed out all the sharp edges of him. “We all have endured much. Since the war.” Her gaze went to the tattoo on his shoulder. “Will you tell me about her?”
“No,” Sebastian said automatically. “I can’t.”
“Talking about pain can help to lessen it.”
“Not this time.”
Selena touched her fingertips to her lips, and then to Mina’s name. “I hope she is at rest now.”
She’s not, he wanted to tell her. None of them are.
“And I want to help you,” she said, and her smile turned sad. “To close your own wounds. How can I help you? What is it you want more than anything?”
He reached up and untied the knots that held her braids in place and her hair fell over her shoulders in gold ribbons. He took them in his hands, brought them to his face to inhale deeply. Salt and wind and her own sweet scent beneath.
“Peace,” he said. “I want peace. I want you. You remind me of a place…”
She was so close that the slightest movement toward her brought her lips to his, silencing his words with her perfect mouth that had never uttered an ugly, snide, or hateful word.
The kiss deepened, became sweeter, then harder. He lay her down on the bed and she raised her sleeping gown high enough to reveal everything but her wound. Her body beneath him stole his breath. He’d never lain with a woman who had muscles as she did: lean but strong. Or calloused hands that wielded a sword; that weaved light. That healed. He imaged that’s what she did as she touched him, healed him in great crescendos of pleasure that left him drained and heavy and content in a way that he hadn’t known since before the war.
I’ll fall on my own sword before I let her fear me. There’s no betrayal. Sebastian Vaas is dead. He died the moment I lay my blade at Selena’s feet. No, when I first beheld her.
He drifted to sleep with Selena clutched tight in his arms. This can’t be wrong. It can’t be, and yet he dreamt of Mina and she wept.
Sebastian woke to Selena’s body jerking awake.
“Did you hear that?” she asked.
“Hear what?”
“Downstairs. It sounded like breaking glass.”
Sebastian listened for half a second. “The crew. Drunk again.”
“No, it’s…”
A muffled scream came from below and the sound of more glass shattering. Men’s voices, loud and bellowing, followed.
They locked eyes a moment longer and then flew apart to dress. He retrieved his weapons from the balcony and then donned his long black coat.
“Bloody bad timing,” he muttered.
She nodded. He saw the passion they had kindled this night was still smoldering in her eyes.
“It was a lovely night,” she said and then belted on her sword.
Sebastian followed Selena out of her chambers in the keep, a knot of tension twisting in his gut. Her face was drawn and determined, her blue eyes were no longer the color of stunning waters around his atoll, but the cool steel of a warrior preparing for battle. But even before they saw the enemy they faced, he knew there would be no battle. Not the sort where you shoot and cut until you’re dead or your enemy is. No, Sebastian knew Selena wouldn’t let it come to that. His crew was down there. The native people who had opted to serve the old Bazira woman instead of gutting her and feeding her old bones to the sea scorpions, they were down there. Selena wouldn’t let any one of them be endangered if she could help it. The knot in his stomach twisted tighter as they slipped out into the walkway
The walk that led to sleeping chambers circled the main hall one story up; Sebastian and Selena kept out of the torchlight and peered cautiously over the rail to watch the standoff below. The feasting hall was overrun with rough-looking men—pirates, Sebastian thought—and Bazira, the latter in black and red, brandishing silver blades and spitting deadly shards of ice from their open palms. The latter were grubby, their clothing shabby, but their flintlocks looked oiled and new. Twenty men in all. Sebastian’s crew had taken cover behind overturned tables and benches, Grunt warding them with an outstretched arm to remain still. Three natives lay on the floor, their blood darkening the hay around them. A fourth was held in the arms of a weeping Yuk’ri woman. The dead man’s chest bore a pale patch of gray, and even from their vantage, Sebastian could see the man’s staring eyes were rimed with frost.
Sebastian scanned the Bazira for the red haired woman—Jude. Jude Gracus. The woman who knew his true name, who could destroy everything he’d built with Selena with a breath. There is power in knowing the true name of another, Svoz had told him once. Bloody Deeps, he was right.
But it was a man wearing a sleek black overtunic with blood-red edging who stepped forward. A curved sword was belted at his waist on one side, a small water flask on the other, and a flintlock strapped to his thigh. His pale hair was pulled mercilessly tight from his face and tied at the base of his skull. He scanned the room over a hawkish nose, strolling on his heels, hands clasped behind his back, as if he were a prospective buyer of the people who cowered before him.
“I want the Aluren Selena Koren,” he explained to the room that had grown still. Even the Yuk’ri’s woman’s sobs had quieted. “I want her now, and if you produce her without causing me trouble, we will leave the rest of you with your lives.”
Sebastian gripped Selena’s wrist. Wait, he mouthed, and jerked his head at the nearly two-dozen men who blocked the front entrance. He pulled his flintlock from the small of his back.
“I’ll shoot the Bazira bastard,” he breathed. “You light them up.”
“There are too many.”
“Don’t do it, Selena.”
“Do what?” She smiled sadly. “Make myself weak to be kind?”
Sebastian bit off a retort as below, Niven rose from a crouch to a half-crouch. “You are not welcome here,” he said, and cringed at the mocking laughter that greeted his words “N-Now go before…there’s trouble.”
The Bazira adherent with the pale hair looked past Niven. He raised a black-gloved hand and pointed to one of the crew.
“That one.”
Two other Bazira strode forward. They flipped a bench aside to get at Cat. She bared her teeth and loosed two throwing knives, one from each gloved hand. One thwacked harmless into the overturned wooden bench. The other buried itself to the hilt in one man’s thigh.
“Bloody bitch! Krystak!” Ice lanced from the man’s hand as Cat reached for her cutlass. It clattered to the ground and her glove came off with it. Cat clutched her hand to her chest with a grimace of pain.
Beside him, Selena gripped Sebastian’s arm in a vise. She wouldn’t wait much longer and if Cat died while they watched…Then I’ll be pricked. We need a bloody godsdamn diversion.
Spit crouched beside Cat. He spat and slashed with his blade, but the other Bazira knocked it aside and shoved the scrawny man over a fallen bench. He grabbed Cat by her shock of orange hair and dragged her forward.
“Gareth,” he said, bowing to the first Bazira. He thrust Cat forward.
Gareth nodded once, satisfied. “Hush now, love,” he murmured, as Cat struggled wordlessly in the other man’s arms. Gareth laid his open hand over her heart. Her face turned gray as ice crystals fanned out from under his fingers. Gareth turned his steely gaze to Niven. “Get your Paladin. Now.”
Above, Sebastian scanned the room for Ilior. The dragonman was nowhere to be seen. He hangs around like a rotten tooth until he’s actually needed…
Selena turned to him and kissed him fiercely. “Keep them safe.”
He could scarcely draw a breath and then she was gone, slipping out of his reach and hurrying down the stairs into the thick of the pirates. He wanted to scream a curse, or tackle her to the ground, but even in his panic he knew that keeping out of sight might be the only advantage they had.
If I lose her I am lost.
“I’m here.” Selena strode into the room below, her hands held out. “I am Paladin Koren. Let her go.”
“Are you now?” Sebastian heard Gareth say. “I expected a pious old marm who’s only ever been on her knees to pray, but you’re far more luscious. You will speak no word of magic or she dies.”
Cat struggled weakly against the man’s hand. The icy fan around it spread to her shoulders and she trembled violently.
Sebastian took stock of the men blocking the door. Twenty was too many, even on his best day; even if they didn’t have ice daggers as well as steel or flintlocks. But if he had a diversion…He silently cursed the old witch for stealing his sirrak and knelt to take careful aim with his pistol. “Touch her and you die,” he quietly promised the man named Gareth.
“Did Bacchus send you?” Selena demanded.
“Aye. You were never meant to make it this far,” Gareth said, scanning the assemblage curiously. “But our good Reverent is not afraid of you. To the contrary, he is hungry for you. Come along, now, sweeting and no else dies.”
Sebastian laid his finger on the trigger. There was still no sign of the bloody dragonman. “Svoz,” he whispered. “To me.” Nothing. He swallowed a vile curse.
“Let Cat go,” Selena said below.
“Of course.”
Gareth shoved Cat into Selena; if she’d planned to weave light, the chance was lost as she was forced to catch the smaller woman. Sebastian’s mouth went dry and fear coiled in his gut like a writhing snake as the pirates closed in around her. They bound her hands behind her and gagged her mouth with a rag. One of them stripped her of her sword and it vanished into their ranks.
Sebastian’s hands holding the flintlock trembled until he willed them still. He cocked the pin and then a strangled cry came from under the balcony where Sebastian could not see. Accora pushed her way forward.
“No!” she cried, flying toward Selena. “Not like this! Not like this!”
“The apostate.” Gareth nodded at his men. “Bacchus misses you, mother.”
Sebastian had never seen the old witch so undone. Accora closed both fists and opened them again, sending shards of ice into the pirates and Bazira in frantic bursts. It was the diversion he had needed before Selena was bound and gagged.
“Not like this! Not as a prisoner!” Accora shrieked, and bolts of ice flew from her palms, striking at least three in the chest, felling them instantly.
Gareth seemed unimpressed by the display and left Accora to his men. He moved unhurriedly to stand behind Selena and gave her a rough shove to get her walking.
“I warned you.” Sebastian pulled the trigger.
The back of Gareth’s head burst with a small explosion of blood and brain and bits of skull. He fell into Selena, knocking her into the men in front of her. But the loss of their commander didn’t break their discipline as Sebastian had hoped. Other Bazira gripped Selena by the arms and hauled her toward the door, Accora’s ice daggers following them after, until one large pirate clubbed the old woman on the back of the neck. As she crumpled to the ground in a flutter of gray robes, the big man tossed her over his shoulder and followed the rest out of the keep.
Sebastian tore down the stairs. Why are they running? Why aren’t they staying to fight? The window nearest him shattered and a glass bottle stuffed with a flaming rag rolled next to feet, and then he knew why. He had time enough to get his arm up to shield his face and then the world turned red and hot and sharp.
Niven watched the grubby men drag Selena out of the keep. He had never wished so mightily for a weapon, and then realized the floor was littered with dead Bazira; Accora’s frantic bursts had been more deadly than any expected of the old woman.
Niven scrambled to Gareth. Blood leaked from under the ruins of his skull. Niven swallowed hard and unsheathed the dead man’s sword just as the window nearest the front door exploded. A bottle stuffed with a burning rag crashed through it and rolled across the wooden floor toward Captain Tergus who had appeared out of nowhere, a smoking flintlock in his hand.
The smell of oil was pungent. The blast was a clink of breaking glass and then a roar. Niven saw Julian sweep his long black coat over his head, and then Niven had to recoil. He shielded his eyes as a thousand droplets of flaming oil splattered him. When he looked again, Julian was on fire.
Niven scrambled to his feet, and tore off his blue and silver overtunic. He smothered Julian’s shoulder but the skin peeled off his neck in blackened curls. Nivine reached for his ampulla but there wasn’t time. Julian staggered to his feet, snarling curses and pushing Niven away.
Niven gripped Julian’s shoulder, squeezed his eyes shut, and uttered the sacred word. The orange glow came, smothering the burnt flesh and leaving much of it whole. Niven stared at his own hands and then Julian shoved him and raced to the back of the keep.
“Through the kitchens!” the captain shouted, and then ran the opposite direction, toward the front door that was all but obscured by smoke and fire.
Behind Niven, a native woman screamed. A second bottle smashed another of the windows that lined one wall of the feasting hall. Another followed, and then another. The bottles rolled this way and that, and Yuk’ri and crewmen scrambled away from them as if they were slithering snakes. A table burned from the first explosion; fire licking upward and spreading outward, fed by the hay strewn over the floor. Flames raced over it in every direction.
“Get back!” someone cried—a man’s voice, though Niven didn’t recognize it.
Niven, still stunned by what he had done, thought to follow Julian through the front, but Cat was dragging him the other way, toward the kitchens in the back—a path that wasn’t yet burning.
The second explosion lit up the room, heating the air with roaring flames and spitting burning oil and shards of glass. A third bottle ignited shortly after, and Niven and Cat were thrown against the wall. Niven bit back a scream as hot oil spattered his face and the back of his neck. Cat shrieked.
The room roiled with biting smoke and then the final bottle exploded on the other side of the room near the stairs that led to the upper floors. The walls’ musty tapestries were afire, as were several of the dead bodies. Niven’s eyes watered at the stench of burning flesh and he ran blindly, crashing into Cat, stumbling through the kitchen, and then he was outside, sucking in clean air. Many Yuk’ri and the rest of the crew were scattered all over the grass of the inner bailey, well away from the burning keep.
“Niven!”
Grunt lay with Whistle’s head in his lap. The boy cradled his arm that was burnt bare of clothing, his face a grimace of agony. His flesh bubbled; sickening white blisters boiling up even as Niven watched. “His back too,” Grunt cried. “I can feel the heat.”
Niven’s own face and neck were spotted with burning oil droplets, but he ignored the pain that must be nothing compared to Whistle’s arm. Niven started to reach for the moon and his ampulla, but instead heaved a deep breath and laid his hands on the boy. He muttered the word and the healing glow dutifully came, emanating from under his palm and spreading over the wounds. The flesh knitted itself in some places but remained red and raw up to his elbow. Too much oil on his skin. Niven thought of Selena’s lesson with Jorqui. He asked for healing, and then held on to the answering glow.
The pain in his own face and neck vanished and Niven felt infused with power. With his newfound energy, Niven called for more healing magic and then sent it to Whistle. His flesh’s angry red shade lightened to pink, and then to his natural color. He stared at his own healed flesh while Cur, behind him, sank to his knees in relief. Grunt stroked the boy’s hair and murmured soothing words.
Niven looked around at those gathered on the grass, and hurried to a Yuk’ri man’s whose hands were raw and red. Niven healed him while the keep burned like a stone oven, full of flame.
“Ilior! Where’s Ilior?” he cried just as a huge single-winged shape loped down the small hill, into the jungle where the pirates and Bazira had gone. Cat tore down the hill after, a cutlass in one hand and a small knife in the other. She was missing one glove and her bare hand was as orange as her hair.
Was she burned? Is that oil? He sat back on his heels, exhausted from healing and his nerves jangling from the attack that had been so sudden and so violent.
Now that Whistle was safe, the crew of the Black Storm had gathered their weapons to follow. Grunt pushed a sword into Niven’s hand and Niven took it. It was a Bazira’s curved blade.
“And you,” Niven said. “You can speak.” The old sea dog didn’t reply but turned and loped down the hill and Ori was suddenly at Niven’s side, her white shift smudged with soot. “He can speak,” he told her, bewildered.
“Strange night. Strange tidings.” The black pits of her eyes danced with the flames of the burning keep. “And what about you, Aluren? Are you ready to fight?”
Niven glanced down at his hand that had healed without moon or seawater, and that now gripped a sword. “Yes.” He swallowed hard. “Yes,” he said again, louder. “Paladin Koren needs me.”
He hefted his borrowed sword and ran down the hill, toward the wilds of Saliz’s jungle.
I’m in Svoz’s realm, for failing to fulfill the blood oath. Sebastian’s ears rang and his neck screamed in hot agony, but then the smoke from the first bottle’s explosion dissipated enough to reveal he wasn’t dead. He was on fire. His long black coat had protected his face from the blast but he was sure his hair would go up like Boris’s had on Isle Nanokar. Niven appeared. The adherent smothered the flames with his Aluren garb and prayed for healing.
Sebastian felt the glow soothe his skin and the shock of the pain released him enough to get his bearings. Those miserable shit-eating bastards had dragged Selena from the house. He tore away from Niven as more windows shattered and glass bottles rolled at his feet.
Keep them safe, she’d said.
“Through the kitchens!” he told the others, then left them to either obey or die. He’d done his part.
He raced across the hall, hurdling the dead. Sebastian stopped long enough to grab Gareth’s flintlock and that of another dead pirate beside him, and then more explosions lit up the keep. He threw himself into the stony inner bailey as the feasting hall became an inferno of orange flame and sizzling oil.
Sebastian rolled and came up on his feet. Men loped out the darkness with flaming glass bottles in hand. Sebastian took aim with his newly acquired pistols and pulled the triggers. There had been six men in all, then there were four.
The survivors hurled their missiles at the keep, shattering windows as Sebastian dropped the smoking pistols and replaced them with scimitars. He cut down the pirate nearest him, slicing the man at neck and belly. The other three men turned tail and ran, following the group that headed into the jungle. Sebastian gripped his blades tighter and gave chase.
The jungle sought to take back the stone-and-mortar keep; foliage crept out of the denser forest a few hundred spans from the outer bailey wall, and reclaimed the land a few paces after that. Sebastian plunged in. Dark shapes loped in front of him and shouts of men rang out and were immediately swallowed by the thick air and thicker plant life blotted the sky above and the ground below. He fought to keep the men in sight lest the jungle swallow him whole. Vines curled around his boots to trip him and he had to hack and slice at wide-leafed plants that barred his way.
When the jungle finally thinned, the sky showed the first hints of dawn in the sky ahead of him. Sebastian inhaled the greatest of scents: ocean air. A hundred more steps and the forest broke to a narrow beach of pale sand. On the Harrowing Sea, a huge frigate sat at anchor less than a half league out, like a floating black castle draped in linen. Her three masts were heavy with square sails, her gunwales loaded with cannon. On the northeastern curve of the beach, black-clad Bazira climbed into skiffs while the pirates who served them strained to shove them off. Sebastian recognized his own olive skin and dark hair among the pirates and guessed they weren’t pirates at all. Bazira recruits. Bazira fodder. He spat and ran harder.
A glint of pale hair was visible in one of the dinghies for a brief moment and then obscured again. Selena. A red haze erased his thoughts and he started down the beach when a huge shape loped past him, flashing steel. Ilior stormed the men at the skiffs and loosed a roar as strong as the crashing surf but that ended in a choking gasp. Three Bazira adherents ringed around him. Lances of ice bolted from their open palms that left white patches on his gray skin, and drove him to his knees.
Intent on their prey, the Bazira didn’t see Sebastian until it was far too late. They died quickly, his blades puncturing lungs and severing spines. From a departing skiff, another adherent barked orders for the Farendii pirates to stop him. Soon Sebastian found himself fending off six or seven cutlasses at once. He spun and ducked and danced. His scimitars arced through the air in twin paths, or split apart to bite and cut in a masterful sequence that required his next adversaries to trip over the dead to get to him. Flintlocks fired. Several kicked up little bursts of sand as they hit the beach. One hit the shooter’s own man. One grazed Sebastian’s thigh, though he hardly felt it. He moved too fast to think but in the periphery of his awareness he knew that the dinghy that held Selena had shoved off and would soon be too deep to reach.
The last man fell and corpses ringed Sebastian. Men he might have sailed with or drank with or fished with, had war not torn his life apart, lay dead at his hand. Gasping like a bellows, he turned to the shore. All dinghies had shoved off. The boat that held Selena—and Accora too, the old woman slumped against the younger—was fifteen spans out now. Ilior remained crouched on the sand, unmoving, his skin a patchwork of white and gray.
“Get up or she’s lost,” Sebastian snarled, and lunged into the surf.
He took four strides through knee-high water when a magnificent pain flared behind his eyes. Purple and yellow stars burst in his vision and hot blood gushed down the back of his skull. The strength in his legs seemed to drain out with his blood and he fell to his knees. His scimitars disappeared beneath the boiling surf as a rough hand gripped his hair from behind, forcing him to stand. The pain in his head was like a thousand bottles of hot oil bursting at once. His attacker spun him around and Sebastian watched with a dull fascination as the man brought up his cudgel for the killing blow.
“That’s enough out of you,” said the man voice in his ear and in the heartbeat before the Farendii smashed his head open, Sebastian marveled how the night’s perfection could be so utterly destroyed in a handful of minutes.
“Krystak!”
The man arched his back, a grimace of pain contorting his features. Ice rimed the man’s open mouth. The cudgel splashed and then the man did, falling face down into the surf.
Sebastian felt like doing the same.
“Sebastian Vaas,” said a woman’s voice, cool and amused. “I’ve missed you.”
The world was spinning madly but Sebastian saw a slender form, a curved silver blade, and red hair that glowed like dying embers. The woman stood beside him but at a careful distance.
“Jude Gracus,” she said. “We met on Isle Kabak.”
“I know who you are,” Sebastian muttered dully. He swayed on his feet. The boats were escaping; small shadows gliding toward the larger Bazira frigate. Only one skiff remained ashore, manned by six men, all Bazira.
“My lord, the Vicar, was right,” Jude said. “The weakness in you…I can smell it like the blood you bleed for Selena Koren. It was her head you were supposed to give me. Instead, you nearly lost yours.” She made a tsking sound with her teeth. “Not the stuff of ballads, Bloody Bastian.
His knees wanted to buckle and he let them. The water came up to his waist, swirling darkly about him.
“You were a failed experiment. Bacchus will see to your salvation, and the Vicar will reward me for doing what you could not.” She jerked her chin. “Pick him up.”
Sebastian felt rough hands grab him under his arms; men he hadn’t known were there. Pain assaulted him from a thousand places, but his head throbbed murderously. He retched. From pain. From failure.
Just like Mina. You couldn’t save her either.
Jude’s voice sounded sour. “Unbecoming. You’re such a beautiful creature, Sebastian Vaas. Or you were.” Now that he was safely bound with rope at his wrists, she drew near, and ran her fingers over the burnt skin of his neck that Niven hadn’t been able to heal. “I’ll take care of you, love.”
The men dragged him, and Sebastian watched the ground skim from surf, to sand, to planking. He was tossed onto a dinghy. Thank the gods, he thought. If they were taking him to the Bazira ship, they were taking him to Selena.
Wait. Rest. Bide your time until you see the opportunity to strike.
He almost laughed. In his current state he couldn’t strike a match.
And besides, said Mina, who seemed to have taken permanent residence in his mind, Jude will tell Selena everything, and then what will you do?
It didn’t matter, he realized. Selena could live long years hating him, so long as she lived.
He wondered about Ilior left on the sand to die. Or perhaps he was already dead. Good, came the thought from the ugly part of him that hurt so badly. Another voice reminded him of Selena’s grief should the dragonman perish. Then let him live. Get the crew and the natives and the Storm and come find her.
Bazira adherents pulled across wind-tossed water as the sun broke fully in the east and he saw how foolish an attack from his little ship would be. The Bazira ship was a black, winged beast in the orange light behind it. It boiled with sailors, Bazira, and enough cannon to blow the Black Storm to kindling in one blast.
Sebastian’s eyes wanted to close, to block out the sight and sleep, but he forced them open. The deep pain in his head warned him that if he fell asleep, he might not wake up again. The dinghy scraped against the black hull and Sebastian looked up. They had arrived at the frigate. Silver lettering at the prow named her the Fast Lady.
Under the tinny ringing in his ears he heard Jude say, “Put him in the hold with the others.” Two large men hauled him aboard the Bazira ship. He closed his eyes and slipped away for a bit, only half-conscious of hatches opening, footsteps stomping, and the smell of oakum, hemp, and the sound of snapping canvas.
When he opened his eyes to total darkness a few moments later, Sebastian felt a shard of fear slip into his heart. I’ve gone blind… But then shapes resolved themselves as he was forced to kneel on planked wood. He was aboard the ship, belowdecks, in the hold as Jude had commanded. A light flared and he winced as pain in his head flared with it. Rough rope bit his skin at the wrists and was pulled tight.
Selena was there in the small hold, and Accora too, both bound. Both gagged. The old woman sat slumped, defeated, staring at nothing. Selena’s eyes were shining and she shook her head, despairing to see him there.
Jude Gracus climbed down into the hold and knelt beside Sebastian. “Have you two met? I think the answer to that is yes and no. Lovers and strangers, both. Marvelous. And I think, the gracious hostess that I am, I should make the proper introductions.”
She tapped her lip with a finger, a slow smile spreading across her face. “On second thought, I think she should hear it from you. I want you to do two things for me,” she said to Sebastian. “The first is that I want you tell Selena Koren your name. Your true name.”
Sebastian raised his head that felt as if it weighed a thousand stones. He met Selena’s gaze that still, for a precious few more seconds, regarded him with affection.
With love, he thought dully. She loves me.
“The second thing I wish for you to tell her is what, precisely, you were hired to do and by whom.” Jude stroked his hair; it felt like hammers bashing his skull but paled in comparison to the pain that was to come.
“Tell her, sweeting. Tell her everything.”