Page 30 of Saint
I pulled the shirt over my head and kicked off my boots, sitting at the edge of the cot and raking my hands over my face. Across the cramped room, the mirror was lit with moonlight, and the shape of me moved over the glass. Sometimes, I thought I looked like him. Or at least, the version of him that I could remember. It had only been six years since my father died, but it felt like longer. I’d become a man without him. I’d become a lot of things.
12ISOLDE
The grand estate my mother called Azimuth House in the merchants’ district had never been a home to me. Waking on a ship was the only time I didn’t have that split second of confusion about where I was. The sounds, smells, and gentle rock of the hammock were where I belonged. I’d always thought it was because of my father’s love of the sea. That maybe I had more of his blood running in my veins than my mother’s. I liked that idea. I hoped it was true.
Beside me, the other four hammocks strung up in the crew’s cabin were empty. Aside from the helmsman and the navigator, theRivenwas sailing with only two deckhands. It wasn’t a large ship by any stretch, but they were tempting fate by having so few on a vessel that was in such bad shape.
I sat up, letting my weight tip forward until the toes of my boots hit the floor. It was slick with a thin layer of moisture,the humid air thick in the room around me. My clothes were damp with it. That was a bad sign too—an indication that the seal of the hull was compromised.
“Take one more step and I’ll cut his throat!”
I froze at the sound of the voice, my eyes finding the open door, where the narrow passage belowdecks was washed with the sunlight spilling down the hatch.
“I mean it!”
I climbed out of the hammock and pulled my knife free, following the trail of light with slow steps. The crude ladder that rose up from the floor to the hatch was missing its bottom rung, but when I lifted onto my toes I could see the main deck, where the noise was coming from.
The navigator stood near the bow, eyes fixed on an auburn-haired man with his back pressed to the railing. In one hand, the man had a knife. In the other, he had the twisted shirt of a young deckhand with a busted face, pinning him against the foremast.
“I told you to let himout,Julian, not let him take hostages.” The navigator glared at the cowering deckhand to his right.
The young man he’d called Julian had wide eyes, his chest rising and falling in panicked breath. “I’m—I’m sorry, Clove—I—”
Clove. I didn’t remember Zola saying the name at the tavern.
“Where exactly do you plan to go, Nash?” Clove didn’t bother letting the deckhand finish, looking utterly bored by the scene playing out before him.
The red-haired man shot a look out to the water, jaw clenching. “You can’t keep me as a prisoner. You can’t just—”
“This is my ship, and I can do whatever I’d like on it.”
The helmsman’s voice came from the other side of the mast, forcing me to step up onto the lowest rung so I could see him. When my eyes finally landed on his face, I swallowed hard. He was missing the shirt and jacket he usually wore, the roped muscles of his arms, back, and chest moving under his olive skin as he leaned one hand into the railing. He looked as if the commotion had caught him mid-dress, and he, too, appeared more annoyed than concerned for the deckhand who had a knife at his throat.
“You had a choice, Nash,” he continued, “now you can live with it.”
The deckhand with Nash’s knife to his throat pinched his eyes closed, whimpering.
I climbed up the ladder, coming onto the deck as the helmsman took a step toward them.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “When we’re out to sea, you’re free to move about the ship. And you’ll do whatever work is requested if you want to be fed. When we make port, you return to the cargo hold. If you follow these rules, you can walk off the ship when we get back to Dern and we’ll be even. If you don’t…”
Nash’s face flushed a furious crimson.
“You kill him, and we’ll turn that knife on you. Even if you make it over that railing, you’ll drown before you reach land.”
Nash seemed to weigh his options and it only tookmoments for him to realize he didn’t have any. He lowered the knife, shoving the deckhand to the ground.
The young man scrambled back to his feet, a look of terror still distorting his face. The helmsman didn’t even wait to see if he was all right before he turned back into the passageway, disappearing without another word.
“You all right, kid?” Clove offered him a hand, pulling him up to his feet.
But he didn’t answer, reaching up to wipe blood from his lip.
Clove clapped him on the back. “Get the bosun’s tools from below. Nash has work to do.”
Nash glared in answer, but the deckhand still looked like he was going to vomit, edging away from Nash as he slipped behind the main mast. It was only then that anyone seemed to notice me.
Clove looked me up and down before he breezed past me to the helm, where his log was lying open on the deck. It looked as if he’d dropped it there. He snatched it up and headed for the ladder that led to the cargo hold.
