Page 45 of Saint
Clove’s eyes shot up to Saint and I watched as every muscle in Saint’s body tightened, all at once, the fog curling before his lips the only evidence that he was still breathing. Slowly, his gaze dropped to Clove, and something boyish lit in his eyes. Something untouched.
The expression was mirrored on Clove’s face as he pushed off the crank, untying the ladder again. It rolled down with a slap against the hull and then he was climbing, his flaxen hair disappearing over the portside. When he had the parchment in hand, his thumb brushed over the red wax seal that was pressed to a thin green ribbon. It looked like a summons to the Trade Council.
The wind picked up, reddening the curves of Saint’s face, and he climbed back down the foremast. When his boots hit the deck, he didn’t move, as if he were afraid that at any moment both the navigator and the parchment would vanish.
An evil grin stretched across Clove’s lips as he handed it over, and I didn’t know if it was the wind or a slight tremble in Saint’s hands that shook the letter as he opened it. His eyes skipped over the words frantically as he raked his hair back from his face.
“So?” Clove paced before the helm, waiting.
But Saint said nothing, lifting his gaze just long enough to find Clove’s. They stared at each other, wordless, and then Clove closed the distance between them in two steps, surprising me as he wrapped his arms around Saint, drawing his tall frame to him.
Saint’s white-knuckled hands clenched into Clove’s shirt and he let out a heavy breath before he let him go. The face he wore was one I’d never seen, the blue of his eyes as deep as the water that surrounded the ship.
“Set course for Ceros,” Saint said. “Shove off.”
Clove took hold of the pegs on the main mast, not waiting even a beat before he began the climb. A moment later, the sails were unrolling over our heads. The tone of his voice was lighter than I’d ever heard it. “It’s about damn time.”
17SAINT
I didn’t sleep on nights I could feel a storm coming.
The ropes creaked around me as I tightened the fastenings at the corner of the sail, leaning back into the lines at the top of the main mast. The heels of my boots were wedged into the joint of the boom, suspending me in midair over the deck far below.
It was pitch black, the air like ink around me, but far in the distance, a tiny flicker of white light had my hackles up. I couldn’t see the wall of clouds drifting toward the ship, but I could feel them. Like a silent giant creeping over the water.
The sea was restless. The shapes of the waves weren’t the smooth calm we’d seen that morning. I watched as their peaks sharpened and danced, a sinking feeling settling in my chest. No, the sea wouldn’t sleep tonight. Neither would I.
Another frayed knot of lightning tangled in the sky, spidering down until it touched the horizon. I guessed we had an hour before it was on top of us. Maybe less.
The ring of grommets on the foremast behind me pulled my gaze from the distant storm and I looked back to see Clove fitting himself into the rigging. Once he was balanced, he pulled on his leather gloves and got to work, wedging an iron rod into one of the knots so he could retie it.
It was a job we wouldn’t have entrusted to the deckhands, even if they’d stayed. No one knew the weak joints of this ship like Clove and I did. Put your life in the hands of a vessel enough times, and you developed an intuition about those things.
This was the point when most helmsmen would break from their coordinates and head to the nearest port. But I wasn’t most helmsmen. With Zola making his way toward Ceros and the clock ticking on my next meeting with Henrik, we didn’t have time to spare.
“Was going to let you sleep a while longer,” I said. “It’s going to be a long night.”
Clove unraveled the rope, letting it fall slack into the air. “You know I don’t like to miss the fun.”
Really, he just didn’t like me out of his sight when a storm was bearing down on us. We both knew just how quickly your fate could change in those moments. How, in a blink, the sea’s hands could reach up and take what it wanted.
“You checked the deck when you boarded the ship at port.” I didn’t ask it like a question but that was what it was.
“I did.”
I knew he did, but I needed to hear him say it. I’d checked it myself too. I always did.
A gust of wind hit us, and I glanced again in the direction of the storm. The air was bitterly cold, a sharp contrast to the warm, balmy breeze that had been pushing us to Ceros. But I wasn’t sure why that made me nervous.
My hands moved faster over the ropes and I ran my thumb along the stitched seams of the sails, checking them for gaps or loosened threads. Not that it would do any good, anyway. The wind didn’t need a foothold. If it wanted one, it would take it.
“You know, I’m still trying to figure out exactly what you’re thinking,” Clove said, still working at the knots.
“About what?”
“How we’re going to pay Emilia back.”
My hands stilled on the sail as I finished checking the last seam and I pulled myself up to stand. “We’ll sell the rye and see if we can pick up something else to trade in Ceros. It might take a few routes, but once we’ve made another trade for Henrik—”
