Page 71 of The Flame and the Forsaken

“Father, with respect, you told me not to go to the jail, and I did not,” Erran said carefully.

“Is it nay true you still intended to go there? And would have, had you not met trouble with the ship?”

“To the jail?”

Mariel cringed. Erran’s attempt at naivete was painfully unimpressive.

“Aye, the jail. Your mother was nay convinced when you said you’d leave matters lie, and I had my own doubts.”

Erran skated his gaze over the other men, his hands twisting in his lap. Sweat speckled his collarbone. Mariel hadn’t realized what a terrible liar he was. He’d never needed to practice over the years, to perfect an ease in telling any story to any person to make it believable. Any remaining doubt he was fibbing about all the lasses in the keep disintegrated as she listened to him stumble through their story. “I would be lying if I said I hadn’t considered it.”

“And would ye have? Done it?” Argus Strong asked. It was startling to Mariel how much he and his son, Hamish, resembled one another, right down to the “intimidating” knit of brows. But he wasn’t the problem, nor Steward Law. Rylahn needed the most convincing.

“I don’t know,” Erran answered. “I got little chance to think on it.”

“Balingers require a crew. Five or more just to make her seaworthy, up to thirty for a proper sail.” Rylahn hadn’t shifted away from Erran. “You’re usually more deliberate than this, Erran. Taking such risks isn’t how I taught you.”

“Aye, aye, but we were just trying to navigate the coastal waters, which I didn’t expect would need an entire crew, Father. Nothing we haven’t done before when shifting port.”

“On smaller vessels,” Rylahn replied, holding his intensity.

Mariel shook her head. “My brother has taken her out alone before. It was... It wasmyreckless suggestion the two of us could handle it.”

“And my son was perfectly capable of refusing.”

“Nay, because...” Mariel cut her sideways glance toward Erran, who stared at his hands as if they alone contained the answers to their conundrum. “He was trying to appease me, and I knew it, which was why I asked him.”

“You manipulated him?”

Mariel sighed. Erran was still fixated on his lap. He looked ready to break. It was on her to finish this. “Aye, I suppose that’s what I did. He’d been naught but accommodating, and I pushed it... pushed him.”

“You’re saying it’s your fault?” Damian asked. “That you enticed him to this act?”

Mariel swallowed. “Aye.”

“Nay.” Erran whipped his head up with a drilling, solemn gaze around the table. “It’s mine alone. I’m the sailor. She is not. If I hadn’t believed we could manage the route, I would have procured a crew for the task. I miscalculated, and we both suffered for it.”

Rylahn cocked his head. “Are you aware of the whispers coming out of Sandycove?”

Whatever had been on Mariel’s face at the moment froze there. “Well, I?—”

“I’m asking my son.”

Erran shook his head tightly. Mariel noted his knuckles paling as he wrung his hands harder.

“Allow me to enlighten you on what I have been dealing with these past weeks.” Rylahn cleared his throat. “It came to my attention that Samuel paid a man, Edwin Banner, a sum of gold to keep quiet about what hethoughthe saw. It involved a woman coming to his home, threatening him...”

Threaten him! I didn’t even speak with him!Mariel ground her jaw to stop herself from correcting him.

“And ultimately fleeing for the Devon coast, his men in pursuit, whilst she cried out that she, and not some capable, cunning man, was the Flame. Seems there are whispers from some that this woman is none other than Mariel.”

Everyone at the long table went silent. The only sound was leather shifting on seats.

Then Erran erupted into laughter. He threw his head back and slapped the table. “Mariel? My wife? Anoutlaw? TheFlame?”

Chuckles passed through the other men as well, Damian lifting his brows at Argus as if to say,I told you it was nonsense.

Mariel silently stewed through the necessary but insulting dismantling of her accomplishments.A little too convincing there, Errandil.

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