Page 37 of The Flame and the Forsaken

Erran curled his nose and pursed his mouth. “I’m told it comes out with my anger.”

“So does your shite attitude, which I’ll thank you to lose.” She charged forward a step. “You didnothave to come.”

“Aye, Idid.”

“Why?” she asked.

His nostrils flared with his eyes, burning with intensifying ire. “Because you’re my wife?—”

“And your property?”

“Will you feckin’ stop with such vile accusations!” Erran was thunderous. His arms flew to the top of his head and rested there as he paced short paths before her. “I donnae own ye, Mariel, nor would I wish to, for how... How could any...” His eyes swept her in disgust. “All ye are is lies and rage.”

He stormed to the hatch and climbed down. The lid crashed behind him.

Mariel stood in admonished silence, riding the gentle undulations carrying them to sea. It didn’t matter what he thought. It never had. She couldn’t let any of it get under her skin. Her father used to say,Never take criticism from anyone you wouldn’t solicit advice from.

She climbed atop the raised stern deck, hand on the storm mast, and waited to see what the guards would do.

Erran realizedhe’d only been allowing himself the shallowest of breaths when he finally took in a deep one and let it roll from his lungs in a lingering, gentle escape.

The guards had turned around, but that only meant they were returning to shore for a more suitable vessel. It bought him some time to chart a better course.

He found a decent place to drop the six weighted anchors, meant for creating drag in deeper waters, around the edges of the deck. It was a little farther to sea than he was comfortable with, and the occasional waves cresting and swamping the deck set his nerves on edge, but Mariel was right about one thing: they couldn’t go back, and they needed to be far enough out for other ships to think better of following.

Whether they would follow anyway depended on what Mariel had done.

While below deck, he’d done a quick assessment of their supplies. She couldn’t have had the ship for long, because there wasn’t much. Blankets and pillows. A few changes of clothes. A box of torn rope and busted rigging, probably left by whomever she’d pilfered the vessel from. A crate of whiskey. Candles, tossed into a crate with some knives. A couple of rusted axes. A satchel of dried meat, and a filled waterskin, seemed to be the only food and drink she’d bothered with, so either she hadn’t anticipated being out at sea for long or she was even worse at skippering than he’d first thought.

He tossed it all back where he found it and returned to the upper deck.

Mariel was seated on a bench on the port side, her arm draped over the side and eyes on the distant outline of the shore. She didn’t look up when he approached or sat beside her.

“Don’t say it,” she said hoarsely. “Please.”

Erran held out his hands to show he had no intention of interrogating her—yet. They had nowhere to go.Shehad nowhere to go. And aye, he’d followed her when he hadn’t needed to, but he was in it now. Whateveritwas.

“Will you at least tell me if there’s a plan?”

Mariel dropped her hands between her knees and folded down over them. “Will you yell at me again if I say no?”

Erran’s irritation flared, but he pushed it down. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”

She sighed through her nose. “I shouldn’t have said what I said, when you helped as much as you did. I ken if it were only me, I wouldn’t have fared as well.”

“Guardians, no,” he agreed.

Mariel glanced his way in surprise, and something in her expression made him laugh. She laughed too. “I suppose it doesn’t hurt to tell you where I got this beauty.”

“I assumed you stole her.”

The offense he’d been aiming for never crossed her expression. A hint of pride was there, but it drifted into wistfulness. “I acquired her in Goldthorpe.”

Erran flinched in genuine shock. “The gambling town?”

She nodded. “Game of billiards. Won her fair and square.”

“I didn’t realize they let women in there, except...”

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