Page 46 of Voice of the Ocean

Raiden was?—

Pieces started falling into place one after the other. How Kiyami didn’t want to work for his father. Why Raiden seemed to have no support or authority. Raiden Sharp was apirate. It all fit the stories she knew from home about the pirates who sailed the ocean, butchering each other and stealing. Was he even royalty at all? Was his father even a king? Celeste’s mind reeled. She had been sailing for days upon a pirate ship and was now helping said pirates to ransack an innocent cargo ship. Which, in all probability, made her a pirate too.

In retrospect, Celeste should have put this together on her own. Should have seen the men Raiden had hired for his crew and known what they were. No kingdom sent Raiden aid when he was left without a crew or a ship at Port Velluno. And yet, in a matter of days, he had both. And he certainly didn’t act like a royal prince. He had no shame and no apparent rules he had to obey. The boy hardly had manners, not that Celeste really expected most humans to have manners. He’d become angry when someone called Valencia the Queen of Pirates. Was she his mother? His father’s lover? His father’s rival? Those who called him “Your Highness” must have been doing so in jest.

She had not heroically saved a prince like something out of a heroic tale.

Celeste had saved a pirate. The Prince of Pirates.

They may have not had red eyes and fangs, but these humans who made their living by being violent and selfish were every bit as monstrous as the stories. Even Kiyami was striking down men one after the other. A pirate through and through.

“You may want to pay attention,” grunted Raiden, dodging in front of her to block a sword that had been sweeping toward her head.

She nodded. There would be a time to mull over this rather upsetting turn of events later, but not if she let herself get killed. Stepping out from behind Raiden, Celeste raised her sword, taking a defensive stance. Two men from the other crew circled them. One was short and thin, while the other was tall and muscular, with a horrendously long mustache. Mustache moved first, his sword arcing downward toward Celeste’s head. She spun away, as elegantly as if she had been underwater, and swung her sword at his side. It sliced him cleanly, drawing blood. He stumbled back, blinking in shock.

To her left, the short man exchanged strikes with Raiden. But it almost looked as though instead of a proper fight, Raiden was toying with the man. The so-called prince practically glowed with delight as he danced around, his sword parrying every blow, his jabs leaving little cuts all over his opponent’s body. It was mesmerizing to watch. Each swing and step timed just so, calculated and smooth.

Again, Mustache swung at Celeste. She raised her sword to block, but her grip was wrong, and the sword went flying to the deck.Why do swords have such small handles?she thought bitterly. Mustache stepped back, his gaze falling to the sword on the floor and back up to her. His mouth formed a horrible smile. With a lunge, he jabbed the point of his sword toward Celeste’s stomach. She jumped backward. He thrusted again. As she jumped back once more, her back collided with the railing of the ship. Hard. Celeste’s toes curled in her shoes. She had nowhere to go. Mustache smiled wider. Swinging his arms up in a great show, he brought his sword down at a diagonal angle.

Celeste ducked under the blade, and with one step had moved around him. Crying out in anger, the man spun around to face her, sword raised once more. She was already dropping to the ground, holding herself up with her arms and kicking him square in the stomach with her legs held together. He staggered backward, catching himself against the ship’s railing. She cast a look around for her sword, but it had slid too far out of reach. So she grabbed the first thing she saw nearby—a pole with a pile of rope on the end.

She could tell it wasn’t a weapon, but it was much closer to a spear than the sword was. Before Mustache had time to right himself, Celeste hopped forward, the rounded top of the pole sinking into his throat. The wind swept from his lungs. He coughed and leaned forward, choking. Without hesitation, Celeste thrust the roped end of her makeshift weapon into the ground, using it as leverage to swing her body around and lift herself off the ground. As she spun, she kicked out her feet, as if they were a fin, and they collided squarely with his jaw, sending the man careening off the ship and into the waters below.

Celeste landed awkwardly but spun the pole with a flourish. She could get used to having extra limbs. They packed a better punch than her tail had.

Before her, Raiden stared, the smaller man he had been fighting lying unconscious and bleeding at his feet.

“That was oddly attractive,” he said with a lopsided smile. “If that’s what you do with a mop, imagine what you could do if you learned to keep hold of a sword.”

Celeste fixed him with an unamused stare before turning to look for her sword. The rest of the crew seemed to have a handle on things—sort of. It was rather chaotic, and no one looked as though they were working together. If anything, the crew of theRed Revengeonly got in each other’s way. Torben moved with the grace of a boulder, throwing his axe at anything that moved, while Nasir followed along after him, pushing men out of their way. At one point, Torben raised his axe and aimed, before realizing at the last second the man he was aiming at was Oakes. But the pause in his rhythm was enough to give the real enemy an advantage. A man sent a kick into Torben’s stomach, knocking both him and Oakes to the ground.

Celeste took a step toward them, hoping to be of some help, but Nasir was quicker. He lowered his head and charged toward them. Anyone unfortunate enough to be in his way, he knocked to the side with a simple thrust of his great shoulder or elbow. Unfortunately for Nasir, one of those people happened to be Torben. In the heat of battle, Nasir did not see him stand back up. Celeste winced as Torben sailed like a flying fish over the heads of the others, a string of obscenities trailing after him.

“Learn to stay out of my way, ya idiot!” Torben cried at Oakes, picking himself up from the ground. Furious, he closed the distance between them and leaped upon a barrel to be eye level with the boy. He reared back and attempted to whack Oakes with the pommel of his sword. But just as the pommel was about to collide with Oakes’s jaw, the boy took a step back, stumbling over his own feet, and the pommel continued its arc straight into Nasir’s face. Nasir cried out, hands flying to his face as blood streamed from his nose.

“What were you thinking? Why did you get in the way?” Torben barked as he leaped down and rushed to his husband’s side.

“What are you saying? You hit me!” Nasir shot back, his voice muffled by his own hands.

“I wasn’t trying to hit you,” Torben said, then softened. “Is your nose all right?”

It was then that Celeste noticed the ship around them had gone quiet. Eerily quiet. She turned, dread pouring over her like cold water. The crew of theRed Revengewere grouped together, fighting each other, and surrounding them with pistols raised was the crew of the cargo ship. What was left of them, anyway. Celeste searched for Bastian and Raiden in the crowd and found them behind her, staring daggers at someone. She followed their gaze and saw a man standing on the quarterdeck above them. From his large hat and air of importance, she assumed it was the other captain. And to add insult to injury, he was holding her sword.

“So this is the infamous crew of Captain Raiden Sharp, son of the Pirate King?” He tilted the sword back and forth as the hot sun glistened on the blade. “I must admit. You’re even more pathetic than I expected.”

“I’ve been called worse by better,” Raiden said. He lowered his sword and strode toward the captain. One of the cargo crew shoved a sword in his face when he reached the base of the stairs. Raiden halted, looking unperturbed.

The other captain made a face, one that looked very much as though he smelled something awful and offensive. “Surrender now, Raiden,” he said, speaking louder than before. “And I will graciously allow you and your pathetic crew to crawl back to whatever hole you climbed out of.”

“You can surrender to my arse!” Torben cried.

The other captain bristled.

“You heard him.” Raiden smiled. “Torben’s arse is ready when you are.”

Celeste swallowed. They were surrounded. This man had given them the option to leave. And Raiden was insulting him. Typical. But if Raiden was going to die, it was going to be by her hand and when she was good and ready.

She could make quick work of them if she used her Song, but she couldn’t reveal herself. Not if she wanted to learn what Raiden’s goal was—what the king wanted this treasure for.

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