Page 3 of Virelai's Hoard
Nyxensighed in defeat, head hung low as he massaged his temples. “Keep your voice down, will you?” he muttered. “He said to be at leasta littlediscerning with who we hire.”
“Why would he think we weren’t discerning?”
With the two of them bickering, they failed to notice someone approaching their table until it was too late. An old man, wearing a stained coat two sizes too big for him and so unsteady on his feet he tightly gripped backrests and table edges to keep himself upright on the journey, blind to the glares of those occupying them. “You two hiring?” he asked. The empty chair at their table screeched as he pulled it to sit down.
“Here we go.” Nyxen’s pained look was completely ignored both by the woman at his side and the old man.
“Yes! We are!”
“Kit.”
Seemingly too excited at the prospect of a new hire, Kit knocked her chair back as she slammed her hands on the table and leaned closer to the already enraptured old man. Her messy, sun-bleached hair framed her grin. “How would you like to embark on the adventure of a life-time?” she asked him.
“It’s not-”
“Across dangerous waters and sea monsters and uncharted seas-”
“That’s not at all-”
“To the grandest treasure you could dream of?”
“Kittredge, enough. We’re not here to sell fairy tales,” Nyxen scolded her, gently pushing her back into her seat. He reluctantly addressed the man. “There might or might not be treasure at the end of our next travels, but the captain offers fair pay, a place to sleep and two hot meals a day. The work is hard, dangerous, and not to be taken lightly, but sailors who don’t act stupid and do what they’re told usually make it back on land with trinkets to sell and stories to tell. That’s it. No more and no less.”
Kit deflated at his side, sinking low on the chair as she crossed her arms. “Of course people walk out when you put it likethat.”
Nyxen opened his mouth to say something else when the old man replied in a small voice, “I’d love that.”
“Really?” they both asked, incredulous.
They weren’t the only ones.
“You missed the part where your ship will sink as soon as you try sailing beyond the Quiet Sea,” one patron nearby said, to the dark chuckles of the mates sitting at his table. “I’ll give you a fortnight past that point. If that.”
More than half the tavern must’ve been listening in, because that got more than a few derisive snorts.
At her table, Kittredge flushed, but she lifted her chin. “None of you would be laughing if you knew who we’re sailing with.”
Riley tilted her head at that. Up to this point, she’d treated this as free entertainment, but now she was getting curious. It was a dangerous thing for her to be curious, but she couldn’t help it now.
“Kit.Don’t,” Nyxen warned.
“And who is it you’re sailing with, pray tell?” the same patron asked, mocking.
“Don’t say it,” Nyxen groaned, but it was too late.
Kit’s lips curved in a satisfied smile. “TheMoonshadow.”
The reaction was immediate. Laughter cut short, chairs scraped back, and a woman went as far as to spit on the floor. The old sailor, who had shrunk in his seat at the derisive patrons, suddenly straightened up, while Nyxen pinched the bridge of his nose and sank low in his own seat.
“Right, and I’m a fucking prince,” a scraggly teen dressed in rags said, barking a laugh.
But someone else lowered her tankard, brows furrowed. “She’s still sailing?”
Nyxen exhaled through his nose like he was deeply, profoundly tired. “Obviously.”
No one had anything to say to that, at least not to the two pirates’ faces. Riley heard some mutters as conversations resumed at the surrounding tables. “Poor bastards,” from one. “She always comes back,” from another. And yet another, “It must be some kind of curse.”
The old man leaned forward, drawing Kit’s and Nyxen’s gazes back to him. “One last voyage, something to breathe some life into these old bones. Better than wasting away in here, overlooked and forgotten by the world,” he croaked, shooting a longing stare at the warped wooden mermaid hung above the bar, missing half her face and one breast. Then, with more confidence, “Me and the sea are old friends, we are. I can still be of some use. When do I start?”
