Page 14 of Ship of Shadows
This was ridiculous. I was to be queen. I didn’t have to explain myself like this. Worry that the guard might tell on me to my mother. So what if the guard did? I was interrogating a prisoner. Nothing wrong with that.
I raised my chin. “Yes, the pirate lord.”
At that she audibly swallowed, her eyes darting around like just saying that name would summon him. “Your Majesty, I’m under strict orders from the queen to not let anyone see him.”
“Yes,” I said, an edge to my voice, “and now your crowned princess is telling you to step aside so I can speak with him.” I paused. “For official water court business.”
She eyed me warily.
“Oh, blood and water, Kalaris. What do you think is going to happen? I just have a few questions for the pirate lord before he’s set to be executed tomorrow.”
I held my breath as she stood in front of me, hand resting at the sword hanging by her side. She chewed her bottom lip for a moment before stepping aside.
“Thank you. I promise I’ll call if I need anything.”
I entered the dirty stone prison, floor covered in straw and feces from various rodents. Criminals leered at me from their cells, some sleeping, others staring like they wanted to wrap their hands around my throat and choke the life from me. They couldn’t use their magic against me, not with the iron bars surrounding them, dulling their powers. All the prisons across Arathia had bars like these, ones that counteracted our elemental powers.
I avoided making eye contact, striding down the aisle between the cells on both sides. Moonlight stretched in through the barred windows, but other than that, darkness covered everything, as did the stench of urine, vomit, and—I sniffed the air, regretting it immediately—body odor.
I continued on, a few prisoners standing at their bars and rattling them.
“Come on, pretty princess, let’s play,” a bald man with blackened teeth said as he sneered at me.
He’d been caught with an item from the shadow court, a cloak with the power to make its wearer invisible. He’d been using it to steal valuable items from around our court. He was also missing six fingers—the price he paid every time he’d usedthe cloak’s power. We’d finally caught him and thrown him in here.
He flicked out his tongue at me.
Spirits below, I hoped this was worth it.
Finally, I arrived to the very back of the prison, a single sconce hanging from the stone wall, flickering with a dim flame. And there he was.
My breath caught in my chest as I watched him. He lay on the straw-covered floor, eyes closed, chest rising and falling with shallow breaths. His skin was so pale, and the dark purple smudges under his eyes appeared worse than before. The top buttons of his black shirt were undone, exposing his chest, his long coat splayed out under him. I gasped. Blue lines stretched from the top of his chest all the way up to his neck. Even through the tattoos covering his chest, I could see them. Blood and water. How sick was Bastian?
“Come to get a peek at me?”
I jumped. I’d been so busy staring at his chest, I hadn’t realized he’d awoken.
Now he slowly sat up, staring right back. “I’m not at my best right now, but I’d wager I’m still more handsome than anyone else in this prison.”
He wasn’t wrong, which was mostly infuriating.
He ran a hand through his thick black hair, the same way I’d run my own hands through those strands so many times during our year-long affair.
I stepped back. “What’s wrong with you?”
He stretched his arms out wide. “Not doing so well, I’m afraid. I need to get to my ship. The ship you so kindly wrecked. Thank you for that, by the way.”
I cocked my head. “How is getting to your ship going to help you with this?” I motioned toward the blue lines stretching over his skin.
“Ah, there’s a special elixir aboard that can heal me.”
I narrowed my eyes. “Is that why you came back here? For the elixir? Why in the spirits below would you sail my father’s ship to our docks? Our very public docks?”
He cleared his throat. “Afraid I wasn’t quite in my right mind. This sickness, it addles my brain sometimes, makes me confused, forget who I am and where I am. Believe me, I had no intention of alerting anyone to my presence.”
“Well, you did.” I lowered my voice, gaze flicking around the dark prison. “You also exposed our affair to my entire court.”
He quirked an eyebrow. “Did I, now?”
