Page 59 of A Crown of Lies

She wasn’t sorry. Hearing that her husband was dead made her want to breathe a sigh of relief. It was a burden lifted from her shoulders, but a new one quickly settled into its place. Rixxis knew she shouldn’t be happy that a decent man had died. Whatever their differences were, Lewis hadn’t deserved to die.

“I might as well have died out there with him,” said her father, shaking his head. “It took so much to convince the merchants of Qet to donate to the relief cause. I promised them it would open trade opportunities, took out so many loans to cover the purchase… And now all that food will sit and rot in The Tombs. Worse, with Lewis dead, my business is ruined. Callait Shipping will go under. Your father is a shipping baron no longer, my daughter. He is a pauper!” He collapsed face first onto the table, sobbing.

Rixxis tried to console him, rubbing his arms and squeezing his hands, but he wouldn’t have it. Her father had built that enterprise up from nothing to be one of the largest in Qet. To lose it all just because he had done the right thing… It wasn’t fair.

“We’ll figure something else out,” Rixxis assured him. “I’ll take care of you if nothing else. Don’t cry. Please don’t cry, Father.”

He sniffled and lifted his head. “Oh, my dear, that isn’t even the worst of it. When I washed ashore, the bodies of my men were there, but they weren’t dead! Men I was sure had drowned just got back up, but they weren’t themselves! Their eyes… They were empty, glassy and cloudy like the dead’s. And they were so violent…” With shaky hands, he tugged his sleeve up to reveal a very nasty bite mark. The area was inflamed. “Mister Grimes, my first mate, attacked me. Bit my arm. I had to…” He choked, swallowed, and then started weeping again.

“It’s all right,” Rixxis assured him and pulled him closer. “It’s over now.”

“I’m sorry,” said her father, recovering slightly. “I should be happy. Perhaps I have lost my fortune, and the weight our name once carried, but I have my daughter back. Not all is lost.”

“There might actually be a way you can gain from this,” Rowan said. He had been pacing behind her father, hands clasped at his back. He stopped when he reached his throne at the front of the Great Hall and sank into it, crossing one leg over the other. “What is the sum of your outstanding debt?”

Her father looked at Rixxis wide eyed and withdrew his hands. “Your Grace, I can’t accept any charity.”

“It’s not charity in the slightest.” Rowan swept a hand through the air as if he could bat away her father’s protests. “If I’m understanding you right, Callait Shipping moves goods and commodities by sea, which puts you in direct competition with my shipping enterprise. We are competitors in the same sector, and you have reach that I do not. Acquiring Callait Shipping is a smart business decision that will allow me to expand my shipping operations from D'thallanar all the way to Qet, effectively making it the largest shipping and trading company in history.”

“Your offer is incredibly generous,” her father said, standing. “If it were simply a matter of the debts, I would take it under serious consideration. However, I would sell the good name and respect I have spent three decades building. No amount of gold is worth the blood, sweat, and tears that have gone into building Callait Shipping. It would be an incredible dishonor to me and my family name to sell such an enterprise to a foreign power, let alone a competitor. And to pass my debts to a competitor… The shame would be inescapable.”

“I see.” Rowan tapped his fingers against his temple, eyes sliding to Rixxis. “There must be some way to settle your debts without bringing shame to your family's name.”

Her father shook his head. “I beg your pardon, but I don’t see any way. These debts are familial obligations. I used my name and Lewis’s assets to secure them. With the ship gone, and Lewis gone, there is nowhere else for the creditors to go to collect but me. I have no other family to call upon.”

“What about Rix…” Ieduin stopped himself and gestured to her. “What about your daughter?”

Her father glanced over at her and fidgeted with his thumbs. “Women aren’t permitted to enter business deals in Qet, or to deal with debts, or inherit property. Lewis came from money. Their marriage was… strategic.” He gave her another apologetic look. “With his death, there are no ties between his family and mine since there were no children. In fact, I will owe them bereavement funds on top of the other debts.”

“That’s stupid.” Ieduin snorted. “You’re telling me the whole reason you’re broke, and your future prospects are gone, is because you had a daughter instead of a son?”

“Women are little more than property in Qet,” Rowan said.

“I disagree with the practice,” her father said, stepping forward. “It’s a backward system, I admit, but one I cannot fight or change, no matter how much I might despise it.”

Rowan lowered his hand. “What if she were to remarry?”

Her father blinked rapidly, as if he hadn’t even considered that option. “It would be in poor taste, considering her husband of three years has just died.”

“But her new husband could clear your debts without protest, and you would keep your position?”

Her father shrugged. “I suppose… But I still would not sell the business to you. No offense.”

“You wouldn’t have to,” Rowan said, rising from his throne, “if I wed your daughter.”

Rixxis jerked, stunned. Was no one going to ask her how she felt about that? Did they even care?

She pushed up from the table and curled her hands into fists. “I am not a goat to be bought and sold to further the dealings of men!”

“Celeste,” her father hissed in a whisper, “this man is offering you the opportunity to become a queen!”

“I don’t care!” she shouted back and turned to Rowan. “You can offer me the world and it still wouldn’t matter. I won’t let you bargain with my future!”

“You would rather let your father live in poverty and shame?” Rowan said, gesturing to the old man.

“Don’t act like you’re doing this out of some twisted sense of altruism!”

“I’m not. I am proposing this because we all benefit from it.” Rowan came away from the throne. “Not only can I wipe out your father’s debts and restore his honor, but I can also increase your family’s standings. I can make the Callait name known in every household in this part of the world, securing your family’s future for generations to come. It also potentially solves, or at least lessens, the burden of feeding our people, providing a lifeline for Greymark, Brucia, and the Crows. A way out of this mess of shortages and potential starvation come winter.”

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