Page 16 of A Curse of Salt

‘Please,’ I whispered, because it was the most I could manage. Pathetic, I scolded myself, heat creeping into my cheeks. But it took everything I had just to face him, to breathe when the air tasted so strongly of steel.

The King stared at me for a long time, his hand resting on the hilt of the sword hidden in the folds of his cloak. His indecision pulsed through us both, stilling the air in my lungs.

‘Give me one reason why I should let you live.’

Blind panic seized me as I scoured the recesses of my mind, unable to conjure a response, a single reason. Because I’m a princess, I could’ve said, but I knew the words would sound like a lie. Because my family needs me, I wanted to cry. But he wouldn’t have cared one bit, and I wasn’t even sure it was true.

I swallowed down my swimming fear, forcing my chin up. Because I had to; because I was angry. This was the man who sent hungry sailors to seabed graves, who was responsible for my whole life being ripped apart. No – man was the wrong word. I wasn’t going to bow in the face of a monster.

‘I can’t,’ I told him, the realisation filling me with bile-tasting dread. My eyes burned, but I refused to let him know just how close I was to crumbling. I was no one, with nothing to offer but the tattered shoes on my feet and the coward’s heart quivering in my chest.

There we stood, two shadowy figures encircled by glass and wind and the whisper of rain. Disquiet drummed between us, both his and mine.

The Heartless King cleared his throat. ‘A ringing endorsement,’ he said at last. Then he turned his back and stalked towards the door he’d come from. It burst open without so much as a raise of his hand. ‘Consider yourself my crew’s problem, and keep out of my sight.’

The door slammed shut behind him. A sweeping emptiness washed over me, like a heavy blanket torn from my body. It was him – his power – relinquishing its hold.

He was gone.

The silence that surrounded me in the Heartless King’s wake was deafening. I let myself breathe a sigh of relief at the fact that I was still standing, at the very least. Unsure what to do or where to go, I picked my way across the glass-strewn floor and cracked open the doors I’d entered through, peering out at the rain-slicked deck.

‘Still alive, then.’

I glanced sideways to see Aron, the pirate who’d fought for my life, leaning against the ship’s rail. He ambled over to me, hands shoved in his frayed trouser pockets, grinning.

I nodded mutely, inching out on to the deck, eager to distance myself from the darkness swirling within those walls. The rain had eased to a sprinkling that my anxious mind barely registered and the sky had lightened, almost blue.

What now? I wondered.

Aron seemed to read the uncertainty in my gaze. ‘C’mon,’ he said, jerking his head to indicate I should follow.

I glanced hesitantly around at the pirates who bustled to and fro, casting curious looks up at where we stood. Then, warily, I shuffled after him, down the steps and across the main deck.

Aron headed for a door set into the forecastle and pushed his way inside.

The hallway within was empty, burnished wood shining in the glow of golden oil lamps. We walked in silence, Aron’s posture easy as he strolled a few steps ahead. My mind burned with questions, but I hardly knew how to ask, how to speak to a man like him: a pirate.

We passed two more sets of doors inlaid with swirling floral motifs and a staircase that spilled downwards, deep into the bowels of the ship.

It was silent up here, telling me that most of the crew lay burrowed beneath, likely in the berths where they slept. The only signs of life were the winding briar tresses that somehow flourished along the edges of the ceiling and around the hand railings. The word magic hissed through the back of my mind but I shoved it away. I had enough to fear.

That was what magic was – wasn’t it? Something to fear? A whisper in the deep and dark parts of the world, something that ripped and tore and lurked.

Dust stirred in the wake of our footsteps, making me wonder just how desolate my new dungeon home would be.

‘Not much fer a princess,’ Aron said at last, pausing before a heavy door at the end of the wide hall. ‘But ye’ll be left alone in this part o’ the ship.’

I nodded hesitantly by way of thanks, creeping closer as he swung the door open.

What lay beyond was no cell.

The room was overgrown with thorns and bathed in rippling azure light that filtered through the large windows, playing across deep blue walls. Roses garlanded the four-poster bed, circling the space above the sleek vanity table where a mirror should have stood, their stray petals littering the surface of a giant claw-footed bathtub. An elaborately carved wardrobe stood by the window, smooth wood glowing in the sheen of morning light.

I slunk forward to admire the bed, its silken sheets piled with a mound of pillows and fur pelts. I glanced back at Aron, seeking confirmation that all this was really meant for me. This muted opulence, fit for a real princess. What was it doing on a pirate ship?

Aron gave a gracious nod and retreated, letting the door close after him. The moment I was alone, hunger and exhaustion rushed to my head and I sank readily into the soft furs.

So this was it. I had become a bargaining chip, chattel for kings. It seemed whatever enmity this man, Bane, held for King Oren, the crew of the Blood Rose held the same for him. What kind of crime had he committed to earn such ire? And what kind of man was he to have escaped their wrath this long?

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