Page 4 of A Curse of Salt

‘Didn’t I always say I’d someday return to regale you with tales of my daring escape from the Heartless King?’

His humourless laugh was undercut by the dark rings that guarded his eyes.

‘So it’s true?’ I pressed, leaning in. ‘It was really him?’

Father bowed his head with a slow sigh. ‘We were just days from home when they found us,’ he began. Brown-and-grey speckled hair fell across his face, but he didn’t bother to sweep it back. ‘A single ship. His fleet was nowhere in sight, only the mightiest vessel I’ve ever seen. She towered over us, made Leviathan seem a child’s toy in comparison. But she was beautiful, too, bedecked with vines of roses that bloomed along the railings.’

His eyes were distant, fixed upon something faraway, something dark.

‘The Blood Rose,’ Aberdeen murmured. She’d come closer, perching stiffly on the edge of the bed.

I shuddered at the sound of the ship’s name. Every story I’d ever heard of it had ended in horror.

‘There was time to surrender,’ Father continued, suddenly sharper. ‘We watched them approach, just waiting. Seeing death sail towards you like that, just knowing . . . I should’ve surrendered. It was so foolish, I—’

He choked, angry tears tracking the valleys of his weathered cheeks. I squeezed his palm, willing us both the strength to go on.

‘Did you see him?’ Aberdeen urged.

Father shook his head, hands trembling under mine. ‘He never showed his face, only . . .’ He swallowed. ‘We felt him. Like some great, smothering shadow that fell over us all. I half expected the sky to collapse with the weight of it.’

A shadow: that was exactly what the Heartless King was. A darkness that stalked every life he’d ever touched. A looming threat to anything his fleet was yet to destroy. He had no kingdom, no crown, but the sea was his to reign. I couldn’t think of a power more absolute than that.

I leaned closer, terrified by what I was hearing yet not wanting to miss a word.

‘That ship was the last thing your mother ever gave me, besides you.’ Father’s grasp tightened around my hand. ‘I thought I would never see your faces again and Leviathan was the last piece of home I had. I clung to her. Some part of me just couldn’t let go – couldn’t see her destroyed. I’d heard that even the Heartless King’s pirates wouldn’t kill an unarmed opponent, but . . . still, I couldn’t lay down my sword. Couldn’t let go. My crew stood by me, and they paid the price.’

I blew out a breath. I didn’t want to hear the rest, didn’t want to picture the carnage that had followed. But Father went on, stirring a new kind of dread in the rift of my chest.

‘I’m a coward . . .’ he said, pulling his hands from my grasp. ‘I didn’t want to die, but I should have. I wish I had died before he saw me. We’d all be safer if I had.’

‘Who saw you?’ I pressed, my heart thudding against my ribs. ‘The Heartless King?’

Father shook his head. ‘Not him, no. One of his crew. A man I knew long ago, in another life. He spared me.’

I frowned. In what life had Father known pirates?

He never spoke of much before Bray – of life at King Oren’s court and his marriage to Aberdeen’s mother, nor the things that had chased him from her. Who my parents had been, all those years ago, I’d never truly known.

‘He was like a brother to me, once,’ Father went on, picking at the fraying threads of his nightshirt. ‘We grew up together in the capital. If it weren’t for him, I’d never have made it out. He convinced his companions to stay their swords, but as soon as they did . . . he asked about Estelle.’

I winced at the dull pang of grief that shot through me. He spoke of my and Felicie’s mother more than he ever had Aberdeen’s. Spoke of her laughter, her kindness, her sunshine eyes.

‘Dead, I told him.’ Father’s words came out flat, pained. ‘And the child? he asked next. He wanted to know about Felicie.’

Aberdeen’s back straightened, and I shot her a sharp look. Does she know something I don’t?

‘I don’t understand,’ I said, glancing between the two of them. ‘How does this pirate know about Felicie? What does she have to do with anything?’

‘Estelle and I fled Forea the day Felicie was born,’ Father explained to me. ‘This man, Mors . . . he helped us escape. He wasn’t exactly a pirate back then.’

Fled. Escape. My head spun. He’d never used those words before. What had they been fleeing from?

‘What does this mean?’ Aberdeen asked tersely. Her face was grave, hands clasped white-knuckled in her lap. ‘What do they want?’

‘They wanted a trade.’ The words fell from his lips like stones, his tongue stumbling over their jagged edges. ‘My life, in exchange for the child.’

A shiver tore through me. A pirate’s mercy, indeed.

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