Page 29 of A Curse of Salt

‘You seem to have forgotten our deal, blackbird.’

I scowled. Our arrangement hadn’t proven nearly as useful as I’d anticipated. One-word answers were doing very little to chip away at the vault of secrets I knew the King and his crew guarded. ‘You didn’t give me a proper answer,’ I said.

He shrugged, slouching back in his chair. ‘Blame that on your uninspired line of questioning.’

‘I almost died the day Cullen came,’ I retorted. ‘Your crew seem convinced that I’m safe here, but you’re apparently determined to make me think the opposite. Why won’t you just tell me what you’re planning? Cullen’s crew were the surest means of summoning Bane, yet you killed them all.’

The glow of the hearth receded, tendrils of shadow reaching for us both. The King said nothing, and I knew it would take more than that to break his stoic exterior.

‘If not to sell me, then what’s the point?’ I prodded. ‘Are you not trying to fatten me up like cattle, ready to ransom me off to the highest bidder? I’d have thought King Oren’s pockets would run deepest, but who knows – I hear pirates live like kings these days anyway.’

The chandelier flickered.

‘I’m not going to sell you,’ he ground out. My heart fluttered in fear, realising too late that it mightn’t have been wise to provoke him. ‘I’d kill a person before I robbed them of their humanity. I wouldn’t have done you the dishonour.’

I paled, a familiar feeling settling in my chest, trickling through the cavity of my ribs. Don’t you dare feel guilty, I wanted to growl at myself. What did a pirate know about honour?

‘Excuse me for doubting your righteous moral code,’ I muttered.

‘Unlike Bane, or your precious uncle, my people value the lives of others. Up until the moment they raise their weapons against us.’

‘I think you’ll find King Oren treats his subjects a little fairer than you,’ I scoffed. King Oren had a kingdom, after all. A court and a crown and a palace. What did pirates have, beyond vengeance, and the sea?

A muscle tensed in the King’s jaw, barely visible through the mantle of his beard. ‘Just because a man wears silk gloves doesn’t mean his hands are clean.’

I barked a bitter laugh. ‘I can’t imagine a pirate knows much about clean hands.’

He exhaled sharply. ‘Maybe not. But your people weep in hunger’s name, not mine.’

‘Blame hunger all you want,’ I snapped, heat rising in my cheeks. ‘Crop yields have been dwindling for years, yet here we sit gorging ourselves on food that just magically appears. You could ease the suffering of thousands if only you relented your rule over the seas. Tell the people they won’t be harmed just for fishing!’

The King was quiet for a moment, letting my outburst echo through the hall. ‘Is this what you came for, to lecture me?’

I gritted my teeth, realising nothing I said would ever pierce that veil of night-dark indifference. Nothing I did would change him. ‘I came for my answer.’

‘Well, you have it.’

I didn’t and he knew it. I crossed my arms tightly over my chest, fixing him with a waiting glare.

The King sat back slowly in his chair, releasing a sigh. ‘I’m not going to sell you. I’m not going to do anything. You’ll have your life back the moment I have my steel in that bastard’s throat.’

A glint of hope flickered in my chest. I knew by now that bastard meant Bane. Knew it was his life for mine. Yet I couldn’t find it in me to feel guilty, somehow. ‘You seem so certain he’ll come.’

‘Aye,’ the King said. ‘If Oren had killed my family the way he did Bane’s . . . nothing would be able to stand in my way. Bane’s a fool for going for the throne, but he’s too far gone to ever give up now.’

So Oren had Bane’s family killed. I suppressed a shudder. It didn’t matter what darkness drove Bane – not when it was driving him to use me, to paint his rebellion in the colour of my blood.

‘All this because he betrayed you?’ I asked quietly. ‘You’d really go to war?’

‘One question,’ the King reminded me, a tired smile playing at his lips over the rim of his goblet.

I glowered at him across the table, but the feeling in my chest was stirring, growing so strong I could almost taste it. You’ll have your life back.

Monster or not, Bane’s death would set me free.

10

Pirates lazed in the morning breeze, soaking up the weak grey sun. I sat perched on the balustrade of the forecastle deck, the stretch of wood wide enough for me to lounge back with a book spread open in my lap.

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