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‘Not judging, after all your prince is devoted to that commander. He’ll not be plundering your treasure any time soon.’
‘Your secrets are safe with me. Probably be at the bottom of the ocean soon enough anyway. Don’t think the fish will care too much.’
I feel a fierce rush of love for him.
A strange hush falls over the deck. There’s a difference between saying you’ll sacrifice yourself for a cause and the moment when the sacrifice actually arrives
‘Will she hold?’ I call to Ana. ‘As long as I have breath she will.’
‘I’m Esther. And your presence here is no coincidence, Marianne. It’s been many years, but finally you’ve returned.’
My parents were murdered. My life stolen. The next time Captain Adler and I meet, I’m going to kill him.
‘Ren?’ Adler says, the betrayal an unpleasant surprise. ‘I’m sorry, Captain,’ Ren says. ‘Your time has come to an end.’
‘I am more than ready to sacrifice my life if it means the end of yours. It was always my plan. I do not fear death, Adler. Do you?’
‘Scared?’ I say, wanting to taunt him. ‘Of you, Marianne? You don’t have what it takes.’ My foot rests on a cutlass that’s fallen from a dead man’s grasp, and I flick it up and catch it, holding it in my left hand. Now I’m the one with two weapons. ‘My name is Mairin of the house of Vultura. Star of the Sea. And I have exactly what it takes.’
The air seems to flee my body and as I hit the deck my eyes meet Bronn’s, our faces at the same level. I thought I was ready for death, but the sadness that consumes me is more painful than my wound.
‘Captain Adler is dead!’ Ren’s voice penetrates the air and the fighting breaks up. ‘All hail our new captain.’ A new captain who’s bleeding out all over the deck.
remain on my knees but return my hands to stem the bleeding. I’m aware that everyone’s staring at me, shocked by what they’ve just witnessed. Their old captain is dead and their new one just commanded the water raptors to leave us alone,
I beckon Ren over to me, and barely whisper my orders to him. ‘Secure all the Snakes who chose to ally with Adler. I’ll decide what to do with them if I live long enough.’
‘Don’t you die on me,’ he says as he pulls a strap tight round my waist. ‘Do you hear? If I have to live, so do you.’ I manage a weak smile. ‘Sounds fair.’ ‘That was a hell of a shot,’ he says. ‘Grace would have been proud.’ And Bronn kisses me firmly on the forehead before attending to his own injuries.
My true name will stay tucked into my heart along with my love for the parents I never knew, my link to the life I could have had and will never know.
The man by my side is my opposite and my reflection. The dark to my light. The light to my dark. And everything in between. But I’m not sure either of us could survive the heartbreak of being together yet being apart. Love is not enough.
‘So I’ve been meaning to ask, do I call you “majesty” or “captain” now?’ ‘I think . . . both.’ He laughs. ‘You’ll want me to salute and curtsy next.’ ‘But of course.’
‘What will happen to us when we return home?’ he says, serious now. ‘When you marry Torin?’ I turn to face him, wanting to comfort him, but I can’t. I only have honesty, and it’s not always kind. ‘I don’t know.’ He nods, a shadow falling across his face. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but he knows anything else would be a lie. ‘Then I’ll wait for my orders, Captain.’
gentle breeze stirs across the sea from the East and I close my eyes. Let the wind bring what it will. I’m ready for anything.
