Messenger hawks were the only way to communicate to land, or other fleets, once they were out at sea. When did Blake have time to send a hawk afterthatnight? And where had he stored the bird upon the ship? The faintest whiff of medicinal herbs drifted from the paper.
“No, no, no . . .” Jack repeatedly moaned. “Anywhere but there!”
“You can try your luck out in the desert, but I’d say you’d last two days.” Erick’s calculating gaze absorbed Jack’s dishevelled, weakened state and he shrugged.
“Kora,” Jack begged. “Please, you know I-I didn’t do anything. It was all Silas—”
“How do we know you’re not Silas?” Erick posed.
“What?” Jack whispered, his jaw dropping.
“You are identical twins. You could bepretendingto be Jack Flint.”
Kora dragged her stare away from Jack’s sickeningly pleading face. The face identical to Silas’. Silas, who’d murdered Finlay with a simple snap. The sound still haunted her mind.
Erick tapped his foot on the edge of the wooden dock, counting down the seconds to Jack’s sentence. He read Blake’s note out loud. It stated Silas had attacked him, murdered several guards—including Finlay—and his own brother Jack Flint, in a fit of pirate-driven rage.
Her chest pinched at the twist of truth. Blake had orchestrated it well, ensuring both brothers would meet their untimely demise, as deserving of any pirate, and absolved her of any involvement in what happened. It was an unfortunate accident. A wild, vicious pirate set loose on the loyal crew ofHell’s Serpent—so wild that he killed his own kind.
“That . . . that’s not true,” Jack stammered. “I’m Jack!” He desperately tried to capture Kora’s gaze, and she prayed that hewouldn’t begin speaking Devanian. “Kora, please! I did what you asked.”
Erick’s observant stare swivelled to her, a question lingering within it. The weight of it was crushing, of the years of training her into the person she was today. The depth of the debt she owed this male, for saving her life from the kind that snivelled beside her, was an infinite pool.
“You killed Silas! Tell them—tell them what you did you murderous little bi—”
“Quiet!” A guard backhanded Jack, and his pleas ceased as he spat blood. It mixed with the pure, pale sand by near her feet, and she edged away from the tainted grains.
“Are you calling an honourable, commanding officer of the armada . . . a liar?” Erick’s tone turned bone-chillingly cold.
Jack’s jaw twitched, focusing his blazing brown hateful stare on her. Their pact bounced through her skull. Another promise broken. Another failure. After moments of agonising silence passing between them, Jack opened his mouth, his gums bloody, and drawled one sentence in Devanian. “This isn’t you.”
The guards attacked, jostling him for speaking the forbidden tongue of the ancients, and Erick’s attention curiously shifted to Kora. It was time for her to show where she stood, within the face of the council’s decision.
“Someone has to pay for his crimes.” She swallowed, meeting Erick’s eyes, and he nodded at her approvingly. The crushing weight on her shoulders smothered her so much it drowned out the pain. A cool numbness sweeping over her as her expression schooled into neutrality.
Jack cried out as Erick ordered him to be taken to a prison wagon, to begin the long journey southwards to King’s Cove Guard, crossing Achlys Channel to the small, barren Dead Islands housing Deadwater Prison.
“You’ll regret this!” Jack brokenly yelled, as the guards dragged him towards the horse-drawn, iron-barred wagon, stationed by the arched fortress entrance. As they slammed the door, locking Jack within, he cried out once more, his voice cracking. “Don’t trust them! They’re lying to you! Find me when you no longer believe!”
Something within Kora cracked along with him, and the droplet of shame threatened to slither in and turn into somethingelse, but she held it at bay in Erick’s presence.
Jack’s ranting cries faded into the distance as the prison wagon pulled away, the clip-clop of hooves drowning out any other horrible sounds, and Erick placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She exhaled, letting the tension flow out of her like an ocean wave. The sea waters gently lapped up at the edge of the docks, splashing onto her boots.
“You’ve been gone a while,” he murmured as they faced her ship. Soldiers and crew worked together, hauling the cargo off. Shortly afterwards, the two gleaming golden chests from Kora’s quarters appeared.
“I had reasons,” she replied, as the moonstone and ruby chests were carried past them towards the fortress vaults. She suspected they were lighter than expected, after her crew had been granted their small share to secretly take home.
“It appears so.” Erick curiously gazed after the chests, and Kora retrieved her ledgers from her brown satchel slung over her shoulder. She passed them to Erick, keeping her satchel open for him to peer inside and glimpse several shining Galenite trinkets. His brows shot up instantly.
“We have somethingsto discuss,” she spoke in hushed tones. “Not here, though.”
Erick reveredHell’s Serpent, huffing at the broken main mast, torn sails, cracked wooden panels across the hull, and new scars from arrows and lances smattering across the body.
Two figures stumbled down the walkway plank. One with raven-black hair, the other a gleaming grey. Blake hunched over, supported by Koji, as he helped him down onto the dock, his face tense with pain as he attempted to straighten in Erick’s presence. His jerkin was half buttoned, allowing his wound to breathe, but he still had his cutlass sword sheathed at his side, causing him to lean from the weight.
“Yes, it seems we do,” Erick observed, as a wounded Blake hobbled towards them, leaving Koji behind to assemble his medicinal belongings from the ship.
“Commodore Cadell.” Blake halted, weakly attempting a half bow, gritting his teeth from the exertion. The urge to reach out and help him was so overpowering, that Kora had to clench one hand over the other to prevent herself from rushing to his aid.
