Our stolen gear hung from one arm, the knapsack heavy and the pirate sword hard against my baldric and belt. My eyes cut across the rock face, searching for a route easily taken by a man weighted down with an unconscious woman and fucking dogs at his heels. Each wasted second burned against my mind.
Fucking hurry up and choose, Laurier.
Shouts and jeers came from behind me, raising the hackles at my back.
A number of rocky shelves jutted from the cliffs at my left. To my right, a straight shot up the stone wall. It would be faster. But I wasn’t certain my shoulder could stand the climb. And if I dropped Maren, she’d free fall into bare rocks and sea.
An arrow flew over my head, embedding itself in dry rock.
Left.
I hissed as I shoved Maren up over the rocky edge first, fitting my fingers into the grooves and climbing up to join her. My right hand barely moved when I tried to bend it. I heaved her up with the flat of my forearm instead. Someone yelled behind me. Not at me—at another pirate.
They were arguing over something.
I lifted Maren again, growling as I pushed her up and over, catching her legs before she fell back on me.
Shards of glass whisked past my face, and I scrambled up to shield her as fire bloomed at my feet. I dared a glance back at the fucking bastards. They glowered at me from a distance, but they’d turned their boat away, heading north along the rocks. Away from us.
Panting, I watched them go.
The arrow bit into my shoulder with each breath. My wrist throbbed.
It was entirely possible I’d broken it while rearranging Burian’s face after he touched Maren. If nothing else, I could count on the pirate being fucking dead, sunk somewhere on the ocean floor along with the ugliest Aalto-damned ship I’d ever seen.
My gaze narrowed as I watched them change direction. The pirates knew these cliffs. Knew of a more favorable place to land. They’d probably catch us before we even made it to the top. Or sit around and wait to capture us. Hands buried in lichen and rock, I craned my neck as their rowboat vanished around a misty alcove. My eyes darted back down to the empty dinghy.
It was a risk.
A calculated, possibly stupid risk.
Was it worth it?
Fuck. I didn’t know for sure. But I thought it might be.
“Come on, Leihani.” I lifted her over my shoulder again, watching her bare feet drop over the edge of the rock. Shards of glass cascaded into the water below, sparkles catching dim starlight before the sea plucked them from the air and drank them in a fury.
She murmured softly as I set her into the dinghy, the sound giving me a moment’s pause. Wind clawed at her hair, ruffling the tattered edge of that satin dress. It scraped against me too, cold against my skin, my loose shirt flapping angrily against my chest.
Aalto in the fucking sky. I could stare at her later.
The boat wobbled as I launched myself in. I settled back over my seat, facing the alcove the pirates had disappeared behind and turning the nose of the boat south. The tide that had helped push me to shore worked against me now, batting at the side of the dinghy like a bored feline, sending the boat's aft into therocks. I pushed on, teeth bared and breath short, eyes never leaving the dark alcove.
Frozen stars twinkled overhead. In a pit of sand and rock, Maren groaned to life beside me.
I hadn’t carried her far. Perhaps if my shoulder and wrist hadn’t been injured, if I hadn’t been starved of nourishment and mobility for two weeks, I could have. But lugging the weight of a grown woman around while my knees threatened to give out and my shoulder screamed into the void of my mind—I’d rather set her down at my feet and take the fucking pirates head on with the sword.
She sat up slowly, blinking at the fire as if to clear fog from her head. I’d done little else than kneel behind rocks and watch our surroundings like a vigilant little fucking rodent peeping out of a tunnel in the ground. But I shifted at the sight of her moving body, drinking her in with relief.
“Where are we?” she rasped, midnight eyes roving the surrounding rock. I threw a last glance out towards the sea, but any sign of the pirates remained tucked into the dark.
For some reason, it almost made me more nervous.
“Rivea.” I muttered the word like a curse, letting my gaze trail back to her and watching the thoughts that had occupied my head for the last day and a half trickle into her cognition.
Neither of us had expected to escape the pirates. Not until the chance to do so presented itself. And when it had, there’d been little time to consider anything but taking that chance. But now, sitting in the quiet dark with only a slice of moonlight above, the thought crackled around us like quiet thunder.
We’d escaped one fucking enemy only to land ourselves in the house of another. The pirates might’ve wanted Maren, but if Rivea knew a Calderian prince trekked their countryside, there’d be a bounty on both our heads.
