The knife Kye had used to cut his yarn was in my boot.
With a stolen glance at the pirates, I shifted to sit on my knees. I could feel it pressing almost painfully into my ankle, but the hard steel remained out of my reach.
The three of them dropped into silence, staring down the ravine. I thrust my weight forward, arching my back, and the cold handle brushed my fingertips. Kriska spat, pointing at the trail. The stretch strained my shoulders, forcing me to grit my teeth. Then, the handle wiggled loose, and I managed to pull it out.
Success.
I sighed a short breath of relief.
Demyan’s eyes cinched to mine as though they’d been tugged by a string. The pirate muttered under his breath, and Burian whipped around to face me. He grinned, and I wrapped my fingers around the knife handle, settling my weight back.
Burian crossed to me in four strides. “Malá ryba,”he tsked, grabbing the fabric at my chest and yanking me to my feet. “We didn’t check you for weapons.”
He leaned over my shoulder, one hand hard on my wrists as he wrestled the knife out of my grasp. Inches from his chin, I bared my teeth and lunged for him, snapping at dry air.
“Retie her hands to the tree.” Kriska sent the command over his shoulder, not bothering to watch. The world spun, andsuddenly I was shoved face-first into rough bark. I growled, rocking back on my heels, striking with whatever I could. A shoulder, an elbow. Burian’s voice laughed in my ear. He pushed his side into my spine, using my own knife to cut my binds.
My skin still burned from the shield weed ash, but the strength in my muscles had returned. Either that, or it was adrenaline coursing through my body that drove my hands as I reached back and raked my nails across his face. He shrieked, stumbling enough that I broke free of his grasp, and my boots pumped over the roots of the tree—until I ran straight into the hard line of Demyan’s body.
“Hlupák,” Demyan spat at Burian, grabbing me by the throat. I reached to scratch at his face as well, but someone caught my arms behind my back. Demyan’s fingers tightened, and I sputtered. “More cat than fish,” he drawled, gazing down at me without humor as he walked me backwards, forcing me once more against the tree.
Wooden walls, wooden walls, wooden walls—
I struggled for breath as they tied my hands around the trunk, fixing the rope to opposite branches so taut I thought I might rip in two. My chest pressed into the rough bark, and my knees threatened to give out as I stood gasping for air.
Shrinking, shrinking, shrinking—
The sound of ripping fabric met my ears, the tug and pull of my dress followed by loose slack over my body. Burian cut through my stays with my own moon-forsaken knife. He pulled my homespun dress apart piece by piece, shifting it out from between me and the tree, leaving me to stand in the same satin dress I’d worn while chained to the wall ofDarkness’s Hourglass.Hands slid violently down my sides, snaking around my waist to feel across my front, squeezing and prodding.
“I don’t have any other knives, you stupid, moon-damned pirate,” I seethed. He yanked off my boots, feeling his way frommy ankle to my thighs. I threw my hips to the side as his hands drifted higher, willing to shred my bare skin against the jagged bark if it meant evading his touch, but Kriska’s voice cut through, interrupting his exploration.
“Burian,” the pirate captain snapped. “Nechajte rybu na pokoji. Vezmi svoj mec a vylez na ten strom.”
Burian stood and ran his hands through my tangled hair, pulling at the strands before stalking away. Heart pounding in my ears, anger pooling from every inch of my skin, I stared hard at the other side of the ravine. Kriska’s face came into view directly in front of me.
“Will he come looking for you?” the captain asked casually, leaning his back into the trunk as he turned my knife in his hands.
I ignored him, though his words repeated in my head, a weight in my chest shifting loose.
Kye was alive.
“Couldn’t manage to kill him? How inconvenient for you,” I ground out through a curled lip, unwilling to even look at him. Was Kye what they were standing around waiting for?
He didn’t face me, anyway. Pressing the center of his back into the tree, he rested against my hand, which was beginning to go numb, and took a bite from an apple I suspected he’d stolen from Sero’s saddle.
Juice flecked my cheek as he chewed. “Will he? We’re close to the mountains. He could just scurry home if he wanted.” Kriska mimicked feet running through the air with his fingers.
Would he? My stomach gave a nervous twist.
Is what a mistake, Leihani?
This. Us.
“Probably,” I snapped, my eyes fixed hard on the bark. “Now that I’m not slowing him down. Why do you care? You talkedenough about killing him on the ship. You don’t need him to complete your agreement.”
“Because I don’t need him tracking us back to the ship. And nothing stays where you left it as reliably as a dead body.” Apple crunched in Kriska’s mouth as he stretched it in a slow smile. “When you lie to a man,malá ryba,keep your anger hidden. Conceal it under a face that does not care. You might as well tell me the truth with how skilled you are at hiding your fury. Would you like me to show you?”
I glared into the empty air, and he gathered my long hair in his hand, twisting it around his palm. He adjusted his weight, leaning only his shoulder into the tree and forcing my eyes to meet his.
