Page 65 of Vengeance of the Pirate Queen

“There’s another dead person,” I say. “Only this one is inside some sort of ice coffin. And he’s … not a skeleton.”

Far from it. His skin is pristine. Smooth yet hardened, like a boy who’s just become a man. His eyes are closed, each of his dark lashes visible underneath the inches of ice that separate us. His torso is bare, his legs in some sort of leather breeches. He doesn’t wear any boots. The man is well built, with tanned white skin, brown hair shorn close to his scalp. His jaw looks sharp enough to cut the glass around it. His nose comes to a soft point, and his brow is on the small side.

Why is he tanned if he’s in this place? Is this another prisoner who was captured? If so, why did they take the time to place him in a tomb? Andwhyis he still made of flesh while everyone else is made of bones?

“What is he, then?” Kearan asks.

“Looks like he was frozen minutes ago. His skin doesn’t look pale, like the dead. His cheeks have some pink to them. He looks … alive but in ice.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“I’m just telling you what I see.”

“Is there a lid to the ice coffin?”

“You want me to open him?”

“I’m just asking if it opens. I think it’s a valid question.”

I reach out a hand to touch the ice coffin, testing for a seam.

“Yes. It opens.”

He says nothing, and I say nothing.

After some deliberating, I announce, “I’m opening it. He looks like he’s still alive. Maybe he’s from theWanderer.”

“Be careful.”

As if I’d be anything else.

It takes both arms and bracing a leg against the wall, but eventually I’m able to shove at the icy lid. It skids loudly, until it lands on the ground and cracks into a few pieces. The noise doesn’t rouse the man in the tomb.

I reach for a blade and place it near his lips. It doesn’t come away foggy.

“He’s not breathing.”

“Maybe check for a pulse?”

Right. I reach down my free hand to the side of his neck.

The second my fingers touch his skin, his eyes open, which should be a good thing. Rousing him is exactly what I was trying to do.

Except those aren’t human eyes. They’re a blue as iridescent as a peacock’s feathers, and they’reglowing. My body floods with cold, and instinct moves the hand holding the knife.

I stab it right into his heart.

The blade doesn’t skim bone and sink into a soft organ. Instead, it makes a chinking sound as if I’ve struck metal.

And then the room before me disappears.

I peered into the room where my little sister slept, knowing it might bethelasttimeIsawhersweetface.Ialwayslikedtoseeherwhenshe slept,becauseitwastheonlytimeshewasn’tinpain.

She was twelve, and the doctors were sure she wouldn’t see thirteen.

UnlessIdidsomethingaboutit.

I had a plan. The ship would leave tomorrow, and there were already whispers about what we would find when we made port.

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