Page 182 of Between Despair and Hope

“Alright,Hawley.Keep working your magic,” I said as I laid back down. “Don’t read into it though,” I added, after noticing the hint of a smile at his lips.

A roar from a dragon woke me hours later, Nixy’s hands the reason for the best slumber I’d had the entire time I’d been on the ship. I’d barely opened my eyes when, just a meter above my head, a grappling hook burst through the hull, sending ocean water and splinters of wood flying at my face. I screeched, covering my eyes, and two sets of hands were pulling me backwards off my bed.

“Fucking hell!” Brenna’s voice called out as Nixy turned me around to look at my face. Hyše screeched, and I heard the tremendous flap of her wings as she must have taken flight. Shouts and screams followed by clashes of metal followed swiftly after.

“I can’t see shit,” Brenna murmured, backing away from the porthole window. “It has to be pirates, right?” she whispered, voice trembling. I’d only ever seen her this afraid once, back on Varmeer. The sway of the lantern above us cast a ghastly glow over her features, and she looked ill.

“You think it’s the ship that’s been following us?” I asked. It had kept a distance, just on the horizon, but the gulf had always been a massive thoroughfare so it wasn’t too strange. Beau hadn’t worried, so I tried not to either. But now? I regretted not being more vocal about my discontent. Loud thuds resounded on the other side of the door to our quarters, thumps of boots hitting the ground after leaping down the ladder.

“Mairin,” I breathed, realizing only then she was already part of the fray.

And then I heard her sing.

“Gods, no,” I uttered on a breath. Pulling my breeches and boots on faster than I ever had in my life, I reached for my sword and was at the door within a moment.

“What are you going to do, La—Your Highness? You can’t go out there.” Brenna grabbed my arm, pulling me away from the door, and I shook my wrist free from her grasp.

“Awful convenient time to treat me like royalty, don’t you think, Bren? Fuck off.”

I moved forward, grateful to see Nixy already armed and ready to follow.

“Slit your throat,” I ordered the first pirate I saw, blocking my way to the merrow whose call I could not resist. A shaft of moonlight from a grate above her shone down across her hair, glowing a dark burnt-orange in the low light. She hadn’t made it far, still singing from the row of hammocks she’d been sleeping in, head tilted back and voice clear. I was careful to avoid looking at her face, not wanting to be swept up into the song.

Nixy shoved past me, slipping a dagger into the back of one of the attacker’s necks as the merrow’s call distracted him. I didn’t know what to do—go find Beau or make my way over to Mairin. My instinct told me to go to her, but she was holding her own and Beau might need me. Glancing over at her only the once, I followed Brenna, climbing the ladder to find our ship’s captain.

It was a mistake.

A sturdy woman slammed Brenna backwards, holding her in place with a thick, muscular frame. About to compel her to let go, I felt a knife press against the side of my throat, and I froze.

“Well, hello there, Ven. Nice to see you again.”

Fiona.

Gods. Damned. Fiona.

Or that’s what I thought her name was.

It had been nearly a decade since I’d seen her—fucked her. D and I had been visiting Olistos one year when my brother had been in Nythyr. Olistos first and Lucia’s tomb after. That had been the plan. But we’d been waylaid by this ruthless little bitch.

She didn’t look much different at all. Shorter than me with alabaster skin and stormy eyes, her dark brown hair was still a mass of curls she did little to tame. But now, with her tricorn hat atop it, she actually looked like what she was.

A fucking thief. A pirate. A gods damn miscreant.

She’d played me well. Dewalt too, but I had been her mark. The absolute fool I was. I hadn’t thought about it in a long time, but I sat here, reliving every moment which led to the biggest confrontation my mother and I had ever had—when we lost an entire shipment of Nythyrian wine, meant to last for gods only knew how long. And Fiona had been the reason for it.

Shaped like an hourglass, her body had earned not only my attention but Nixy’s too. He’d been so angry she went to bed with me—until he found out what happened after. Then he’d laughed until Dewalt, still naked from chasing after her that morning, smacked him over the back of the head.

Tied against the mast between Brenna and Nixy, a chain of basalt wrapped over us, there was nothing any of us could do except wait for the fray to finish. When Mairin’s song stopped abruptly, I leaned forward the best I could, retching.

“That’s not, fuck—is that the wench from—”

“Shut your gods damned mouth, Nix,” Brenna murmured.

“It’s her,” I croaked, stifling my cry of rage when I saw two people dragging Mairin up the ladder, the bag over her head unable to hold all of her long, fiery hair. After hauling her up, the merrow was dropped rather gently on the ground between me and Fiona. I tugged against my bindings, desperate to get to her. Because of how carefully the pirate put her down, I didn’t have fear about her being alive, but I stilled, watching for an intake of breath. Only when I saw her chest rise and fall did I allow myself to look up at who carried her. One was the muscular woman who’d slammed into Brenna, and the other was one of the most beautiful people I’d ever seen.

“Tetty wears a rune, drawn on them by a seaborn with elf-blood. They can’t be compelled,” Fiona said, a smirk on her face as she offered an explanation I didn’t care to hear, nodding toward the attractive pirate. I knew the compulsion aspect was supposed to be the shocking part, but the fact a seaborn had mated with an elf was more surprising to me. The seaborn had always been purists, not wanting their blood to dilute at all—by order of their queen. My eyes slid over to Tetty, expecting to see evidence of the rune plastered on their forehead, but it was clearly hidden. Tall and narrow, they walked over to the bitch I once knew, leaning down for a kiss as they tugged Fiona close. They had cropped blond hair, half of it pulled back on top of their head, and Fiona reached over to them, running a soft hand down their cheek. The intimacy between them was clear.

“And you know I can’t be compelled,” Fiona said, a grin kicking up her lips. “You remember that well, don’t you?”

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