Page 17 of Daughter of the Dark Sea
Kora perched on a small wooden stool in the walkway between the two rows of cells. A large, candle-lit iron lantern illuminated beside her on a rounded, rickety wooden tablesplattered with old, dried blood. It cast a daunting red hue in the pit, shadowing the prisoners. A ladder ascending to the secured, light-proof hatch lingered at the end of the walkway.
Heavy, robust shackles clamped their ankles together. Connected to impenetrable chains leading to bolts in the hull walls, reinforced with Talmon-grade steel. She lightly fingered her dual-sabre blades delicately placed on the table.
Kora drew a deep breath before speaking, the memory of their previous pirate hunts rising from the individual cells surrounding her. She remembered every single one . . . and they all had begged for their lives.
Unlike these two.
“You boys lost some weight since I last saw you.”
A harsh, cold, and indifferent persona consumed her, the mask for her role as captain sliding over her face. No matter how long she tried to put this off, she eventually had to come down here and question the prisoners—and hoped that was all she had to do.
Blake had unsuccessfully pried any information from them, and they’d sailed past the scorching coast of Scarlet Bay half a day ago. Time was running out. Stormkeep Fortress was less than a few days away. A few more days of freedom.
Stony silence greeted Kora.
The pirates blinked rapidly, adjusting to the small light from the lantern. Their white shirts and navy pants were filthy, their bare feet wallowing in puddles of urine. She wrinkled her nose at the disgusting smell. The males had losta lotof weight, in facttoomuch weight from a few days of starvation. Matching brown eyes, sunken deep into their sockets, were lined by gaunt cheeks and ringed with shadows. She shifted the lantern, squinting into the darkness, devouring their features.
“Separate them,” she ordered.
Blake’s dark, brooding presence emerged from the shadows of the opposite cells, and the prisoners’ eyes widened simultaneously, suddenly clutching at each other in despair.
“No!” they screamed over and over. “Don’t come near us!” Their voices were hoarse from dehydration and silence.
As Blake unlocked the cell, with two of his favoured guards hovering close behind, the pirates kicked back violently, clasping at each other’s thin frames.
“Put one in the cells near the hold. They can’t see or speak to each other.”
Kora casually sat back as the guards unshackled the closest prisoner, dragging him towards the hold adjacent to the ladder. His wide, grog-blossomed face twisted; rotten teeth surrounded by ginger stubble gnashing at their hands. He screamed and clawed, spitting curses at Kora, Blake, and her crew until his voice was a faint echo from the brig, eventually silenced with the creak of iron bars. Blake melted back into the shadows behind her with a menacing stare at the remaining pirate.
“How did ye know we were brethren?” His raspy voice set Kora’s teeth on edge.
“Not just brothers,” Kora leaned forward. “Twins.”
The pirate mirrored her, leaning on his knees in curiosity, narrowing his soil-brown eyes. His features were sharp and angular. A chiselled jaw lined with a short, thick, ginger beard. Matching long hair was slicked back with sweat and dirt, and matted into thick locks, adorned with wooden charms.
“You both have a tattoo on your arm in the native language,meaningtwin.” Kora motioned to the smattering of ink on his left forearm. A singular letter from the old Devanian languageglared against the red welts on his wrist.
“You speak Devanian?” he asked in the native tongue in which he was expertly fluent. Kora waved him off, pretending not to understand.
“Let’s not get sidetracked,” she replied, in the common language.
Blake simmered with intensity, and she was sure he was brooding over his inability to notice they were brothers—identical ones at that. Although . . . his torture techniques took place in the darkness, where he thrived most. So, she’d let him off this time.
“We arrive at Stormkeep Fortress in three days,” she announced. The pirate scoffed and sat back, half his body hidden in the shadows of the pit. “It’d be in your best interest to answer our questions before we make port.”
The pirate blankly stared, his mouth a tight grim line, his right hand lightly tracing the twin tattoo.
“Have you been in contact with Galen?”
Silence continued.
They stared each other down for several minutes in deafening quiet. The stench of him made her eyes water, and his body was black and blue, peppered with lance burns. Signs Blake had attempted torturous tactics to force him to sing. Kora grinded her teeth in irritation.
After a few more moments of infuriating silence, she retrieved a circular cloth-bound shape on the table and unwrapped it carefully. The pirate’s attention was drawn to it instantly, and he expressed ravenous desperation as Kora revealed an enticing red apple.
She plucked one of her precious daggers, and began slicing pieces off, popping them into her mouth slowly. She savoured every bite, and the pirate swallowed audibly.
“Well, we can assume you’ve been in contact with them,” she murmured between bites. “We saw the treasure payment. The more important question ishow.”
