Page 15 of The Demons in the Deep: Extended Edition
“Bones and bilgewater, no!” Flay exclaimed. “She’s not for the slave market. This is Kestra. We—that is, I—she—I’m very fond of her.”
The Magnate’s expression darkened again. “Is that so?”
“It is.”
Kestra shifted nearer to Flay, until she could feel the warmth of his arm through her sleeve.
“Where are you from, girl?” asked the Magnate.
“Meroa,” Kestra said. Flay had taught her an array of facts about Meroa, and she held them ready in her mind, in case the Magnate decided to question her further. But he appeared to lose interest in her immediately. Instead he cast the jewelry onto his desk with a jingling thump.
“And theWind’s Favor?” he said. “How is my ship?”
“Your ship,” said Flay evenly, “was damaged in a storm. She’s listing—got a few holes in her. She’ll need repairs, and—and a fresh sheet ofasthore. We lost one of the armor plates.”
The Magnate’s voice deepened, vibrating with barely suppressed rage. “You lost an entire sheet ofasthore.”
“It was a bad storm. You know how the Lady Ocean can throw a tantrum. First she’s wet for you, and then she kicks you out of bed.”
Kestra narrowed her eyes, glancing up at Flay. He wore a lecherous grin, but she could see the tension hardening his jaw.
Graves the physik spoke up, his voice slithering between father and son. “There were rocks, my lord. The Captain tried his best, but with only one hand—”
Kestra wanted to punch the physik in the stomach. His words sounded like a defense, but they were a betrayal.
“You stood at the helm and steered through rocks in a storm with one hand?” The Magnate glared at Flay.
“Yes, sir.”
The Magnate stepped forward and clapped Flay on the shoulder so hard Kestra felt the reverberation through her own body. Then the Magnate began to laugh, a deep roll of merriment. “Steered through rocks. In a storm. With one hand.”
He kept laughing, and Flay laughed too, strained at first, then relieved.
And then the Magnate caught Flay by the throat and bore him backward, slamming his whole body against the paneled wall. Kestra cried out and darted forward, but one of the guards grabbed her from behind and pinned her arms.
An image crashed into her brain—Flay drifting in the dark under the ocean, bound and helpless while the mermaid queen Acrid crunched through the bone of his forearm and bit off his hand.
Kestra lurched and writhed in the guard’s grip. With a hoarse scream, she kicked backward, smashing her boot into the guard’s shin and then grinding her heel into his foot. Another twisting wrench, and she broke free, lunging for the Magnate.
His great hand flew out, smacking into Kestra’s cheekbone. The slap wasn’t a heavy one, but it startled her. She sucked in a sharp breath.
“Don’t meddle in family matters, girl,” the Magnate said. “Sit, or I’ll have you shackled.”
The guard Kestra had kicked seized her arms again and forced her into a chair, where she sat seething, her eyes blurred with angry tears.
Flay was gasping through his father’s choke-hold, but he did not claw at the Magnate’s hand or try to resist.
“You think I don’t know how you feel about the family business?” the Magnate snarled, his nose a finger’s-breadth from Flay’s. “You believe you’re better than your brother, better than me, because you refuse to be part of the trade that has given youeverything?” He rammed Flay harder against the wall for emphasis. “You bring me a broken ship, weeks late, with naught but your regular cargo and a handful of sparkly bits, and you think I willwelcomeyou? You think you can escape fair penalty for what you’ve cost me?”
The tears in Kestra’s eyes overflowed, streaming down her cheeks.
Flay had warned her something like this might happen. He’d also told her that the Magnate’s rages were short-lived, and that neither of them would be in life-threatening danger. But as she looked at Flay’s tortured face, at his blue eyes blown wide with panic, she wished with all her being that they hadn’t come to Stragnoag. They should have run with the ship, anywhere else, even if the Magnate sent people after them.
“You are a captain no longer,” snarled the Magnate. “You’ll serve your brother Feral as a man before the mast, if he’ll have you aboard his vessel. TheWind’s Favorwill go to a more worthy captain, and your crew will be sold in the slave market.”
Kestra’s world spun and slanted. She could not breathe.
A new voice, nearly as deep as the Magnate’s but years younger, sounded from the doorway. “Now that seems a bit extreme, Father, don’t you think?”
