Inherit the Flame

Chapter Forty-Three

Coss insisted she was being paranoid, but what in the Black did he know? The crew avoided her. Barely spoke to her. Kept their eyes averted every time she passed. She might be a sick woman in both bone and brain, but she wasn’t stupid. Never that. Paranoia ran in her blood but it didn’t own her. Nothing did. Not even the land that’d birthed her.

She reveled in the silence of the light step she’d spent her whole life cultivating as she paced back and forth across her cabin, back and forth, hands clasped tight behind the small of her back, head pointed down. She wasn’t foolish enough to risk catching another glimpse of her naked face in the mirror, not after what she’d seen last time. Her mother’s face, staring back at her, young again and eyes bright with the madness that had taken her grandmother to her grave. Sweating and raving and beating her breasts.

Pelkaia stopped pacing, realized she’d forced her hands up and was pulling at her hair, clumps of dirty blonde strung between her fingers. She flicked them to the floor and strode over them. Silent. Silent. She was a hunter, an agent of revenge. In one night she’d brought Aransa to its knees for what its officials had let happen to her son. Why should she shy away now, now, when the ultimate author of her son’s death – the real author, the woman who had signed her damn name to the paper – was near at hand?

There was nothing for it. Her crew was against her. Thought her mad. Wouldn’t so much as lift a finger to help her. Their laziness made them complacent. No, worse, implicated – yes, she was sure that was the word. In doing nothing they were as much a part of Thratia’s schemes as her militia was.

Maybe, if she could prove to Coss that they were working against her, working for that bitch Thratia, then Coss would see. Would come over to her side of things. Beg forgiveness. Help her knock Thratia from the sky and into the dirt.

The obvious choice was Laella. That girl was pure Valathean aristocracy, though she did her best to hide it around Pelkaia. But you couldn’t hide who you were from her, oh no. Pelkaia had made a life of studying the mannerisms of others so that she could copy them. Could pick and choose what she needed to construct a new, false persona or imitate an old one. Laella was good, but no one was good enough to hide from Pelkaia. She saw every twitch, every hidden smirk, every lofty mannerism. That girl was full of herself. And hiding something. Didn’t she sneak off the ship at all hours?

Where was she now?

Chill night air blasted against her skin as she opened the door, the scent of ash and fire heavy on the air. Pelkaia threw an annoyed scowl at the sky. Her crew, all of them, milled around the deck of the Larkspur, peering over the rails, pointing and talking in low, worried voices.

“What’s happened?” she demanded, stalking up to the rail to stand alongside Coss. He shifted his coat from his shoulders and settled it over hers. She hadn’t even realized she’d strode out into the night in little more than her leggings and shift. But then, half the crew looked like they’d been rustled out of bed, too – mussed hair and coats thrown over nightclothes. Had something awakened her? She couldn’t even remember.

“Trouble with the firemount by the palace. Had a small blowout a few marks back, but seems to have settled down now.”

“Thratia.”

He raised both brows at her. “Really? And what would she have to do with a perfectly natural occurrence?”

“Don’t be daft. She has the Honding. I told him to leave this place before he did harm. How bad?”

Coss looked away from her, hunkering his shoulders so that he leaned slightly back from her side. “Hard to say. Relief’s been at it all night. Some of us wanted to go lend a hand, but looters come out on nights like this. Didn’t want to leave the ship unwatched.”

Pelkaia stifled a need to point out that such decisions were hers to make. She’d had her fill of arguing with Coss as of late, and though she balked at his supposition that she had grown untrustworthy and unwell, a tiny piece of her, some calm core separated from the manic desperation that hummed through her, wondered if he were right. If she should just hand over the ship’s control to him, and seek help. Or lay down to die. Was it too soon for that?

She’d forgotten how old she was, again. That couldn’t be a good sign.

The dock they’d hired berthage at creaked as a single pair of footsteps pattered toward them. Laella. Her hands were white with dust, her hair and robes streaked with more of the same. In the faint lantern light of the docks, a heavy mask of makeup had been smeared across her features, sweat and grit mingling on her skin in sticky clumps. She walked like a woman exhausted, a woman defeated, but not a woman who’d been injured.

Pelkaia’s eyes narrowed. That the girl had been out was no surprise, but that she’d been out on a night when Thratia’s little demonstration was made, well. Thratia knew damned well the type of people living aboard the Larkspur. Though the Dame had given them express permission to stay in the city, there was nothing stopping Thratia from reaching out to a wayward deviant who spent more time off the Larkspur than on it.

Wouldn’t Thratia just love that, too? Twisting the mind of a woman Pelkaia had saved. Stealing a human being’s loyalties from the woman who’d taken her ship. Laella’d be the perfect mark. Leaving all the time, already closely tied to Valathean nobility. Gods beneath the dunes, the two might even know each other through previous social circles. Laella’s family had been high-born, rich mercers. The kind of people Thratia loved to use.

Her fingers curled protectively around the Larkspur’s rail. There would be no spy of Thratia’s aboard her ship.

“Where have you been?” she demanded when the young woman had mounted the gangplank.

Laella’s step stuttered as she dragged herself the rest of the way up onto the deck.

Coss moved toward her, hesitated, then stopped. “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine,” Laella said.

“What happened?” Jeffin piped up.

“Where have you been?”

All heads snapped to her, eyes wide and white in the pale light. Laella reached up, tried to straighten an ashy braid, and quickly gave up. “Wading through the pits,” she said. “It’s a nightmare down there.”

“What happened?” Coss pressed.

“One side of that firemount – I don’t know what it’s called. The big one by the palace. Anyway, it went up. Not too hard. Just a puff, I’d guess, but it was enough to kick off a landslide that took out half the residences of the palace district. I was in the theater district when it happened. Saw the whole thing, close as one could without being crushed, anyway.”

“You’re certain you’re all right?” Coss pressed.

She nodded, but when Essi dragged a crate over to her she sat down like it was the plushest chair she’d ever touched ass to.

“Lucky place to be,” Pelkaia said dryly. “Why were you there?”

Laella stared hard at her for a long moment. “In the theater district? For the theater.”

Essi snickered. Pelkaia cut her a look and the little brat shut right up. “Seems you’ve been going there a lot, lately.”

“Not like there’s much to do here,” she snapped.

Pelkaia stepped toward her. Coss put a hand on her shoulder but she shrugged it off. He’d kept her from tackling this treacherous girl long enough.

“Bored, are you? Filling your time with other ventures, then? Ones that put you in safe range of one of Thratia’s little demonstrations?”

“What in the ass-licking pits are you talking about?” Laella shook her head in denial, and though she was playing tired and exasperated to all those aboard, Pelkaia could see the truth in the details of her expression. The tension along her jaw, the flicker of irritation in her eyes. She felt challenged, cornered. The girl was hiding something, and Pelkaia was pretty damn sure she knew what that was.

“You expect me to believe that all your ventures off this ship have been innocent – what – tourism?”

Laella’s eyes widened. “You think I’m working for Ganal, don’t you?”

“Do you deny it?”

She barked a near-hysteric laugh. “Skies fucking above, Captain, you really have gone off your nut.”

A few snickers from the crew. Pelkaia shot them all a hard look, and they weren’t so quick to quiet this time around. “You traitorous fucking bastards. I dragged you – all of you! – from the edge of death, and you think I’ve lost my mind? This girl hasn’t been traipsing around the city changing up her appearance every time for nothing.”

Coss swore. Laella sucked in a sharp, angry breath. “You’ve been following me?”

“I have a right to know where my people are.”

She stood in one fluid movement, whatever energy skulking around the city had taken out of her flooding back in one great rush. “Fuck you, and your twisted menagerie, Pelkaia Teria. You’re a paranoid old woman with a hard-on for vengeance. You didn’t save us. You collected us, and I for one am sick of being a token on your insane gameboard. Do. Not. Look. For. Me.”

“Lael–” Essi reached a hand toward the woman, but she had already turned and was halfway down the gangplank. Pelkaia snorted.

“Good riddance.”

Coss shook his head, long and slow. One by one, her crew went to their beds and locked their doors, leaving her alone on the deck, staring at the ashy footprints Laella had left behind, shaking as the mania that’d gripped her earlier faded to little more than shivering exhaustion.