“Quiet,” she barks, still looking at me with a tilt of her head. “How much you got?”
I swallow hard, darting a look at all three of them. “Enough.”
I know better than to tell them how much or to reach for my coin pouch in front of anyone.
A smirk creases her face. “Not stupid, then. That’s good.”
I can hear the steady splashes through the water, and I cut another nervous glance over my shoulder, seeing the man getting closer, though it’s clear he’s not much of a swimmer.
After another moment, Mara says, “You pay for passage, but you won’t be idle, neither. You’ll scrub the floorboards every day till we get to Second Kingdom. We need a new scrubber anyway.”
My eyes widen and my lips part in surprise.
Second Kingdom.
I’ve never been to the southernmost part of Orea, but I know that the desert land is scarce on rain and it’s an ocean away. Just the thought of the sun and the distance is enough to make my heart leap.
“You’ll take me? You’re a captain?” I’ve never seen a woman captain before, and I can’t help but think that this really was divined by the goddesses. That it was meant to be that I should run now, when I could land in her little boat.
Yet that thought is solidified when she nods her head at a ship in the distance. “Aye. She’s mine.”
My gaze follows hers, only to lock onto cerulean blue sails with a billowing sun.
Hopeful tears flood into my eyes. I’m leaving. I’m actually leaving.
Hock sighs and drops hold of my arm. “I’ll take care of the fish.”
I turn just as Zakir’s man reaches the back of the boat. I flinch away as his arms come up and he tries to hoist himself inside, but Hock spins around, grabs an extra oar, and then smashes it into the man’s head.
The goon cries out, falling back into the ocean with a splash and sputter. I watch the water nervously, but...he doesn’t come back up again.
With a satisfied nod, Hock simply sits back down with the oar, while the third man pulls a pipe from his pocket and starts to smoke.
“Unless you wanna take a swim and go back, I suggest you sit your ass down, girl,” Mara says.
Instantly, I jerk down onto the floor of the boat, my movements rocking it slightly. She and Hock row, while I pant with breath that doesn’t quite seem to settle in my lungs.
The last of the sunset bleeds away into shades of gray, stealing the sun in a watercolor night. But I stare in disbelief at the dock, at Zakir’s second man standing there with his hands on his hips, watching as he gets smaller, watching as Derfort gets further away.
I have to pinch my arm to show myself that this is real. It’s taken ten years, but I’ve used the weight of a coin pouch to draw up like an anchor and let me sail away.
This time, when I turn my face into the ocean breeze, it doesn’t hold the stench of Derfort Harbor. It smells like a chance for me to start over somewhere new. A chance where I can be safe, far away from men like Zakir West and Barden East.
Because me, I’m going south.
Chapter 44
AUREN
Tufts of snow surround me.
This place looks familiar and yet, not. I look around with a frown marring my face, eyes squinting.
For as far as I can see, there’s nothing but an expanse of bright white snow blown in, resembling the sand dunes of Second Kingdom. Its curved crests slope up like raised bumps along chilled skin, though I feel no cold.
The sky above me is nearly as bright and colorless as the ground. My fingers dig into the snow, cupping a handful of it and letting it pour back out. When I glance down at my hand, my skin is gleaming, shining with light, though there is no sun to reflect it.
With my frown deepening, I try to get up from this snow that’s neither cold nor wet. Yet before I can try to push up, I hear a sound.