Page 21 of Tempest

She flinched as the door at the end of the hall slammed, leaving her with nothing but echoes and the drip of water somewhere. Thankfully the torches still burned on the wall.

At least I will not rot in darkness, she thought, eyeing the boundaries of her cell. The floor was packed earth, the walls carved stone with the ceiling arcing overhead. There was a bench the length of the cell, big enough for three people to sleep on from end to end. Cat made sure to give the bucket in the corner a wide berth as she settled on the bench. Her fingers ran over grooves in the wood, tracing a few etched lines. Their meaning was clear.

Days counted.

Cat fought a wave of nausea and slid away. Most of the bodies still hanging in the streets were men. But a few women hung among them, pirates and otherwise. Cat knew their names too. She eyed the carving again, imagining who counted out her final hours down here in the cells.

For a moment, her head spun and she almost went to the loathsome bucket. Instead her fingers curled in her lap and a chill settled over her. It was an odd feeling in the Lyrian Sea, where even the months that should have been winter burned.

Captain Fell’s voice echoed in her head, his words haunting.

All who partake in piracy, on the sea or off it.

It was a hazy definition, casting as wide a net as Governor Osprin liked. In the first days, civilians and sailors alike went to the gallows, especially the poorest who could not pay for favors or secret passage off the island. Cat had not feared for herself. She had Captain Fell’s protection. She had given enough to save herself from the governor’s wrath. Or so she thought.

Cat traced the carved lines again. They burned as if cut into her own skin, and she leaned into the pain, chasing the punishment she deserved.

* * *

SHE WOKE TO a dry mouth and a sore back, her face pressed against something rough. Her curls spilled over one side of her face, tangled from a night of tossing and turning. For a moment, she wondered if she had fallen out of bed and onto the pine floor of her bedchamber. Then her eyes opened and the world sharpened. Instead of her room with its fresh-cut flowers and heavy curtains, she faced a jail cell.

And a bemused navy captain.

Cat sat up too quickly, her bones cracking. But anger burned away her aches, leaving only fury behind.

“I suppose you simply had to arrest me in the night and steal one last comfort from me before I hang,” she snapped.

Captain Fell eyed her through the bars.

He looked the same as he had in her dining room, his uniform pressed and perfect, his hat under one arm. In spite of herself, Cat took some comfort in his presence.

“I couldn’t risk you learning of the Lord Governor’s order and fleeing the city,” he said.

It sounded like an apology, somehow.

Cat curled her lip. “Of course. I suppose I was foolish to think you would uphold your end of the bargain and square the debt between us.”

A flush crossed Fell’s face, his voice dropping to a hiss.

“We settled that score long ago, Cat.”

“Not even close,” she shot back, jumping up to approach the bars.

Fell didn’t move. “You’ve been named a traitor—”

“I don’t recall swearing allegiance to anyone, least of all some boy king on a throne three thousand miles away,” Cat snapped, gesturing vaguely to the northwest. Or what she thought was northwest. It was impossible to tell underground.

He was undeterred, his tone clipped and severe. “A traitor to Crown and Empire. A danger to the Meridian colonies of the Lyrian Sea. An accomplice to piracy. Guilty of—”

“Survival?” Cat scoffed and turned, her skirts swirling around her feet. “Of staying alive in these godsforsaken waters while the Meridian Empire fled back across the ocean? I survived here with no one and nothing but my own wits.”

Beyond the bars, Fell chuckled low in his throat.

“No one and nothing,” he repeated, throwing the words back in her face. “Part of me wishes you could have a trial so I might see this performance fully played out. Catrine Rose, a destitute widow by the age of twenty, left behind in the Lyrian Sea with nothing more than a few coins and a crumbling estate. What kind of Meridian lady could continue on amongst pirates and whores?”

He leaned in, inches away from the bars and her face.

“No lady at all.” He smirked, glancing not at her neck or exposed collarbone, but to her left arm. At a spot above her elbow, well hidden by her sleeve.