Fable (Fable #1)(81)
The fog finally cleared as the sun peeked up over the first rooftops, and I looked out over a sun-soaked, shimmering Dern. So many memories crept through the alleyways, so many ghosts. I followed them back the way I’d come, and when I passed the tavern, Saint’s table was empty, the two teacups left sitting alone.
The bell for the merchant’s house rang out, and I cut through a side street to the docks, not wanting to see any merchants or traders from the day before. If we wanted to outrun the talk that had probably already started, we needed to get on the water. By now, the crew would be readying the ship, waiting to shove off.
“A real shame.”
A voice came from the opening of the next alley, and I stopped, staring at the shadow that crept over the cobblestones before me. It stretched and grew as Zola stepped out from behind a whitewashed brick wall, his black coat pulling around him in the wind.
“It’s a real shame to see you waste your time with the likes of that crew, Fable.”
My hand slid around my back for the knife at my belt. I’d never told him my name. “How do you know who I am?”
He laughed, his head tilting to the side so that he could see me beneath the rim of his hat. “You look just like her.”
My heartbeat skipped, a sinking feeling making me feel off-balance.
“And just like your mother, you’ve made some really stupid choices.”
Three men stepped out of the alley behind him.
I looked over my shoulder, to the empty street that led back to the gambit shop. There wasn’t a soul to see whatever Zola had planned, and it wasn’t likely I’d come out the other side of it.
I stepped backward, the trembling in my hands making the knife shake. I wouldn’t be able to make it past all four of them, but if I went backward, I’d have farther to run before I reached the docks.
There was no time to think. I turned, pivoting on my heel and launching myself forward to run with the knife at my side. My boots hit the wet stone and the sound multiplied as the men took off after me.
I looked back to where Zola still stood, his coat blowing in the wind, and slammed into something hard as I turned, the air leaving my lungs. The knife flew from my grasp as I fell forward and arms wrapped tightly around my shoulders.
“Let go of me!” I screamed, shoving into the man who had me, but he was too strong. “Get off!”
I reared my foot back and brought my knee up in a snap, driving it between his legs and he fell forward, a choking sound strangling in his throat. We tumbled backward, and my head hit the wet cobblestones, making the sky above me explode with light.
My hand reached for my boot, sliding West’s knife free, and as another man came over me, I swung it out, grazing his forearm. He looked at the blood seeping beneath his sleeve before he reached down, taking my jacket into his hands and the third man wrenched the knife from my grip.
When I looked up again, his fist was in the air, and it came down with a crack across my face. Blood filled my mouth and I tried to scream, but before I could, he hit me again. The light swayed overhead, the black creeping in, and with another, it flickered out.
FORTY-THREE
It was a love that broke us all.
My mother was high on the mast, just a slice of black against the glimmering sun overhead. It glinted around her and the dark red braid swung at her back as she climbed. I stood on the deck below, fitting my small feet into her dancing shadow.
She was the sun and the sea and the moon in one. She was the north star that pulled us to the shore.
That’s what my father said. The sound of his voice faded in the ripple of wind over the sails, the canvas snapping.
But I wasn’t on the Lark anymore.
The iron taste of blood was still on my tongue when I opened my eyes. But it was too bright. Every inch of my face throbbed, the corner of my eye so swollen that I could barely see out of it. I looked up to the rows of sheets reaching overhead, my heart wrenching in my chest. I couldn’t see over the railing, but I could hear it—the water lapping against the hull of a ship.
The deck beneath me was warmed in the sun, and when I looked up to find it in the sky, my stomach dropped like a stone in my gut. Tears stung in my eyes as I looked up to Zola’s crest burned into the ornate wooden archway.
My arms were pulled behind me, bound around the foremast, and the ache in my back shot into my shoulders, down to my wrists in a quick pulse. I tried to breathe through it, looking for anything nearby I could use to cut free.
Shadows slipped over me as the crew went about their work, their eyes not meeting mine, and I looked for Zola. But he wasn’t at the helm. Men worked the lines on the masts and a woman with cropped hair sat in a pile of nets on the quarterdeck.
Behind me, on the boom, I spotted one figure I knew.
The pain in my body was nothing compared to the slice and sting of recognizing him. The set of his shoulders and the ears that stuck out beneath his cap. The way his hands hung heavily at his sides—hands that had held me as we leapt from the sinking Lark into the churning sea.
I shook my head, blinking to clear my vision. But when I looked up again, he turned, jumping down from the foot of the sail, and I caught sight of the profile of his face. The bridge of his nose and the curl of his blond mustache.
A feeling like frost inside my lungs crept up my throat, the name frozen in my mouth.
Clove.