Stormcaster (Shattered Realms #3)(17)

Though Tarvos was beginning to feel like home, Evan still itched to go back to sea. He was not a carpenter, or a farmer—he belonged on a ship. On land, he felt trapped, like an insect pinned to a board. At sea, he could use his gifts to their best advantage. Periodically, he paid his respects at the waterfront. The work on New Moon was nearly done, but Kadar still claimed that he had no work for him. Maybe the dock boss meant to wait until that ship was ready to send him out again—no doubt at a lower contract price. But what could Evan do? He couldn’t go north—Deepwater Court was too dangerous these days. The harbor at Endru was all but silted up. He was trapped in the middle.





7


PIRATE


From the moment Destin Karn laid eyes on the pirate, he knew he was in trouble. Not because he seriously believed “Lucky Faris” had been sent by the general to do them harm (although it was possible he’d been sent to the Desert Coast as a spy). In his heart, Destin knew that when the general came for them, he would not delegate. He’d come in person.

Still, he’d been ambushed when he saw Faris in the barn, rimed in light, like a vision in the old stories. For one thing, it was a shock to see a mage after so long on the Desert Coast. He’d heard they were more common farther north but rare in this city, which was one reason he and Frances had chosen Tarvos as a sanctuary. Here was someone who would recognize him as a mage. Here was a dangerous connection between his old life and this new one that needed to be broken before the general followed it all the way to them.

He’d learned the cost of mercy, of giving people the benefit of the doubt. He’d shown mercy once, and paid dearly for it. This time, when he and his mother had fled Arden, he’d committed himself to ruthlessness. Take no prisoners, leave no survivors, leave no loose threads that might bring the enemy to their door. The stakes were too high.

So when he’d spotted the intruder in the barn, he’d meant to clip that loose thread before their sanctuary unraveled. If it had gone as planned, the pirate would be dead and buried in an unmarked grave behind the garden. His mother would never have known.

But it had not gone as planned. It was worrisome that he’d been so unmoored by this dryland mage. Unmoored in a dozen ways. Destin was reasonably sure “Lucky Faris” wasn’t his real name, based on his repeated hesitation in responding to it. Destin was skilled at reading people, even without the magic of persuasion. It was a survival skill he’d inherited from his mother and honed in the minefield that was the Ardenine court.

Faris moved like quicksilver, his muscles loose and responsive, and his smile came easily and often. His tussah hair was threaded with glittering silver and blue, and the charm and wit in his green eyes was unnerving. He was like a prince of faerie who wielded his rapier-sharp wit to great effect to make Destin’s mother laugh, something Destin himself could not do. Faris had bonded with Frances like any orphan looking for a home, and she had begun to treat the pirate like a second son.

Who could blame her? After all she’d been through, his mother deserved a son who wasn’t a constant reminder of the past. A son who didn’t carry the darkness forward. Monsters beget monsters, after all. Maybe Faris had been wounded, but he’d not been damaged beyond repair. Unlike Destin, he still had a pathway back to the light.

Unlike Destin, Evan wasn’t ruthless. At least, he wasn’t ruthless enough.

When Frances took their goods to market, Faris often went with her so he could speak with the captains and bosses down at the docks; he was always angling for a job. It was odd. Though ships came and went, their new boarder had been in port for months now without a contract. Destin could tell the pirate was frustrated, but his own feelings were mixed. His leg was nearly healed, and the barn was repaired, and so there was no reason Faris needed to stay on.

The problem wasn’t jealousy of the affection that grew between his mother and the pirate. The problem was that the feelings Destin had for Faris were something more than brotherly. One minute Destin would be thinking, When is he going to leave? And the next he’d be thinking, What am I going to do if he leaves? Destin had learned from a young age that connections are vulnerabilities. If he ever forgot it, the general had reminded him, over and over again. He’d learned his lesson well—that love was as risky as mercy. Destin had been a soldier since he was ten years old, and this pirate was the most dangerous adversary he’d ever faced.

Destin took steps to protect himself and his mother. As soon as he was able to get around on his injured leg, he searched through the pirate’s meager belongings, finding nothing of value save the broken pendant. No bag of money, no pouch of poison, no correspondence from the general. That could mean nothing more than the fact that the pirate was too smart to keep anything incriminating in the house.

Next, Destin took his investigation to town. At the dock boss’s office, he introduced himself as Denis Rocheford, pretending he was looking for a pilot. A sharp-faced man named Kadar suggested several prospects. When Destin inquired about Lucky Faris, saying he’d heard good things about the young captain, Kadar had informed him that Faris was an ungrateful, greedy, unreliable bastard he should steer clear of.

Destin knew that wasn’t true—whatever Faris was, he wasn’t lazy. But clearly Kadar wasn’t sending any work Faris’s way.

An investigative trip to Deepwater Court proved more fruitful. There Destin learned that the empress in the north was offering a very large reward for the live delivery of a particular sixteen-year-old boy who might be using the name Evan Strangward. The boy was described as a weather mage and sailor with hair like flax, streaks of silver and blue, and sea-green eyes. Well, not those words exactly, but the message was clear. Destin had noticed that Faris always wore a watch cap when he went to town, even in hot weather. Destin noticed everything.