To Kill a Kingdom(66)

“So you planned to use me to find out the way up the mountain.”

“Not just that,” Rycroft says. “I need entry, too. I’m not about to start a war with the Págese by trespassing on their mountain. They’d know I was there the second I started the climb, and they’d be on me and my guys before I got anywhere near the ice palace. A pirate isn’t gonna get close to that crystal.”

Lira slinks back into her chair, realization dawning on her face the moment it does mine. “But a prince might,” she says.

Rycroft claps his hands together. “Smart girl,” he says, then turns to me, his arms wide and welcoming. “Your diplomatic connections are gonna come in handy, golden boy. If my bets are right, you’ve already talked your way into some kind of deal with them. Offered them something in exchange for entry. If I’m with you, I can stroll right on up there with nobody on my back and then loot the whole damn place. By the time they realize what me and my lot are doing, I’ll already have the power of the ocean in my hands.”

“Great plan,” I say. “Only problem being that I’m not telling you a thing and my schedule is a little packed to take you on a guided tour of a mountain.”

“Not like I thought you’d be easy,” Rycroft says. “But you don’t have to take me anyway; we’re taking you.”

The Xaprár inch closer, creating a circle around us.

“As for the information, I can torture that out of you and your little lady on the way. It’ll be a time-saver.”

I smirk and look over at Lira. She blinks, not in shock, but as though she is considering what he’s saying like a proposition rather than a threat. If she’s scared, she does a good job of hiding it.

She lifts her rum from the table with a slow and steady hand. “Just so we understand each other,” she says, swirling the goblet indifferently, “I’m not his lady.”

Before I can register the look on Rycroft’s face, Lira lurches forward and throws the golden liquid straight into his eye. Rycroft lets out an ungodly howl, and I jump to my feet, knife drawn as the pirate clutches his face where the gold dust slices with every blink.

“You bitch,” he snarls, blindly drawing his sword.

Lira pulls out the small dagger she slipped into her boot earlier, and I press my back to hers. Rycroft’s shadows surround us, and from the corner of my eye, I see snipers gather on the quarterdeck. I can take a dozen men, maybe, but even I’m not bulletproof. And Lira, for all the fire that runs through her veins, is not invincible.

“You think that was clever?” Rycroft wipes his eyes with the back of his sleeve.

“Maybe not,” Lira says. “But it was funny.”

“Funny?” He takes a step closer, and I see the anger rolling from him like smoke. “I’ll show you funny.”

I arch my body, turning our positions so Lira squares off with the Xaprár and I come face-to-face with Rycroft. “No point crying over spilled rum,” I tell him.

For a moment Rycroft stares at me, deathly still. His lips curl upward and he blinks back a dribble of blood from his left eye. “To think,” he says, “when I tortured you, I was going to let you keep your most precious appendage.”

When he lunges, I push Lira to the side and dart back. The Xaprár clear a path for us and then circle like vultures, ready to peck at the leftover carcass of the kill. Rycroft brings his heavy sword down, and when my knife meets it, the sparks are blinding.

I kick at his knee and Rycroft stumbles back with a hiss, but it’s only seconds before he’s on me again, slashing and swiping with his sword. Lethal blows primed to kill. I jump back and his blade slices across my chest.

I don’t take my focus off him to register the pain. He’s mad to try this. To attack not just a prince, but a captain. Spilling royal blood is punishable by death, but spilling mine . . . well, my crew would think death was too kind.

I thrust my arm forward, aiming my dagger for his stomach. Rycroft twists out of the way, barely, and I feel my ankle slip. Saving what little grace I have, I plunge the blade into his thigh. I feel the jar of bone as it settles inside his leg. When I pull, my hand comes away empty.

Rycroft clasps a hand around the knife. He looks inhuman, like even pain is too scared to touch him now. Without ceremony, he yanks on the handle, hard, and the blade oozes from him. It comes away clean and for a moment I worry that Rycroft will see the otherworldly shine of the steel, but the pirate barely glances at it before tossing it across the ship.

“What now?” he asks. “No more tricks.”

“You’d kill an unarmed man?” I raise a taunting finger.

“I think we both know that you’re never unarmed. And that when I kill you, it’ll be a damn sight slower than this.”

He lurches his head in a gesture to someone behind me. I’m able to spare one last look to Lira, taking in the blinding light of her eyes, flared in warning, before a shadow pitches toward me. I whip my head back a second too late, and a blinding pain explodes against my skull.





27


Lira


I BRING MY TONGUE to the cut on my lip. My hands are secured to a large beam, and on the other side of the room, tied to an identical shaft, Elian sags on the floor.

He looks every bit the handsome prince, even with his head slumped against the splintered wood, his injury matting his hair. His jaw ticks as he sleeps, and when his eyes flutter as though they’re about to open, something snags in my chest.