“I don’t… I don’t want to blow open any firemounts, Pelkaia. For pits’ sake, I’m asking you to show me how to control it.”
He felt her turn to regard him, but did not take his eyes from the blackened sky. “You’re angry now, aren’t you? Can feel it building?”
“Don’t.”
She sighed. Her hand alighted upon his shoulder and squeezed. “Leave, Honding.”
“And go where? This ship–”
“I do not mean this ship. If you value your life, you will take your flier and flee the Scorched. Flee all of Valathea’s puppets, flee any and every land touched by the use of selium. Go to the backwaters of the far north, or set out to the rumored western continent. And once you are there, and certain the land is dead around you, destroy the flier. Scatter its selium to the high winds. That is the only way.”
“This is my home, sure as it is yours. How dare you–”
“Tell me: when was the last time you loved?”
“None of your pits-cursed business,” he snapped.
“That long?”
He swayed, rage boiling within him, and was grateful for Pelkaia’s hand gripping his shoulder, keeping him steady. He breathed through his mouth, soothing his already frayed nerves. This was ridiculous. Why should he listen to what this woman had to say? Just because Tibs thought he needed help didn’t mean he had to ask it of her. He could figure it out on his own. He’d been doing things that way most his life, anyway.
“Thank you for your time, captain.” He turned to leave, but she dug her fingers into his shoulder and spun him around to face her. Eyes that were so like Ripka’s bore into him, raking hot claws of guilt across his heart.
“You will not allow yourself to love, because you fear the strength of your anger if that love turns to hurt. No – don’t protest. Just… Just listen to me. I will help you rescue Ripka and New Chum, I will help you return them safely to Petrastad. But it’s not due to any tongue wagging of yours. I see two possible realities behind Captain Leshe’s imprisonment. The first, that she and New Chum became entangled in some matter working against the empire and were arrested. The second, that they allowed themselves to be carted away to that horrible place for some other purpose.
“I don’t care what the truth is. I have worn that woman’s face, and in doing so worn her habits, her mannerisms. There is very little left in the world that I hold faith in, anymore. But I do believe in one thing: Ripka Leshe is a force for good. And I will not see her suffer, if I can help it. I owe that woman. The world owes that woman, too, they just don’t know it yet.
“But after that, after I save her, you must flee, do you understand me? You walk too close to the line of your control as it is. I have my crew to care for, and you have your friends’ safety to think of.”
“Black skies take you.” He shook her hand from his shoulder, then stormed back toward Tibs.
“Do not make me hunt you, Honding,” she called.
He answered her with a raised finger.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Though she had known it was likely that the warden would already be drunk, Ripka found the reality disappointing. His face was flush from the warmth of the rum he’d no doubt paid a premium to smuggle in from Petrastad. A premium covered by funds meant to keep the prison in working order. He leaned forward across his desk, arms spread wide and palms face down as if he were trying to keep it from spinning away. As Ripka and Enard were ushered through the door, he squinted, trying to place them. She stood at ease, hoping whatever state the bastard’s mind was in was one she could work with.
“What’s the meaning of this?” he slurred, cleared his throat and straightened his shoulders. “I did not ask to see these two.”
Captain Lankal stepped forward. Ripka was pleased to see his disgust was no less facing down his drunken boss than it had been in discovering their stash of strange bark peelings. “Warden, sir, we are not certain of the specifics, but we believe we have interrupted an escape attempt. We discovered these two on the beach with Guard Hessan. They had been in a fight, as you can see, and Hessan was severely injured by a concussion. Luckily he managed to get to his whistle before these two could wrest it away from him and finish what they’d begun. And there was this with them.”
He slung the oilcloth pack onto Radu’s desk and pulled the top flap open. Radu leaned forward, half standing, to peer into the silvery collection of bark. He sniffed the air above it, and a dark scowl overtook his features.
“I see.” He ran a hand through his hair and his dark locks stayed put, grease sealing every strand into place. “Leave me with them. Do not go far.”
“Yes, warden.”
Captain Lankal and the other guard left, leaving Ripka and Enard in chains before the warden. Tense, she waited, wondering what truth the muddled man’s mind would decide upon – and if she would be given a chance to defend herself. He squinted at them once more, then nodded as if having reassured himself of whom he was speaking with.
“This is how you repay me, captain?” He waved a hand over the open mouth of the sack. “With treachery? With turning the very information I gave you against me?”
“I was in the process of investigating the clearsky chain of ownership when–”
“Enough!” He slapped an open palm upon his desk. “You think you’re clever, eh? Think you’re smarter than me?”
“I didn’t–”
“Did I tell you to speak?”
Spittle flew from Radu’s lips, tangling in his moustache. Ripka clenched her jaw to keep from speaking. This was not a rational man she was dealing with. She couldn’t expect him to listen to what she had to say, and her attempts to persuade him seemed only to insult him – to make him angrier.
“I know your game,” he said, and she felt a tingle of fear in her heart. Did he truly? Would Kisser have turned their secrets over to him? She could think of nothing that woman would have to gain from such an act. She could also not imagine Radu sussing out any truths under the roof of the prison he’d been given to manage, let alone her secreted agenda.
“Sir,” Enard spoke in his smooth, placating voice. The picture of respect, the same tone she imagined he’d used with his Glasseater bosses. “I assure you that our intentions were for your benefit. To discover the smugglers to whom you set us to uncover, we–”
Radu’s expression changed in a flash. His lip curled into a canid snarl as he grabbed a trinket holding down a stack of papers and threw it at Enard. Ripka winced as the weighted brass struck him with a heavy thump. Enard took the blow as if it were little more than water rolling down his back. With her own collection of bruises and aches from their previous scuffles, she suspected she wouldn’t have been so stoic in the face of such an affront.
“Think you can talk your way out of this, do you?” Radu snapped.
“Warden,” Ripka spoke to distract the man from his new quarry, “if you would tell us what it is you think us guilty of, then perhaps we could come to an understanding.”
“An understanding? Are you so fool headed you think yourself in any position to negotiate?” He snort-laughed and slapped the bag of bark shavings, tumbling a few of the silvery curls to the top of his desk. “I know what this is, captain,” he laid all the sarcasm his drunken mind could muster onto the word. “And now I know the shape of the viper secreted in my nest.”
“You think me behind the new drug?” She cursed herself for not managing to keep the affront from her voice. Damn watcher pride.