Keelin stared towards the port, desperately trying to think of something to say. The problem was that Aimi was right, and he knew it. Both of them knew it.
“You hate me?” he said.
“No. Yes. Not any more. Maybe a bit, still. I certainly don’t love you, though.” She gave him a tired smile. “I like you well enough, Keelin – most of the time. I just think we should have left it at that.”
Aimi laughed bitterly. “You know what I realised recently? When you fucked the queen, I wasn’t angry at her for trying to steal you. I was just angry at her for trying to steal something that was mine.”
“So you were angry at her?” Keelin felt lost and confused.
“I was angry at you too, Keelin.”
He let out a quick laugh and decided to change the subject. “Where will you go?”
“Point is, I was never really in it for you,” Aimi continued. “Was just using you, I guess. Looks like we’re both getting something out of it, at least.” She placed a hand on her belly.
“I ain’t leaving the isles,” she said after a few moments. “Got something like a home here. Friends, at least. There’s plenty of ships that take on women. Might even start seeing a few more of us as captains now, eh?”
Keelin nodded, and they were both silent for a while. “I’m sorry, Aimi,” he said eventually.
“What for? If it’s for fucking the queen back in HwoyonDo, then apology accepted. Anything else… Well, we both knew what we were doing, Cap’n. Nothing else to apologise for.”
Keelin laughed, and a moment later Aimi joined in. For a while it was just like things were the way they used to be. Only they weren’t.
“Just don’t think this lets you off the hook,” she said, glaring at him. “Just ’cos you and me aren’t together don’t mean you don’t have some responsibility here. You put this child inside of me, and you’re fucking well gonna help raise it.”
Chapter 74 - New Sev’relain
“Drink to the fallen,” Princess shouted, and not for the first time that night.
“We’ll be joining them soon.” A number of others took up the toast.
Daimen didn’t join in the toast. It wasn’t that he thought that the folk who had died didn’t deserve remembering, didn’t deserve being toasted. It was that he knew Princess and Zothus and all the others over on that side of the tavern were toasting to one man in particular.
“Someone should tell them bastards just why the fucker don’t need toasting,” he said sullenly.
He was angry, and he had every right to be. Drake was being touted as a hero, a martyr to the pirates and their cause. Morrass would forever be known as the first king of the Pirate Isles despite never having sat a throne or worn a crown. To make matters worse, those same folk who thought Drake so mighty also looked at Daimen as though he were a traitor. As though he hadn’t saved them all by getting Admiral Wulfden to surrender.
“Leave it be, Poole,” Tanner Black rumbled from his side of the table.
Tanner had eschewed his normal court of sycophants and not-so-subtle guards, and Daimen had chosen to sit with him. They were far from friends, but Tanner was one of the few people who knew the secrets Daimen knew. They’d all agreed to keep the truth about Drake to themselves.
“Folk deserve to know,” Daimen grumbled.
“No, mate, they don’t,” Tanner said around a tankard of weak ale. “Bastard is dead. Something good came out of him, at least. Telling all of them now only serves to weaken the unity. Might even be enough to break us all apart again.”
“When did you get so damned fucking reasonable?”
Tanner turned a dark gaze on Daimen. “The moment my daughter claimed her rightful place. She’ll be queen, and I’d bet me ship that Stillwater’ll be king.” Tanner chuckled, and Daimen had the feeling the man was a little drunk. “I raised both of ’em myself. Taught ’em all they know.”
Tanner gripped his mug of ale hard. “Drake is dead, and the kingdom he helped to build will be ruled by my descendants. Reckon that means I won, mate. And all I have to do is hold my peace. Reckon I can do that.”
“Ah… fair enough.” Daimen knew better than to argue with Tanner Black over his family. No one knew what had happened to Blu. Elaina had delivered her brother to their father and named him a traitor. Since then the fate of Tanner’s eldest son was uncertain. Somehow Daimen doubted the man was dead. Tanner was a cruel bastard and no mistake, but even he might quibble at the act of killing his own children.
Daimen drained his tankard and slammed it down onto the table. “Reckon I might go take a piss, mate.”
“Feel free to not come back,” Tanner said, a dark look in his eyes that had Daimen agreeing it might be best to leave the pirate alone. Tanner might be acting civil now, but it clearly didn’t sit well in his gut.
Daimen gave the man a mocking smile as he stood and started shoving his way through the dancing and cavorting pirates towards the tavern door.
“Drink to the fallen,” Princess shouted.
Daimen slammed the door behind him before the others could complete their toast.
“We'll be joining them soon!” the muffled words travelled easily through the door.
It was a dark night, and a dark mood settled in upon Daimen. He’d drunk enough that he felt a little tipsy, and not even the rare cool breeze blowing through the town could lift his spirits. He felt cheated and used and angry.
Turning towards the ocean, Daimen started walking. He needed a piss, it was true, and the sound of the waves lapping against the sand had always helped him get things started, but it was more than that. Daimen needed his spirits lifting, and the sight of the sea and the boats floating in the bay might just help him with that.
The Merry Fuck, New Sev’relain’s largest whore house, was just across the way from the Righteous Indignation, and it was alive with light and sound spilling out of every door and window. No doubt the whores would be making something close to a killing on a night like this, filled with the coins of the victorious. Daimen had grown up in an establishment just like it, and though he’d long ago put his past behind him, he never visited brothels.
The streets of New Sev’relain were as full of hustle and bustle as its taverns and whore houses. Daimen had rarely seen a town so drunk on its own celebration. Just a year ago he’d have been given nods of respect, maybe even the odd kind word. Now all he received were hostile stares or the quick aversion of eyes. Only Admiral Tatters stared up at him without animosity. Daimen approached the terminal drunk and flipped a bronze bit into the dirt next to him.
“Thank you, kind sir,” Tatters slurred, pawing around in the dust to find the coin.
“Reckon ya might be able to go home now, Tatters,” Daimen said with a smile he didn’t feel.
“Home,” Tatters mumbled. “I am home.”
“Nah, mate. I mean ya real home. Sarth or some such, aye? Ain’t you got family there, maybe waiting for ya? Parents? Wife? Kids?”
Tatters frowned and raised a mostly empty bottle to his lips. “No. Sarth not home. Nothing there. I live here. Always have. Always will.”
Daimen groaned, and walked away with a shake of his head. Tatters was one more victim of Drake Morrass. The man had once been a proud admiral of Sarth. Now he lay on the streets of New Sev’relain, broken and drunk and trying desperately to forget his past.
Daimen stopped and turned back to Tatters. “That Arbiter. The one that followed Drake around. She killed him. Now, I don’t know what that means exactly as it pertains to her faith and yours – what’s left of it, anyways – but she killed him.”