And in that moment, she knew he wanted to be alone.
“I won’t be long,” she said, plucking off the Sarows mask and tossing it his way. He caught it, and she saw him wince, his body stiff with pain. Her fingers twitched with the urge to heal him, though she knew he wouldn’t let her.
Stubborn ass, she thought as he turned back toward the Barron, and she turned to join Stross and Tav. The pain was his, and so she let him have it. But she did look back, more than once, watching his black coat ripple in the cold breeze until he was just another shadow in the dark.
X
This, thought Lila sometime later, was the worst drink she’d ever had.
She’d never considered herself picky when it came to ale, but whatever was in her glass tasted like whoever owned the Black Tide had spilled cheap spirits into piss and called it a pint. It was strong, she had to give it that, but every time she took a sip, it tried to fight its way back up.
Tav and Stross didn’t seem to mind. At least, not enough to stop drinking.
“The trick,” offered Tav, “is to hold your breath.”
“S’not that bad,” grumbled Stross, but then, it was a well-known fact aboard the ship that her first mate had no sense of taste, a truth discovered during his brief stint as cook.
Lila abandoned the drink and reached instead into her coat, retrieving the blade she’d lifted from the Crow’s hold. She hadn’t used it back on the ship, hadn’t needed to, and it was still in its sheath. It was deceptively small—Veskans tended to favor broadswords, but this was closer to a dagger in shape, and roughly the length of her hand. When she drew the blade free, it was as thin as a ribbon, and shone the color of pearl. A cool breeze wafted off the metal, and when she tipped it toward the nearest light, she could just make out a string of spellwork etched along the edge, though she couldn’t read it.
“Now that’s a lovely piece of work,” said Tav, who, not having any magic of his own, shared her fondness for sharp things.
“It is,” she mused. The edge was dazzlingly sharp, but she resisted the urge to test it against her thumb. She sheathed the blade again, and set it down on the table.
Around them, the Black Tide was brimming with bodies.
In one corner, a trio of women with a small fortune of silver in their hair leaned forward, heads together over a map. In another, a ship’s crew was getting blindingly drunk over a game of Sanct. There were even a pair of Arnesian soldiers—not dressed as such, of course, but they might as well be branded with the cup and sun and decked in red and gold.
Between the crowd, the planked walls, and the dark curtains, the place felt less like a tavern and more like the hull of a ship. Or, given the stale air, the belly of a whale.
She let her gaze drift over the room, though in truth, she wasn’t looking.
She was listening.
Verose was a thieves’ haven, a place where the rule of the empire gave way to the will of the people, most of them criminals, pirates, and exiled magicians. It was the kind of place that fostered grudges, and turned them into bad ideas. The kind of place that could easily have produced the rebels that called themselves the Hand.
So Lila listened. Or tried—most of the patrons in the Tide were speaking a version of Arnesian, but some handled the language like a pen, while others used it like a hammer. Add to that the staccato bursts of laughter, the scrape of chairs, the way the voices rose and fell, and it was like fighting with a wave. Easier to relax, and let the words wash over her.
Tav, meanwhile, had produced a set of cards, and he and Stross were now engaged in an intense drinking game, one that had something to do with throwing down cards at rapid speed, and shouting loudly when you saw a king or queen. The loser drank. Or maybe the winner. Honestly, Lila wasn’t sure. But she watched them bicker like old maids as they played, and marveled at the easy way they were together, the way they were with her, the space between them all worn smooth. She found herself wishing Kell was there. And Vasry, and Raya.
How strange.
Ask her at nineteen the definition of freedom, and it would have been one. One person. One ship. One big wide world. And yet here she was, seven years on, free, but far from alone.
She liked being alone. She was good at it. Had never trusted or taken to people.
But these weren’t people, not really. They were something else. Allies. Friends. Family.
Once upon a time, the thought would have been enough to send her heart lurching in a seasick way, her pulse hitting that old familiar drum, telling her to run, run, run. As if it were a snaring trap, a snake of chain around her legs. As if people were just anchors, dead weight designed to hold you fast, drag you down.