nearly spit. “I’ll get out of your hair. I’ve paid your price. What does it matter?” I almost expect him to hit me, and I would welcome the glancing sting. Anything to combat this unfamiliar twist of wretchedness in my stomach. I do what I can to keep my eyes on the captain and not the sodden little boy who nearly died for my foolishness. Still, I can’t help but look.
Big Ean shakes his head and answers for the captain. “You think they won’t track the boat, miss? Even if you’re gone?” He scratches his beard. “I think they will.”
He isn’t wrong. Orrian is nothing if not vengeful, petty, and altogether dismissive of Red life. The Lakelander prince has so much anger in him, and the rest is hatred.
“I’ll make it clear I’m gone,” I tell them weakly, the words already dying on my lips. It is a poor excuse, one we all see through.
The captain doesn’t let go of my collar, even as his grip slackens. “Who are we dealing with?” he growls, though his voice is tinged with need.
“His name is Orrian Cygnet. He is a prince of the Lakelands, a cousin to the nymph queen, and a nymph himself.” I focus on my boots. Looking down helps me speak. If I don’t have to see their pity or their anger, I can manage to tell the truth. “He is a terrible person—violent, vengeful, a monster of a man—and I’ve been betrothed to him since I drew my first breath.”
I look to the Red servants first, hoping for their derision. It was their son who almost died. They should hate me. But they soften before any of the rest, and it makes me want to vomit. They know firsthand what Silver monsters look like.
I don’t deserve their compassion. I don’t want it either.
“You slipped a Lakelander escort,” the poler Gill guesses. “When you crossed the border.”
Jaw tight, I turn to face the aging Riverman. “I killed a Lakelander escort. When I crossed the border.”
The captain pulls his hand away as if burned. “How many guards?”
“Six. Seven, if you count my companion from home.” I taste bile when I think of her, Magida, my oldest friend. Her blood silver between my fingers, her mouth trying to form words she would never speak. “She died helping me escape. But I suppose you could say I killed her too.”
A murmur goes through the crew on the other keel, rippling in a line right up to their captain. He twitches, uncertain, nervous to the bone. “Ashe, you should let her go,” he calls. “Shout up and down the river that she’s off the water.”
The captain doesn’t respond, his teeth gritted. He knows as well as I do what a risk that would be. He watches me, looking for an answer I cannot give.
“Ashe, I’ve got hot cargo here. I’m with you easy river or hard, but if I’m caught with what I’m carrying . . . ,” the other captain continues, pleading now. He expects Orrian and his gang to jump out of the river at any minute. It’s not a bad instinct.
Orrian is nowhere near as powerful as the Lakelander queen or her daughters, but he is still formidable. And while he can’t turn the entire river against us, he’ll certainly try.
A muscle jumps in Ashe’s cheek as he thinks, running a hand through his dark hair. Without knowing it, I do the same, twisting my hair away from my face.
“I’d be gone already if I thought he wouldn’t follow you,” I admit quietly, and it’s the truth. I knew that by stepping onto this keel, I would be marking every other person on it. “There’s a reason I told you not to take on anyone else,” I add, hissing through my teeth. If only to jab at the captain, to ease the sting of my own shame.
He rounds on me again. I expect him to shout. His whispered snarl is somehow more horrible. “You lied from the start, Lyrisa. Don’t put that on me. You’d still be ratting on the docks if I’d known what you were running from.”
“Well, you know now,” I reply, trying to look bolder than I feel. If he tosses me from the keel, I’m done for. Orrian will track me down in a few hours and march me all the way to the Lakelander capital at gunpoint. “You’re the captain on this keel. It’s your decision.”
Rifle still in hand, Riette takes a step toward us.