Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,41

you and your burly Turgonian shoulder shouldn’t have rescued her.” He waved at Arayevo, who glowered at him. Deservedly so.

Yanko sighed.

Dak looked down at him. “Is it true?”

“That Pey Lu didn’t shoot me on sight? Yes, but that doesn’t mean she wants to get to know me. She didn’t say anything that suggested that. And I don’t want to get to know her, either. She’s a murdering criminal. She ruined our entire family’s reputation—everything. She doesn’t care about anyone. She wouldn’t have even known who I was if I hadn’t had her old robe in my pack.”

A robe that the pirates now had, along with everything else that had been in his pack. Had they even bothered taking his and Lakeo’s belongings with them, or had they left them in the woods? Poor Senshoth. The mage had entrusted Yanko with his book, however misguidedly, thinking it would be taken to the court of the Great Chief, and now it was lying in a forgotten rainforest on an island whose inhabitants were all dead.

Yanko scowled down at the deck. Arayevo was right. He couldn’t give up, just because his mother was involved. If anything, he should be more determined than ever to get the lodestone. Sun Dragon might belong to another faction back home, but at least he seemed to want to find the hidden continent to help Nuria. Who knew who Pey Lu planned to sell the artifact to?

“Maybe if she caught you, it wouldn’t be as detrimental as if the pirates caught the rest of us.” Dak scratched his jaw thoughtfully.

“So, you want to use me as bait, or throw me out as a diversion while you sneak aboard?” Yanko wasn’t certain that his mother would spare him, not at all.

“Perhaps not,” Dak murmured distractedly. He had turned back to the periscope and was rotating it to look at something.

Arayevo nudged Yanko with her foot. “Don’t you want to talk to her? Aren’t you curious about why she left? Maybe there was a reason. Maybe she’s not as ruthless as the stories say. Even if she is, maybe the reason why is understandable. She probably had to be twice the cold-hearted killer to earn respect as a female pirate.”

“She didn’t have to be a pirate at all. That was her choice.”

“Was it? You don’t know what happened when you were a baby. Maybe your father wasn’t a good husband. The badger goddess knows he wasn’t a good father.”

“Don’t say that.” Yanko might think it at times, but that was disrespectful enough without voicing the words. Besides, his father had always been good to Falcon. Yanko was the one who had been too different for him to understand.

“It’s true. But your mother clearly had—has—a heart for adventure. Maybe she couldn’t stand staying in that dismal valley and raising babies for her whole life.”

“Dismal valley? Aspen Hollow is beautiful. You can ski in the mountains, hike in the woods, fish in the lake, hunt in any direction, and see thousands of stars on a clear night.”

“You never felt imprisoned by those mountains?” Arayevo grimaced, and Yanko remembered that her father had wanted to arrange a marriage for her. That had probably spurred at least some of her feelings of entrapment.

“No.” Yanko had felt imprisoned by his duty, but not by his homeland.

“Isn’t it funny how two people can look out on the same piece of land and see distinctly different things?”

“Perhaps one of those people lacks sufficient imagination.”

“Maybe, but which one of them is it?” She smirked at him.

A very faint boom reached Yanko’s ears. “Was that a cannon?”

“The Midnight Fleet has company,” Dak announced, his eye still glued to the periscope.

“Any chance it’s Prince Zirabo with a fleet from home?” Yanko asked.

“I can’t tell who it is. The sun hasn’t come up yet, so it’s still dark out there. There are at least three ships approaching, though. I believe one of Pey Lu’s ships fired the cannon.”

“Warning them to stay away?”

“Likely.”

“Are they doing so?” Yanko asked.

“It doesn’t look like it.” Dak did not remove his gaze from the periscope or offer anyone else a view.

Yanko sat in the empty seat next to Arayevo and sent his senses outward, trying to see with his mind what Dak saw with his fancy technology. But the other ships were still too far away. He could sense the pirate ships, as well as the auras of the people on board. They were scurrying about, preparing for battle. Everyone seemed alert and all aboard seemed