Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,55

to his belt.

“Are you telling him to say these things?” Pey Lu asked.

“No. Apparently, his previous owner taught him some epithets. This is how he greets people. The first one was for me.”

“Cap’n, do you want us to secure your, ah—” the one speaking frowned at Yanko, a confused tilt to his head, “—prisoner?”

Yanko wondered if the resemblance was noticeable. Pey Lu’s face was weathered and worn, her beauty lingering but faded. Yanko had no idea if he could claim any beauty—or handsomeness, as he would prefer—but they shared the same black hair and dark brown eyes. He wasn’t sure if he could match other elements of his face to hers, but he had been told by many relatives that he did not look like his father, not the way Falcon did. His features were finer, not unlike hers.

Pey Lu gazed thoughtfully at him. She had released his arm, but she still gripped a sword.

“There’s a hole in the roof of the brig,” Yanko said.

She snorted. “Yes, I understand my cabin shares that feature.”

She was dry in a way that reminded Yanko of Dak. He was amazed she wasn’t furious, especially when the older man who had reported to her earlier returned to give her a tally of the dead.

“Seventeen so far, Captain,” he said. “Mostly at the hand of the big Turgonian that was with him.”

He cast an accusing look at Yanko, one that made him want to look away. He hadn’t wanted to kill anyone. He’d just wanted the lodestone. Not for the first time, he wondered if all these deaths and all this destruction would be justified in the end. Assuming he escaped here and found the stone—and he wasn’t sure if he should assume either of those things would happen now—would it truly lead his people to a fertile land that could be used to feed the millions back home?

“Thanks to your magic, and that of Oskan and Tonsils, we delivered far more damage than we received,” the gray-haired man continued. “Wish we still had Inky though. A healer would be real useful, and he had that ability to shield people too.”

“We’ll find another healer,” Pey Lu said. “Assuming you all don’t want to retire once we get paid for this one.”

The pirate looked wistful. “Retirement sounds nice right now.”

Pey Lu said nothing to agree.

“Uh, the prisoner, Cap’n?” one of the youths asked.

“I’ll question him myself.” Pey Lu pointed toward the stairs. “Let’s chat, Yanko.”

A surly part of him wanted to tell her not to use his name, or at least to call him White Fox or Honored Enemy. He didn’t want to be her friend. Not that she had indicated she wished that. He didn’t see how she could after he had been responsible for the deaths of so many of her people. Even if human lives meant nothing to her, he had also broken into her cabin and stolen that journal, something she must believe valuable since she had hand-carried it back to her ship. Maybe she was pretending to be reasonable with him in the hope that he would put up less of a fight when it came to answering her questions.

A touch of magic on his shoulder propelled him toward the stairs. It didn’t hurt—it was just a nudge—but it reminded him that, whether she sounded reasonable or not, he was her prisoner.

Chapter 13

Yanko twiddled his thumbs while sitting on a bunk in the cabin next to the one his team had come up through during their earlier incursion. Kei perched on the back of a chair that had been on the floor when Yanko entered. It wasn’t a guest cabin, if pirate ships even had such a thing, and clearly belonged to someone—a weapons holster hung on a hook and clothing stuck out of a drawer. A tray on the desk held a collection of gaudy rings. Yanko had the uneasy feeling that the cabin might belong to someone who had died. Why else would he be placed here, if not because nobody else needed it now? It was located adjacent to the captain’s cabin, but Yanko doubted Pey Lu worried he would escape. She hadn’t bothered to tie him up, and he sensed that there wasn’t a guard outside the door. They had sailed away from the island a while ago, so where would he go, even if he did escape?

He hoped that Dak was following along in the underwater boat, but that was no guarantee. As soon as Yanko