Stormcaster

  “Ah,” Evan said, hope ebbing. “And where will you be?”

  Destin’s face closed like the steel door to a vault. “I have business elsewhere.”

  “Where?”

  Destin returned his gaze impassively.

  “Are you coming back?”

  “I hope so,” Destin said, making no promises. “If I don’t, the business will be all yours, with a split to Frances. So. What do you say? Can we be partners?”

  It was an astonishingly generous offer. A suspiciously generous offer. And Evan was tired of being blindsided and trampled by this wetland soldier mage.

  He shook his head. “It’s your turn,” he said.

  “My turn?”

  “I need to know who I’m partnering with,” he said, taking great pleasure in mimicking Destin’s phrase. “I don’t even know your real name, or where you came from, exactly, or the source of your money, or who might show up at my door hunting you and find me instead.”

  Destin stared at him for a long moment. “My real name is Destin,” he said finally.

  “That’s a start,” Evan said. “Go on.” He settled back, gesturing, as if anticipating a long story.

  “What’s wrong with you?” Destin said, furiously. “You’re refusing the most generous—”

  “That’s just it,” Evan said. “It’s too good to be true, just like Strangward taking me on as crew, and Celestine wanting to take me home and spoil me. I’m learning that whenever this happens, I should run the other way. If you can trust me to look after your mother, you can trust me with your story, too.”

  Destin sat looking at him—fists clenched, frustration churning in his hazel eyes.

  “A partnership implies an equal footing,” Evan said softly. “Take or leave.”

  10

  OLD STORIES AND NEW BEGINNINGS

  Destin leaned his head back against the pilothouse, seething, fighting down the urge to throttle Evan Strangward. This was oddly mingled with the desire to kiss him until their lips bled.

  You are your father’s son, he thought. There is no love without pain.

  This was not in the plan he’d crafted so carefully. He’d been blinded by a pretty face. He’d underestimated the pirate, and that was all.

  By now, the sun had plunged below the horizon, leaving a bloody wake on the Indio. The first stars had emerged overhead, glittering diamonds in the vault of the sky. At long last, the gulls had gone to roost, leaving it blessedly quiet, except for the lapping of the waves in the cove and the rattle of the rigging in the freshening breeze.

  “Well,” Evan said, with a sigh, “it seems that we are done here. I’m sure there are some sails that need hemming, and bilges that need pumping.” He made as if to get to his feet.

  “No,” Destin growled. “We’re not finished.”

  Evan settled in again, wrapping his arms around his knees. The wind stirred his hair, and the dying sun glittered on the silver and blue amid the gold.

  “Is there anything in particular you’d like to know?” Destin said, chewing each word thoroughly to keep the wrong thing from spilling out.

  “Who’s the general?” Like any good marksman, Evan had zeroed in on the critical target.

  “General Marin Karn, Commander of the Army of Arden and counselor to the king,” Destin said. “My father.”

  All traces of triumph faded from the pirate’s face. “Your father? Your own father is hunting you?”

  Destin nodded. “He’s not the kind you can live with. Neither is he the kind you can leave. I was not the son he’d hoped for.” He held up a hand. “I don’t know if anyone would have suited him, but I was definitely the songbird in the eagle’s nest. Or, should I say, the hawk’s. He kept pounding on my mother—trying to get her to admit to cheating on him. He didn’t want to believe I was really his.” He paused for a beat. “That’s one thing we agreed on. I didn’t want to believe it, either.”

  But Evan had seemingly tripped over something he’d said midway through. “What do you mean, he pounded on her?”

  “He beat her all the time,” Destin said, matter-of-fact. “Half to death, once or twice. Sometimes at court, but mostly at his keep on the Bittersweet. He kept a full-time mage healer to patch her up again.”

  “But, that—why would he do that?” Evan growled. “And why would she put up with it? In Carthis, any man who treated a woman like that would never dare close his eyes.”

  “Things are different in Arden,” Destin said. “Everyone puts up with something, women most of all. The fact that my father is a mage made it even more difficult to fight back.”

  “If he didn’t love her, then why couldn’t he just set her aside and marry someone else?”

  “Love?” Destin shook his head. “For a pirate, you’re a romantic sort.”

  “Yes,” Evan said, a shadow crossing his face. “I guess I am.”

  “A mage is a precarious thing to be in the wetland empire, because of the church,” Destin said. “The king finds us useful, but he is as changeable as spring weather when it comes to the tension between magic and religion. My mother is the daughter of a powerful thane. That marriage gave the general a route to power he wouldn’t have had otherwise, and so, of course, he resented her. Plus, he wanted her to have a litter of boys, so he could choose out the most promising one and drown the rest of us. But there was only me. He accused her of using maidenweed to keep from having more children. He was always accusing her of something. . . .” He trailed off.

  “He sounds like a monster,” Evan said.

  “Oh, he is. He started beating me, too, once I was too big to ignore and still too small to defend myself. My mother and I—we kept hoping he’d be killed in the war. But once a man gets to be a general, he sees less of the actual fighting, you know?”

  Evan nodded, his green eyes fixed on Destin’s face, as if afraid to look away.

  “He was getting worse and worse, especially when he came home at the end of the marching season.” Now that Destin had started talking about it, it was as if a dam had burst and his words flooded out without the usual editing.

  Maybe it was more like lancing a boil.

  “The war wasn’t going well, and the king and the Thane Council were putting pressure on my father. Whenever the general was under pressure, he would take it out on us.” Destin brushed his fingers over his cheekbone, which still ached in damp weather. “So, this one day, he hit me and I gut-stabbed him.”

  He’d ambushed the pirate again. “You what?”

  “I gut-stabbed him.” Destin flexed his hand, as if gripping the hilt of a knife. “I wanted him to die slowly. I’d been practicing, and it should have killed him. Eventually.”

  “But it didn’t kill him,” Evan said.

  “No, it didn’t. If I had it to do over again, I’d have opened his throat and stabbed him through the heart with a poisoned blade and cut off his head and hung it over my door.” Destin’s voice shook, just a little, before he could get it back under control. “Suffering is all well and good, but I wanted him gone.”

  Evan stared at him with a stricken expression.

  See, Pirate? You wanted to know who you were partnering with. Happy now?

  “All that, and no magery?” Evan said finally, as if trying to lighten the mood.

  “He wears a talisman,” Destin said. When Evan looked puzzled, he added, “Protection against magery, remember? Anyway, the use of magery would have pointed a finger at me.”

  “So your father survived, and you ran.”

  “So we ran.”

  “Is there a price on your head? Will the king hang you if you’re caught?”

  “The king?” Destin laughed. “He’s the least of my worries. My father probably didn’t even see fit to mention it to him.” He paused, waiting for a question that didn’t come. So, he continued. “The general wouldn’t want the king to know that a thirteen-year-old stripling could get to him.”

  “Thirteen?” Evan said.

  Destin nodded. ??
?Fifteen, now. We’ve been on the run for two years, sometimes one step ahead of the general. He wouldn’t want to admit that my mother had left him—that would get her family asking questions. If he involved the king, it would tie his hands. No. He’ll handle it himself.”

  “Do you really think he’s looking for you after two years? I mean, with the war and the king, he’s got—”

  “As long as the bastard’s alive, he’ll be looking for us,” Destin said. “Like I told you, he’s not the kind you can leave. Tarvos is our last option.”

  “I’m sorry,” Evan said.

  “I don’t want your sympathy,” Destin said. “I want your help.” Why can’t you just say yes, like any reasonable person? When someone offers you a ship, and a home, and a bag of money, you say yes.

  “If you want my help, you need to be straight with me, and not try to gammon me like an easy mark. I may be a waterfront rat, but I’m not stupid.”

  “I deserve that, I suppose.”

  Evan rolled his eyes. “Yes. You do. So, now—if you plan to leave me with your mother, then where do you plan to be?”

  None of your business, Destin wanted to say, but he knew that wouldn’t get him where he wanted to go.

  “I plan to go back home and finish the job I started,” Destin said. “That is the only way to end this.”

  “You mean to kill the general.”

  “Yes.”

  Understanding kindled in the pirate’s green eyes. “Frances knows. That’s what the fight on the quay was all about.”

  “What she doesn’t understand is that it’s my fault he’s still alive.” Destin’s voice rose. “I should have killed the bastard a long time ago. Every person he kills, every life he ruins, every mage he collars—it’s on me.” He wiped his hands on his clothes, but he still felt as if they were covered in blood.

  “Maybe your mother is right,” Evan said. “Maybe you’re worth more alive than the general is dead.”

  With that, the darkness inside Destin came boiling up like the molten rock that spewed from fissures in the north. Before he knew what was happening, he’d gripped Evan’s shirtfront and slammed him down on his back on the deck. “You’re wrong!” he roared, glaring down at him. “I’m a monster like my father, and the only thing I’m good for is hunting other monsters!”

  “No,” Evan said. “You are not a monster. Whoever told you that was wrong.”

  “You don’t know me. You don’t know what I’ve done.” You don’t know how many I’ve killed, to survive to this point.

  “I don’t care what you’ve done. I’m more interested in what you’re going to do.” The pirate gripped Destin’s coat, arced his body up, and kissed him firmly on the lips.

  It was sweet and potent as Southern Islands rum. And like a name day drunk, Destin lost his head. He answered the kiss hungrily, pressing the pirate all the way to the deck. Then he launched himself backward, landing on his ass on the planking, heart pounding, breathing hard.

  The pirate was actually laughing at him. “Ah, Soldier,” he said, sitting up. “I have found your vulnerability. Love is the weapon you cannot counter. It leaves you helpless.”

  Destin glared at him. “It’s not love,” he said. “It’s lust, and desire, and—”

  “Are you trying to convince me or yourself?” Evan cocked his head, waiting.

  Destin said nothing. His cheeks were flaming, he could tell.

  Evan came up on his knees, hands resting on his thighs, like a faerie prince asking him a riddle. “Say it with me now, Destin: I am not a monster.”

  “No,” Destin said. But the fortress of his anger was crumbling, allowing the humor of the situation to seep in.

  “Say it,” Evan said, in a low, seductive voice, “and I promise, I’ll whisper monster in your ear whenever you want.”

  Destin couldn’t help it. He began to laugh.

  “Now say it.”

  Destin rolled his eyes. “I am not a monster,” he said, though he knew it was a lie.

  “Again.”

  “I am not a monster.” He raised his hand to forestall further demands. “That’s all you’re getting, so leave off.”

  “Acceptable,” Evan said, with grudging approval. “But you’re going to need some more practice.” He took Destin’s hands in his own strong, callused ones. “I would like to be your friend as well as your business partner,” he said. “I would like to be somebody you can trust. I would like you to be someone I can trust. Do you think that’s possible?”

  Destin stared at the pirate, his mind swarming with questions he couldn’t ask. How had this pirate survived a violent, brutal childhood and emerged with this generosity of spirit, this willingness to take a chance on someone like him? What is your secret? What are you made of?

  Destin wanted to say no. He wanted to tell Evan Strangward that the last thing he should do is trust Destin Karn. It will get you killed, Pirate. It will break your heart.

  But, in the end, he found that he couldn’t say no to hope.

  “I hope so,” he said. “I really hope so.”

  Evan smiled. “Now. If you insist on going back to the wetlands, you’re going to need a pilot. You can’t sail this ship on your own. So. We’ll sail there together. With me at the helm, it will be a quick journey there, and back again.”

  11

  THE HANDYMAN

  All the way back north, Evan refused to argue when Destin offered one reason after another as to why it was a bad idea for Evan to come along to the wetlands. Evan was busy grappling with the problem of finding a reliable crew. After three days on the water, he’d determined that it would require at least five hands for a blue-water crossing; at least three times that to crew Destiny as a privateer.

  The challenge would be to find a crew that couldn’t be bought off. The knowledge that the empress was still actively hunting him changed everything. He did not relish the notion of being delivered to Celesgarde in his own ship. He wasn’t so concerned about the crossing to Baston Bay. It would be there and back, with little opportunity for harborside gossip. But when he began sailing the Desert Coast, and raiding in the wetlands, it would be only a matter of time before he came to the empress’s attention, especially if he became known as a stormcaster.

  He still hoped that Destin might return to Carthis with him after accomplishing his mission in Arden. Destin’s nuanced magery might offer a way to ensure a loyal crew. Together, he and Destin could meet any challenge, stand against any enemy.

  He tried not to think of the possibility that their mission might fail. If they couldn’t defeat a wetland general, what chance would they have against the empress?

  More importantly, the cottage in Tarvos had been closer to a home than anything Evan had experienced before, and Destin and Frances had become a surrogate family. An ember of hope still burned inside him—the hope that they could look forward to a future together.

  When Destiny sailed back into the harbor at Tarvos, the sun was setting on their third day. On the way in, they passed an unfamiliar three-masted schooner, moored far out in the harbor, where the water was deepest. She flew no colors, but carried a full complement of guns.

  Destin rested his forearms on the stern railing, squinting against the sunlight gilding the tops of the Guardians. “Do you recognize that ship?”

  “No,” Evan said, “but she looks like a wetlander.”

  Not many wetland ships came and went at Tarvos these days, since Carthian pirates made the journey perilous. This ship, however, looked like she could fend off most any challenge.

  The harbor area was oddly deserted when they tied up at their mooring. Usually, the arrival of any ship brought a handful of people down to the wharf, some intent on commerce, others merely curious. Several jolly boats were tied up at Kadar’s public docks.

  They quickly unloaded their few personal belongings, meaning to come back with the wagon for the rest. As they walked up the hill, away from the harbor, Evan looked back. He saw sailors swarming over t
he schooner’s decks, as if they were preparing to get under way.

  When they rounded the point, the cottage came into view. It was dark—no lights in the windows.

  “Frances should be home by now,” Evan said. “Right?”

  “Before now,” Destin said, frowning. “Maybe she left a note inside.”

  They walked to the porch, between the beds of flowers that Frances had planted, and found the door slightly ajar.

  Breaker growled, hackles raised, but that was nothing unusual.

  “Wait,” Destin said, raising his hand. He stood listening for a long moment, then shrugged, pushed the door open, and walked in, with Evan right behind him.

  Before Evan’s eyes had adjusted to the dim interior, he heard the door slam shut behind them. All around the main room, lanterns were unhooded, flooding the room with light, practically blinding him.

  “Where have you been, Corporal?” somebody said in a low, raspy voice. “Weren’t you afraid that your mother would be worried?”

  Destin must have recognized the voice, because he turned deathly pale. He spun round, scanning the room. Frances wasn’t there, but red-brown stains that hadn’t been there before were spattered across the tile floor.

  “Don’t waste your time, Corporal. The bitch is waiting for us aboard ship. I think she’ll live.”

  The man speaking was thickset and barrel-chested, a wetland mage with a flattened nose and a bristle of hair. He was dressed in a brown uniform that carried no emblem of rank. His arms were so muscular that they hung out from his sides like thick branches on a spreading tree.

  It was—it had to be—Destin’s father, General Karn. But it wasn’t just him. A dozen men lined the room’s perimeter, similarly dressed, their hands on their weapons, as if looking for a chance to use them.

  Grabbing up the fire poker, Destin charged toward his father. But before he’d gone three steps, he was surrounded by soldiers, who pinioned his arms. The poker hit the wood floor with a thud.