The Pirate Queen

Chapter 32

There was nothing at the end of their tunnel but a small crescent beach facing the sun. There were some palm trees, a few scraggly bushes, hibiscus flowers, and little else. 

Eric set the torch down in the sand, gazing out at the clear turquoise waters. It was beautiful, there was no doubt about it. Peaceful, serene, like something from a dream. Part of him just wanted to lay down in the soft sand and soak up the sun with not a care in the world. The other part of him wanted to slam his fist into the cave wall and bring down this entire island for getting their hopes up and wasting their time. 

Ariel sighed as she stepped up to the water's edge, reaching into her bag to pull out the red journal. She flipped its worn pages open to an image of an island that suspiciously resembled the one they now stood on. A small black dot marred the coastline where the cave they entered was, and that was the spot Ariel ran her fingers over. 

"I don't understand," she mumbled. "Something... Something was supposed to be here. He told me it was here." 

"Told you what was here?" Eric asked, stepping up to her side. 

She shrugged and he noticed there were tears in her eyes. "The answers to everything. Who I am, where I came from, what to do about the Dauntless fleet. What to do about my life." 

Eric sighed and scrubbed a hand over his face. "I don't think an island can give you those answers, Ariel," he said gently. "No one can tell you what to do with your life." 

She turned to him, face approaching devastation. "I wanted the money for them," Ariel whispered. Eric's brow furrowed in confusion but she kept talking, mumbling half to him and half to herself. "I was going to buy an island, establish a refuge there. Avoid all the war, all the nonsense, all the brutality. Just take a fucking break for once in my goddamn life. Get off the sea and find a way to just... Be." She turned and tossed the journal behind her into the sand as the first tears rolled down her cheeks. "The way to do that was supposed to be here and it was all for nothing. Now I'll never know." 

"Now, now, child. Edward Nott did not raise you to throw temper tantrums." 

Eric and Ariel spun around at the same time, weapons in their hands. A figure stepped from the cave, holding Ariel's journal in a pale hand with nails painted red as fresh spilled blood. She stepped further into the light of the rising afternoon sun and for a blinding moment, Eric thought he was looking at a goddess. Hair as white as moonlight tumbled down her back and she wore a silk dress the same color as the sea behind them, clinging to every curve of her body, making his cheeks flush. She was ethereal. But with one look into her black eyes, at the razor-sharp smile on her blood-red lips, Eric felt the truth. She was beautiful, but she was lethal. 

"Who the hell are you?" Ariel demanded, raising her pistol. "Give me back that journal." 

The woman only smiled, pausing her bare feet in the sand five feet away from them. "Why? I was the one who gave it to Edward in the first place." 

"What?" Ariel demanded, her hand not faltering as she aimed at the woman's chest. "Why?"

"For record keeping, what else are journals for? He was supposed to write out your story but I see he forgot that minuscule part of our deal." She thumbed through the pages, frowning as she took in the scratchy scrawl of the old captain that shifted into the looping script of the new Captain before her. 

Ariel dared another step forward, palming a dagger in her other hand. "Tell me who you are and what business you had with my father." 

The woman looked up under her eyelashes, fingers paused on the page with the picture of her island. She snapped it closed and dropped it into the sand, folding her hands in front of her. The gesture seemed almost demeaning. "No. Not yet. However, I'll provide a name. You may call me Sel." She moved to her left, settling down on a rock that Eric now saw resembled a bench. "But I will tell you who you are, and what role you play as well, Prince Eric." Her black eyes bore into his before she turned her attention back to Ariel. "The box in your bag if you will, Ariel."