A Dragon's Heart (Book Three in the APK Trilogy)

Chapter 15 | Brothers

JACK

(For those of you who don't remember, Jack was the old man who owned the bar and is on good terms with the Bones twins. Cherry is the lady who gave Circe new clothes and looked after Lacey before Lacey decided to join Circe.)

I sat at a table in the middle of the bar. Although it was heading on to morning, the place was packed with drunken sailors, pirates and townsfolk alike and their rowdiness was lacking any tension. Everyone was in high spirits, greeting the new day with a pint of whatever had their fancy, the smell of food mixing in with the cloud of cigar smoke that always hovered around the ceiling. However the cheerful atmosphere did nothing to dispel the dread that I felt in my heart as I stared at the man across from me.

"How did you get this information? The places you are talking about, the people you speak of ... their existence isn't proven by humans. These rumors could be nothing but lies."

The tousled man looked nervous, his fingers kept twitching around the glass of whiskey he held in his right hand. "Come on Jack ... I heard it from a friend alright, and he claimed to hear it from a crew mate on the Bones ship. The Pirate King wasn't there Jack, he never returned from one of the islands that they landed on. The rumor is that he was arrested and ... and ..."

"Alright," I said curtly after a long pause. "No need to continue. I understand what you're saying."

Another few minutes and my companion left, after swearing to me that he wouldn't tell another soul of our conversation. I lent back in my chair, swirling a mouthful of alcohol around my mouth.

Finding out the truth about something like this would not be easy. I had a difficult time believing that Obsidian Bones had just been arrested and dealt with, with no complications. .The boy wasn't called the Pirate King for nothing after all. How many years had he spent out on those seas, making a name for himself? A name that was separate to his Fathers, but one who still held the threat of 'Zeus Gold,' lingering behind it? Obsidian Bones ... the son of the late Pirate King, the boy who had killed his own Father and surpassed his ambition and power by the age of eleven. The 'Demon Child,' who name had indisputably claimed the seas ever since the moment he had sought to own them, the boy who brought fear into the eyes of the fearless.

To believe that he had become caught up in the higher powers of the world was not impossible; the boy was in a league of his own when measured up beside mere humans. But to believe that he had been dealt with and so easily ... I shook my head. It was almost blasphemous to entertain such an idea.

There was a seed of doubt in my mind however. I knew him, I knew that his loyalty was unbreakable once it had been given. If his family had been in danger, his brother, or any of his most trusted crew, he would not have hesitated to put everything on the line to secure their safety, even if it meant giving his life. That was what it meant to have the loyalty of the Pirate King.

A face popped into my mind then. The face of that girl that had been with him the last time I had seen him, him and his brother. The way that they had both looked at her, for Cobalt it was not so unusual, they might be twins but those boys were starkly different and Cobalt was a romantic. But Obsidian ... I remembered how intense his eyes had been when he had looked at the girl. Circe, that had been her name. I chuckled. Circe, daughter of the God of the Sun and Goddess of Magic, what a fitting name it was for a girl such as she. I remembered the way that her hair had shone like fine golden silk and how she had enchanted the whole room with her presence. Surely she had enchanted him too.