The WindFlyer

Chapter 11

Draen's PoV

"What?" I whispered, my chest feeling like it would cave in. "What did you say?" The girl, Amma, gave me a funny little look, her eyebrows scrunching together.

"Captain Astoria Linnea Roltem is very much alive," she says slowly, enunciating each word as she says it. It's like my whole world has stopped, every thought is immediately banished from my head as the words ring in the air. My eyes go wide as I look at the small girl. I back away a step, my heart galloping in my chest as my eyes dart around the room. The world spinning too fast, I cannot get enough air in my lungs.

"No," I hear the word echo around the room, it sounds pained and is male. I look around for the speaker only to realize that I am the one who said it. My betrothed is not dead. She's here and well. I groan and clutch my chest as I realize: my betrothed is a pirate. The thing I swore to hunt down and kill. She abandoned her people, she abandoned her home, and -- though I do not know why it seems to hurt -- she abandoned me. I bring my hand from my chest to my head as pain blooms there.

Amma says nothing but looks concerned as her eyes latch onto my face. I lunge forward and grab her shoulders, pinning her to the wall, I growl like a feral beast, "where?" Amma is all too calm considering that a person much stronger than her is now pinning her to the wall.

"The roof, I suppose. She goes up there sometimes to escape," her eyes narrow at me and I think I now realize the innocent girl with linens is far from who she actually is. "If you hurt her, if you so much as touch her, I will cut you up. Slowly, prince," I flinch as she spits my title at me, "everyone on this island will gladly go to their deaths to protect her so if you dare harm her..." she does not finish the sentence, choosing to give me a menacing smile and letting the threat hang in the air. She rams her shoulder into me, pushing me away, before leaving the room in her icy rage. Somehow, the soft click of the door is all the more terrifying than a slam.

I grab the door handle and yank the door open, the hinges groaning and quaking with my rage. I storm through the house, the only light streaming in from the moon through windows. My boots thundering on the hardwood floors as I search for the stairs to the roof. In the silence, my mind races with everything, every encounter since I landed on that ship.

It all makes sense now. The pirate girl, the princess, hidden right before my eyes the whole time. From the very first word, I should have seen it. She could recognize my sigil ring all the way across the deck. The meal the first night, a dish from Roltem. The locket and sigil ring stashed not in a vault or chest, but in her private rooms. On a table which, if memory serves, held a lump of jewels in a shape I cannot make out, some sort of chalice, and a single piece of paper. Her shock at hearing her own name when I spoke of my betrothed. The speech, not of pirates. Refined speech and mannerisms, the kind that are instilled in court etiquette, the kind that are hard to learn and harder to forget. The meal she took at the restaurant, one of Roltem again. She can read and is well versed in languages, knowing Tellarnese. Of course she is the princess, the signs were there the whole time, how could I not see them? How could I not put it together?

I curse myself and my blindness, my idiocy. I let my hatred for pirates overshadow the facts I could have seen, all laid before me like a clear line. I slam my hand into the wall in frustration and the hanging picture frames shake. I look at the artwork and nearly growl. Even the art on the walls of this bloody home speaks of Roltem. The painted beaches and temples all like an image captured directly from the island kingdom. And I knew, too, that she was lying about where she was from. I knew but she would not change the lie when I asked again, what I only could have found out if I had just pressed harder.

I make it to the end of the hall to find that there are no stairs here. I scowl and look around for the way to the roof but, blast it, I can't see worth a dime in this darkness. I lean against the wall and scrub my face with my hands. I sigh and rest my search for only a moment to try and think. Logically, there must be a way to get to the roof that I missed in my anger. I push myself off the wall and pause for a moment. I lean back up against the wall, pushing away again I smirk. "Gotcha."

Embedded in the wall and made from the same stone is a rudimentary ladder. The stones are uneven and awkwardly placed. Made so that the shadows would fall on the wall to look smooth, brilliantly designed and no doubt the work of a genius mind. Probably designed by the girl -- princess -- herself. Just like the Hellfire. A mind that can work materials to destroy, a mind that can work materials to appear as what they are not, a mind that can work herself to appear what she is not. But that leaves me to question what she is. Is she a princess of the archipelago or is she a pirate? Does the girl destined to rule still exist inside the one who forges ahead in pillaging and plundering?

I haul myself up the makeshift ladder, my fingers cramping with the demand to pull my weight up. The awkward placement of stones making the ascent much more straining than I thought it would be; but I reach a trapdoor at the top nonetheless. I push on it softly and feel it give way on smooth hinges. I let it down gently and give myself a devilish smile. I want that girl to know I'm coming and I want her to know I'm pissed.

Placing my closed fist against the wood I slam it open. My hand smarts with pain, good. The pain, something to keep me from flying off the handle when I speak to her. The clatter of the wooden door against shingles echoes in the night. I pull myself through the opening and onto the roof.

The roof is not flat, like I would have assumed when Amma implied that Astoria Linnea Roltem -- even thinking of the pirate as that makes my stomach curl -- was sitting up here. The roof is sloped and comes to a point before sloping downward. The pirate is not on this side of the roof so I can only assume she is on the other side. I scramble to the point where the two slopes meet to find that there is a small flat portion, but she is not here either. Rather, the dead princess is sitting on the edge of her roof with her feet dangle over. An opened bottle of amber liquid sits beside her with an empty glass. My eyes latch onto the girl and I hiss a word out.

"You."