The WindFlyer

Chapter 32

Captain Astoria's PoV

I am exhausted. I feel like I haven't slept for four days. I know a got a few hours last night but with all the death and fighting in the last two days, it didn't do much for me. Draen's words still ring in my head. The fact that he can see me as anything other than lying, thieving, and cruel is shocking. And then he goes so far as to call me honorable. I've never considered myself honorable. Even when I was the princess, I wouldn't have called myself that. As a princess, I was kind, warm, and quick to love people. As a captain, I am commanding, passionate, and cunning. But never honorable. I kill people, I steal and destroy things in the dead of night. Maybe I wouldn't mind being seen as something else once in a while.

"I dropped off your letters when we were docked in Roltem, Captain. This letter is all we picked up, they said it was urgent, too," Lander, a crew member and my runner, says as he stands before my dinning table. I take the letter from him and send him on his way. Lander always runs my mail to the safe holdings I keep in every kingdom. I receive messages from them, too, but the senders never know they're writing to me. I have aliases of my aliases for people who think they work for a brothel owner or pub waitress who takes messages to a pirate who is actually one of my aliases. There are rings within the system as well. Anyone who looked would simply run in circles on a wild goose chase for years until they would find themselves at a dead end or right back where they started. It's a brilliant system that has been built up over years. I keep building as I go to protect myself.

The envelope in my hands is slightly brown. It smells faintly of tobacco and there is no return address nor stamp. No indication of where it came from but I think I have a guess. There is a wax seal of black on the back. I check it for breakage carefully. Upon finding the seal intact, I crack it open. I unfold the paper within and quickly scan the writing. The utter arrogance in the wording causing my eyes to roll. Yes, I do know who it's from. They don't even need to sign it. The bastards forget themselves, though I can't really blame them if they don't know who they are writing to. If only they knew.

I grab a match from a bowl on the table and strike it. I light the paper and envelope, watching as it curls in on itself and crumbles to ash. I rise from my seat with a sigh and brush the sooty remains from my hands. I'll have to change our corse now. I blow a piece of hair from my face in annoyance. Bastards, the lot of them. The door opens and Draen walks in. He has been below decks with the freed people. When I asked why, he said he wants to know them, wants to hear their stories and learn about their families. He wants to understand. I let him talk to them, so long as he backs off when they ask and gives them courtesy. I wouldn't expect Draen to do anything wrong to them, but these people have been through a lot. Everyone has to respect their boundaries and as they are now citizens of Oneiro, they are under my protection.

"You should hear some of these people's stories. Some of the things they've lived through, I feel lucky to be alive," Draen says, his eyes alight with sorrow but also hope. I glance at him and he snorts at me. "What's got you all bothered?"

"I have been... summoned by my fellow pirate lords to Pirates Cove," I say with a sickly sweet voice. Acting as though I adore this.

"Pirate Lords?" he asks like he's never heard of them. I thought the lords were common knowledge throughout the archipelago. I mean, fifteen of the richest, darkest, and cruelest pirates are bound to have legends and tales spread about them. I know I do.

"Fifteen pirates each with a sharing of Pirates Cove, aside from myself. I don't want any of the shit hole. They 'keep' the peace and enforce laws, if you can call it that," I answer, trying to explain what it is they -- we, I guess -- do best I can.

"They can summon you?" He sounds amused at this. I give him a little sneer.

"Oh, they can summon me, sure. I can also summon any one of them whenever I want. If they really want me, it takes at least five of them cooperating together to make a summons for me," I smirk at that. The prince doesn't look that impressed though. I frown slightly, "it only takes me, alone, to summon any one of them." Now Draen's eyebrows shoot upward in surprise. My smirk returns.