A Pirate for the Dead Goddess (Legends of Rahasia Book 2)

Chapter Fourteen

I awaken, hearing voices drift in and out of my consciousness.

"Two days out. He hasn't even stirred for two days. What'll we do without a captain?"

"You'll manage, Ali."

"I hate to say it," a sound of a flask tipped upwards, smell of liquor, "I'll miss the son of a bitch."

I feign still slumbering, though, when I feel Farzaneh's hands rubbing a healing poultice into my bruised ribs and sternum. I'd rather stay here. Her fingers smell like the coffee beans we shared out on the waters of Lune. Her soft raven hair brushes against my cheek when she leans over to check my temperature. Even with my body burned from the fire boats. Even with my lungs filled with liquid from near-drowning...

This is paradise.

But it's when I absentmindedly start chewing on a tough piece of jerky that I'm found out. Farzaneh snaps her fingers loudly in my ear.

"Look at you, Captain Lazy." She hefts me up on the pillows. "And here I thought you were suffering internal damage when you didn't come to right away."

I grin sheepishly at her. "A man can try."

She leans in then, looking intently into my eyes. "I'd kiss you if you didn't smell like salted ship jerky." My heart plummets at her cruel teasing. She tosses her curls over her browned shoulder, the red cloak slipping off her borrowed şalvar and vest. "I suppose you saved us."

A smile tugs at the edges of my lips, my grin widening further. "I suppose I did."

"One minute. Only one minute of gloating, or I smother you with a pillow."

I laugh, leaning forwards in feigned horror. "Goodness, you're a mean nurse."

She puts her hands on my chest, pushing me back down as I try to sit up. "Rest."

She shrinks away when I reach for her wrists, "Fari..." I curse beneath my breath to see how her skin's chafed beneath the manacles. "Fari, can you ever get rid of these chains?"

"I could..." she gets quiet. I know this isn't a time to speak. A confession, I feel it thrumming in her body, ready to be set loose into the world. "Lucky, can I tell you something?"

I nod, a tad too quickly.

"These chains keep me alive. The coven didn't imprison me because I was cursed." She takes a shaky breath. Inhale. Exhale. "They were protecting me because I was sick."

Sick...

Farzaneh's not cursed.

She's sick?

"I... What? Then what about the bit with them selling you to traders?"

"I sold myself to traders, to escape the coven."

Stunned, I rub the back of my head, wishing that maybe I really am unconscious, and this is all a dream. "You snuck out on a smugglers' ship because you were sick."

"Sick with too much magic. Building up inside me like... like a growth. Magic, too much of it. It's like powder, an explosive. It eats away at you. Like blight."

"If the chains come off, you die."

She nods, tight-lipped. "The coven put the chains on me to keep me from burning up, by getting devoured with power. But I ran away because that's no way to live. Hidden away in the middle of a desert. I needed to be useful, even at risk of dying. The coven tried to protect me, but I needed to protect others. I needed to be a hero, like Ode Ngayoh. The mortal who saved Rahasia, who was rewarded by becoming goddess of death."

"You already are a hero, Fari. You saved Kura's life. Healed her from the beating. The crew adores you. You've become a friend to all of them, cradling Ali when she near-lost her mind at Lune. Giving me my syringe medication to recover from the bone doctor, to transition fully."

"But I'm not a hero. I'm too flawed." she replies, eyes lost in thought, in some emerald-eyed dream. "And isn't that what really matters? A hero should be great. Not average." She scoffs, pinching at her arm, as though the pain keeps her present. "Every day, I wake up wishing I could be someone else. Someone who can run without wheezing or beat someone handily in a battle of wit instead of thinking of a good comeback the day after. I'm defined by my magic. My sickness. That's not who I am. But without it, I'm nothing. A loser."

I look down towards my bandaged ribs, already healing with Farzaneh's bitter poultices. On my skin, more slashes for tattoos. Each tattoo a death counted by the dice. Each tattoo, another person killed from when I sunk those Lunes.

Soon, I'll run out of skin.

"We're all flawed, loser-antiheroes here, Fari." I point to my tattoos, to the dice. "I kill and maim to win respect and power. Ali's an alcoholic. Kura's a con-woman. Xander slept with someone else's wife, and Jun was part of a thieving gang. If we were flawless, then we wouldn't be real. There's no truth in the pursuit of perfection. Only delusion."

"You think anyone can be saved then, Lucky?"

"Until death, Fari." I hold her gaze, emerald eyes meeting the eyes of the color of the sand, of my home of Akua. "And even then."

***

Hey, Pirates,

Thank you so much for voting and commenting. Love you guys! It makes me so happy.

Also, Lucky adores antiheroes. And I do too.

Best

Sophia