Scarlet Seas

Slaine paced back and forth across the longhouse, a terrible heat radiating in his chest like a bed of coals, making it impossible to stay still.

Toss yourself to the sea, Odrin had said. If you disobey me in this, you will forfeit your inheritance.

The heat flared again each time Odrin’s words echoed in his head. They fueled the fire inside him, better than dried tinder. Who did Odrin think he was? Didn’t he know what if not for Slaine his entire chiefdom would have been torn from him? It was because of Slaine and Moana that he sat on that chair.

And yet he would deny Slaine the first chance at glory in ten years.

The rage would have to come out this time. In one fashion or another, it would. The pressure was too great. Sometimes he could push it back inside and hold it there, but not this time. He had never been dealt a graver insult. He’d butchered men for less.

As he turned once again, he caught a glimpse of himself in the long silver mirror – a marriage gift, a work of magnificent Cassadan craftsmanship. His golden curls were in disarray. He brushed them back into place with one hand, but they immediately unfurled into chaos again.

It made him want to smash the mirror into a thousand glittering pieces, priceless though it was. He took a step toward it, the rage suddenly feeling euphoric. The rage only felt like poison when it had nowhere to go, when it wasn’t expressing itself through destruction.

“Come, have some. You’ll feel better.”

He turned to Maona, nearly overcome by the urge to strike her for no reason other than she was close at hand. He stopped himself. He didn’t know when she’d entered the room, but she must have been standing there by the bed for some time, watching him pace.

Moana wore a thin white shirt and nothing else, exposing the length of her long, smooth legs. She’d led her blond hair down, though hers always seemed to fall neatly into place.

He forced his fist to unclench. She’d once told him that she would be at his side to the end, but if he ever struck her like he had that third night of their wedding, she would open his throat in his sleep.

He’d believed her and almost killed her for it, but she was too rare and useful to be killed, not to mention the political fallout. He’d known her less than a week at that point, but he’d already realized she was an ally he couldn’t risk or replace. His hidden weapon. Moana had far more of her mother in her than her father in that way. Straw colored hair and ice blue eyes like Odrin, but the ruthless cunning in her eyes and the cold light that shone behind them – that was all her mother.

Supposedly. He’d never met the woman, given that she’d been in Cassada when the Eternal Storm broke upon them.

“Come,” she said again, motioning him toward the bed and holding a long pipe out to him, already packed with fura.

He went to her, letting her place her hands on his chest and guide him to sit down on the soft bed.

She handed him the long pipe. “Here,” she said. “You’ll feel much better.”

The sight of the pipe alone gave him an almost sexual rush. Odrin had warned him off fura. He’d forbidden his loachs and reavers from using the stuff at all except before battle, but the old man was full of fear and caution. He put the pipe to his lips.

Moana smiled at him softly, a slight upturn at the corners of her mouth that showed the dimples in her round cheeks. She held a candle to the pipe while he inhaled. “Good,” she cooed.

The smoke curled in his lungs, a shiver passing through him. He exhaled a black and greasy plume, making his throat raw and filling his mouth the bitter taste of fura. Almost at once his thinking grew clearer, the world sharpening around him. Colors burned brighter, as if every object in the room contained an inner light. The rage still burned in him, but it became a joyous pleasure, far more controllable and usable.

Moana’s smile widened and grew more genuine. “That’s better, isn’t it?”

Slaine nodded and let his wife remove his shirt.

“Tell me,” she said.

And he did. His whole body wanted to clench and shake when he described how Odrin had ordered him to stay behind. After a decade of misery on this cursed island, deprived of his divine right to partake in the glory of reaving and all the rewards that came with it, Odrin expected him to simply stand aside. He’d said it was necessary, that the storm’s ending could be a trap laid by Cassadan mages, but it was only more manipulation. If he truly believed that he would stay behind himself, the coward.

Could Odrin have truly believed Slaine would allow this to happen? He’d sooner forsake his future as chieftain before that. He had more to gain beyond the Scarlet Seas than a mere chiefdom.

Moana put the pipe to his lips and soon he was calm again. Or at least calmer.

“We can’t risk the chiefdom,” she said, her voice smooth but her eyes glinting. “We’ve sacrificed too much. My father probably wouldn’t even survive the journey. The moment he dies, Beckhead is yours and you can launch a reaving party of your own.”

“What does the chiefdom matter? The only thing that matters now is Cassada. It’s ripe for the taking now. Those that reach it first will gain the most. The best pickings will be gone by the time I finally arrive. Nothing but scraps.”

Moana put the pipe down and sat atop him. She cradled his face in her hands, looked him in the eye.

He saw his anger there, too, but a far colder variety than his own. Sometimes the coldness in her chilled even him.

“The chiefdom is everything. What we desire waits in Cassada, but High Chieftain Aile will never give it to us if we don’t hold Beckhead. Your status as chieftain is what will put you first in line for the spoils. Without that, we’ll get nothing. You’ll have both, though. You will sail with Aile’s war party.”

“How? We’ve been waiting for Odrin to die for a year now. He weakens but the man keeps coming back.”

“We speed his passing. He would never survive the voyage anyways.”

Slaine felt something within himself recoil, wanting to shove her off. She was talking about murdering her own father. Not for the first time either, but this was different. Before she’d spoken of such things in anger, but she was in control tonight. She meant it this time in a way she hadn’t before. “You’d kill your own blood? You’d be cursed forever for such a sin.”

“It’s only just,” she said, her voice growing colder and sharper still. “For what he did to my mother.”

His disgust faded fast. She was right. It was just and surely the gods wouldn’t curse a man or man for enacting justice. Besides, If she would kill her own father, that only spoke to the chieftain’s greed and incompetence. What did it say about a man if his only daughter wanted him gone?

“What do you mean?” he asked. “Speak plainly.”

“It’s the only way now. If he dies in the next few days you will sail at the head of his best warriors. If he doesn’t, you will stay here. The chiefdom will be ours, but all the holdings and riches across the sea will belong to them. We’ll be poorer than our own servants when they return. Beckhead will be the poorest and worst of the chiefdoms. I spoke with him today, you know. After you did.”

Slaine grabbed her by the shirt and yanked her close. The fura was coursing through him now. The movement of grabbing her, the sudden violence of it, was thrilling and pleasurable. With his sharpened vision, the crisp blue of Moana’s widening eyes looked like a slice of clear sky in winter. “You spoke with Odrin?”

“He summoned me after you met. He wanted me to talk sense into you. He said you must be patient. He said there will be many more voyages and yours will come soon – if the seas are truly open.”

“And you would really do it? Move against Odrin?”

“He deserves it. He abandoned my mother for a Cassadan whore and left her stranded on the wrong end of the sea.”

“How?”

Moana smiled, showing her dimples again. “I have ideas.”

With the fura flowing through him, Slaine smiled too. Moana always had plenty of those. She would make a great and terrible queen.