16. Chapter Sixteen

The nightmares had returned.

Kalia didn"t know if it was the stress of her newfound life or involuntarily leaving her old one behind, but they had returned. Her dreams were filled with shouting female voices, the angry, muffled sobs of a small boy, the sharp zing of swords leaving their sheaths, and a loud cry before the world turned bloody and dark. Soon after, Kalia began walking her path alone, without a family and the safety of a home.

She woke with a start that night, breath sawing her throat as she sat up in bed, a hand clutching tightly to her chest. It took a moment for her mind to realize where she was and another for her to blink the foggy vision away. When she finally did, she noticed Elodie seated in the chair at the door and Shirin staring at her from bed.

Kalia swallowed and pressed her palms into the corners of her eyes before lifting her hands to her brow, wiping the clammy sweat away from her hairline. Her heart still hammered, quivering her already queasy stomach. Blowing a breath, she reached over and lifted a shaking hand toward the porcelain pitcher to pour herself a glass of water.

It was empty.

Swearing under her breath, Kalia tossed the quilt to the side and swung her legs over the edge of the mattress. She needed some air, some water, something to get her through the roaring headache and the endless stream of nerves that blasted through her veins, coursing through her like a pulsating, ice-covered monster.

"Are we going to ignore that you were just thrashing around like a fish out of water?" Shirin asked, her brown eyes still settled heavily on Kalia"s face. "Or are you going to tell us what that was about?"

Kalia picked up the pitcher from the end table, letting it dangle at her side. She bounced it against her thigh in tune with the ship"s swaying in the waves. Above them, the overnight men scuttled over the quarterdeck, their muffled shouts still sounding through the floorboards. She swallowed the thrumming tension and fixed a cool mask on her face.

"There"s nothing to tell," Kalia replied, crossing her arms over her chest, the pitcher still hanging by the tips of her fingers. "I was just dreaming about Doc"s fish stew. It came to life."

Her first night working in the galley and seeing Doc"s cooking process solidified Kalia"s resolve never to eat anything from the head chef, even if that meant starving. The one good thing she could glean from the galley was the crates of apples and root vegetables she could use to make an escape stash. She may have snuck a few on her way out and hid them with the single coin Rahmi tossed her after the card game.

Fucking bastard.

Shirin"s sardonic snort of laughter was unladylike enough that Kalia instantly flashed back to it. Still, Elodie"s the madam laying her whip across her back when she had done something similar, but Elodie"s innocent, doe-eyed gaze only widened.

"You were moaning. It sounded sad," Elodie piped up, grimacing slightly as she shifted in her seat. "You were saying momma or mommy. It was hard to tell at first, but—"

Kalia felt her nostrils flare as she took in a deep, noisy breath. She curled her hand around the pitcher"s handle hard enough that a piece of the chipped porcelain dug into the creases of her fingers. "I said there is nothing to tell," she replied coldly. Elodie shrunk away from the bite in Kalia"s tone.

"There is no reason to get upset with us," Shirin snapped back, swinging her legs over the edge of the bed. "We"re just trying to talk to you. We"ve found it"s helpful to get things off of your chest if you—"

"Is this the part where you say all you need is love? Or you can do anything as long as you have friends by your side? How about keep pushing yourself, no matter how tough it gets?" Kalia interjected, turning to square her shoulders toward Shirin, who had stood with her feet planted wide, color rising into her cheeks. "Because I think I"ll skip that, thank you very much. I don"t accept empty platitudes, especially from people I don"t know."

Elodie huffed a quiet, wounded sigh that bordered on pity, but Shirin"s direct stare and set jaw lacked any discernable warmth. Kalia returned it with ease.

"She"s the one that"s got to be stuck here, El," Shirin finally went on after a long moment, waving a dismissive hand toward Kalia as she broke the eye contact. "It isn"t any of our business if she would prefer to be sacrificed to Liddros instead of healing her guilt. You and I will have moved on, and she will be here still lamenting about the world being unfair, and if only she had one more person to scream at, it would all be better."

Kalia glowered, opening her mouth to send a storm of insults toward Shirin, but Elodie stood from the seat to step in between the two women with a difficulty that caught Kalia"s gaze.

"It"s okay, Shirin," Elodie managed to say, her face contorting into a grimace of pain she could no longer hide. She leaned over to desperately grab onto the foot of the nearest bed, her hand sinking into the mattress as she struggled to remain upright. "Do you remember when I came on this ship? I didn"t speak for—" She let out a hiss as a hand flew to her lower back, and she nearly collapsed back into the seat. Shirin wound a gentle arm around Elodie"s waist, attempting to guide her toward the chair.

"You should sit," Shirin said, her brows furrowing with concern as she looked over Elodie. "It"s been a distressing day; you don"t need to—"

"Are you hurt?" Kalia asked, though her tone was markedly sharper than she meant it. Shirin bristled as Kalia curved a path around the three beds, coming to a halt in front of Elodie. "What happened?"

Elodie sucked in another breath, one that whistled between her clenched teeth, as she straightened her hunched shoulders. "It"s nothing, truly," she began, but Shirin cut her off.

"It isn"t nothing. That monster and no one came to your aid…"

"Shirin, I"m fine—"

"You are not fine, Elodie. You can barely stand up straight."

"It won"t take too long to—" Elodie didn"t finish her sentence, interrupted by her cry of pain. Her knees buckled, forcing Shirin to tighten her grip around Elodie"s waist.

"What is wrong with you?" Shirin snarled at Kalia, who was already removing the finger she had prodded into Elodie"s lower back, but Kalia wasn"t listening. Balancing the water pitcher on the foot of the bed, she was busy tugging on the laces of Elodie"s stays, loosening the garment enough to peek through the sheer fabric of her shift. "What are you— oh, Elodie…"

Shirin peered over Elodie"s shoulder, her horrified stare locked on the purpling bruise that swelled Elodie"s lower back and left flank. Elodie dropped her chin, and Kalia knew she had begun to cry from the thickness of her voice when she said, "I didn"t want you to know. It was…I was coming back from the galley and—"

This time, it was Shirin yanking at Elodie"s garments. The loosened stays tumbled to the ground, followed by the stained skirts, and Elodie shivered as Shirin pulled up the hem of the shift, her skin pebbling against the stale air of the lower deck. It wasn"t the flash of pale, bare skin that drew Kalia"s attention, but the defined boot print stamped in a painful shade of blue across Elodie"s body.

The three were silent, save for the small sobs that had begun to shake Elodie"s shoulders. Kalia didn"t necessarily like the woman. She was young and na?ve. She was nosy and unsophisticated. But Kalia knew what kind of man had done this to her, what variety of men had allowed this to go on. The roaring in her ears was no longer from the crashing of the waves against the hull, and the tenseness in her jaw had nothing to do with the argument she was readying to have with Shirin. Pure hatred coiled in her belly, gripping the edges of her and preparing to spring free.

"Why didn"t you tell me it was this bad?" Shirin asked, her fingers brushing over the tender pattern. Even with the feather-light touch, Elodie winced.

"Who was it?" Kalia"s question was a whisper, so deadly quiet that Shirin lifted her gaze twice from the wound.

Elodie sniffled, glancing over her shoulder to look at Kalia and Shirin. She blinked slowly at whatever she read in Kalia"s eyes. "I—I…" Elodie started before trailing off. She inhaled a shaking breath, her chest rising slowly as she filled her lungs. "It doesn"t matter. He had his fun. He"ll leave me alone now." Her eyes brimmed with tears, and each one glistened in the dim glow of the candlelight as they dripped onto her heated cheeks.

"I didn"t ask if he had his fun. I didn"t even ask if you think he"ll leave you alone. I asked who it was."

Shirin"s swallow was audible as she fixed her stare on the dark shadow that had eclipsed Kalia"s face. A series of heartbeats passed as the two stared at one another before, finally, Shirin curtly nodded her head once. She slid her gaze back to Elodie.

"We should go to the captain, El," Shirin began, but Elodie violently shook her head, grimacing again when the movement twisted her back.

"Y-you know th-that will j-just make it w-worse," Elodie said through tears. "Ralston, he…" She trailed off, her body stiffening as she looked at Kalia.

Kalia tipped her head, quirking an interested brow. "Who is Ralston?"

Elodie turned on the toes of her boots, ripping the hem of her shift from Shirin"s hands. She clamped her fingers around Kalia"s forearm, her cheeks paling considerably. "Oh, gods, he"s—he"s no one, Kalia. Don"t think about it. He"s dangerous, he—"

Kalia swapped a look of indifference with Shirin, who seemed on the verge of storming from the small room herself but only shook her head. "One way or the other, I"m going to find out who that is. You can tell me now, or I can figure it out myself." One way or the other, Ralston was going to pay.

Shirin"s eyes grew darker as she narrowed them on Kalia. "Why?"

Kalia leveled her calm gaze on Shirin, taking in the tangled braid still matted from sleep and the frown lines that etched the sides of her mouth. "Because even you two helpless pairs of wet stockings should feel safe."

The corner of Shirin"s lips curled into a half-smile as though she appreciated the quip, but Elodie wasn"t nearly so convinced.

"What are you going to do?" Elodie whispered shrilly. Her trembling chin and overly bright eyes only made her look smaller, and Kalia felt her spirit squeeze at the sight of it—that damn empathy.

Kalia used two fingers to scoop up the porcelain pitcher again, letting it dangle precariously in the air by the handle. "I just want to have a chat," she said.

The berth was louder than usual, thanks to the calm sea keeping the quarterdeck crew at a minimum. One of the men had left the hatch above the staircase ajar, allowing the breeze to waft in. It cut through the otherwise stifling room with the precision of a sharp knife and cleared the stale stench of the lower deck in the process. Kalia stepped out of the shadowed hallway and into the long room, Shirin and Elodie tight against her heels.

A group of men gathered near the far wall, their low chuckles heard through the conglomeration of swaying hammocks and discarded piles of dirty laundry. In the opposite corner, a woman was on her knees before another pirate, his head titled back to rest on the ship"s framing. A guttural groan worked its way up his throat as he came. One of the men faked a theatrically loud moan, another round of raucous laughter filling the berth.

The woman pulled away from his cock with a soft pop, wiping the corners of her lips as she stood. A silver coin was dropped into her outstretched hand— payment for a job well done. She turned back toward the men, beckoning the next one forward with the curl of her finger.

Working at the brothel had numbed Kalia to the sight of women exchanging their services for coins, but the thought of them doing it on the pirate ship…

"It"s their choice," Shirin muttered over Kalia"s shoulder, seemingly reading the unasked question that clouded her mind. "They were allowed to house with us. Some had, for a while anyways."

Kalia recognized Cora, the woman she had come across in Rahmi"s private cabin a few days before, as she emerged on the staircase, her dark hair tousled and tangled. A smirk appeared on her lips when she locked her gaze with Kalia, and Kalia had to refrain from rolling her eyes. Cora sauntered past, her grandstanding gait reminding Kalia of the peacocks she saw strutting through the palace gardens when she had made a trip with the madam as a teenager.

She briefly wondered how often Cora had landed on her back in the captain"s quarters to feel she had the right to flounce around the ship like that. With a zip of irritation Kalia couldn"t entirely control, she shoved a kernel of her power toward Cora, just enough for a flash of a vision to spark down the bridge. One of Cora being pleasured by the rotten tentacle of a dead squid. Kalia made sure to add in the sour, fishy scent just for extra measure.

Cora stumbled, tripping over a set of boots she hadn"t seen. Kalia didn"t bother watching to see if Cora recovered, instead turning back toward Shirin to ask, "Which one is Ralston?"

From the corner of her eye, Kalia saw Elodie begin to wring her hands, her pale face shining in the slivered light that managed to slide through the hatch above the staircase. "This is a terrible idea…" she began, but just as quickly clamped her lips shut at the look Kalia shot at her.

"He"s there," Shirin answered as she leaned against the wall, jabbing her chin toward the far corner where the men had gathered. "In the dark tunic, blonde hair. Has a stare that makes you want to put on every article of clothing you own."

"With the smug smile and is looking over this way?"

"That"s the one," Shirin replied. She casually picked at her nails as her gaze flicked back to Kalia and the pitcher she still held in her hand. "You said you just wanted to talk, right?"

"Mmmhmm," Kalia countered, further stepping into the berth. The men lifted their hungry gazes at her sudden appearance, their eyes roving the thigh-high slit in the satin red dress. "That"s one way to put it."

"Kalia," Shirin said sharply as Elodie let out a shrill squeak from the back of her throat, but Kalia took another hurried step forward to avoid their scrabbling fingers. "Kalia." One hand clawed into her shoulder, but she easily slipped from it.

It was effortless to ignore them as she pressed further into the berth, her stare locked Ralston. His oily smirk reminded her of Cranford Reed, and she remembered watching Mintie crawl down the grand staircase, blood smearing on the marble behind her. Never again, Kalia had told herself. Never again. These preening assholes would never learn, not if she didn"t teach them.

Ralston"s gaze flickered away from her only once, looking around in sudden disbelief that the newest woman on the ship would have her eyes set on him. Kalia tugged on a honey-sweet smile as she approached him, one she had learned from watching Nadine work, and Ralston reached out a hand to set in the crook of her neck.

Kalia tempered back the shudder of disgust that threatened to cannon up her spine. He must have taken her reaction as one of shy nerves because he let out a huffed, uneven laugh.

"You"re a right sight to behold," Ralston started, tilting his head down to look her in the eye. "I"m sure nothing good can come from you." Low bouts of laughter echoed around them, chuckles from the men who had turned their attention away from the two women still on their knees across the berth. Ralson"s hand slid from her neck, his callouses pricking at the skin of her shoulder. "What do you say we go somewhere a little more private? I"m sure you don"t want to be heard the first time you scream a man"s name."

"Not that there"s much privacy, girl," another man said. "We"ll hear you wherever you are. I can promise you that."

The men around them laughed again as the tips of Ralston"s fingers glided along the edge of Kalia"s hand before lacing it with his own. He began to pull her toward the hallway, where Shirin and Elodie still stood in waiting, but Kalia firmly planted her feet.

"Just one thing," Kalia countered, biting her lower lip as she took a small step back from him, keeping her hand tightly wound within his.

Ralston"s eyes flashed, anger replacing blind lust at her defiance, but he leaned a shoulder against the nearest wooden framing pole to showcase his casual appearance. "And what"s that, lovely?"

Kalia didn"t waste another moment before swinging the porcelain water pitcher upward, slamming it against the underside of his jaw. Ralston let out a shout as the pitcher cracked against him a second time, this one catching him in the nose. He fell to his knees. Blood splattered and teeth scattered to the floor, plinking on the wooden planks like grotesque water droplets.

The men let out shouts of protest, jeers, and sneers echoing through the berth as they reached to draw their cutlasses. But Kalia smashed the pitcher to the ground, allowing the porcelain to shatter, before crouching beside Ralston. She picked up the nearest piece and shoved the sharp edge into the column of Ralston"s throat, forcing the flow of blood to bisect the porcelain and run down her hand. In another breath, she stopped the men in their tracks with a flash of her power, freezing them in place with a vision of her own making.

"I saw what you did to Elodie," Kalia said calmly, brushing a strand of hair from his sweat-covered forehead. He reeled his head back, knocking it painfully against the wooden pole behind him. "I saw that bruise you and your boot left on her back." She shoved the porcelain piece in further, and Ralston winced. "You touch her again, and I"ll be back. And I"ll do worse than this."

Kalia stood, wiping her hand on the front of his tunic and dropping the porcelain piece to the ground. It clattered next to him, and he lifted his murderous stare long enough to bore a promise of retribution into her own. Kalia withdrew her power, and the men stumbled as they lurched forward, one tripping across a worn rug and landing with an oof on his stomach.

But Kalia had already stepped over Ralston and wiped the blood from her hand onto the back of his tunic. She swept past Reshef, who was peeking over the edge of his hammock, a sly grin curling the corners of his lips. She ignored him, too.

"You have immense amounts of power," a male voice called from the staircase, and Kalia glanced over her shoulder to see Rahmi had been watching from his perch on the bottom step, Alaric nestled behind him. Presumably, they had heard the shouts of the men from above. "I"m surprised you didn"t use more of your magic, djinn."

Kalia bristled at the amusement dancing in his eyes as she squared her shoulders to face him. "Do you find this funny, captain?" she bit back through gritted teeth. "Do you find it funny when your men attack the women on your ship? Or are you so oblivious to the goings-on with your crew that you didn"t realize what was happening?" She jabbed an accusatory finger toward him and felt a swoop of anger that the same glittering joy had slid from his face. "Some things require a response that the other person understands, and your crew understands violence."

She pivoted on the toes of her boots, storming past Elodie and Shirin back toward the small room they shared.

The following morning, Kalia emerged from the lower decks to find the wind whipping through the sails and the sea spraying a cool mist onto her cheeks. She shivered from the cold as her gaze planted on the gathering of pirates at the base of the far mast and lifted her eyes to where they were looking.

Ralston hung from the crow"s nest, his bloodied and bloated body covered in lesions that could only have been made by the barnacles on the underside of a ship.

"Is that better for you, ruehi?" a voice murmured in her ear, like a caress against her soul. "Keelhauling is a fair punishment on my ship."

Kalia didn"t say anything as she turned away from the dead man and the captain and walked toward the hatch leading to the galley.