28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

The extra cask of fion had somehow made its way up the quarterdeck, where the men eagerly cracked it open. Steins and mugs were held under the ever-flowing stream of alcohol, raucous laughter echoing over the dark waters that surrounded them.

Using the NightWatcher to estimate the location of the lunar cycle in coordination with the map Rahmi had taken from Karim, Wright drew up a secondary map with his best guess as to where the archipelago might appear. And, according to Wright, they were mere days away.

Rahmi had known Wright for decades. He knew that Wright"s best guess was a near absolute.

It was cause for celebration, one that rarely came on board The Mark of Malice and one that Rahmi"s crew desperately needed—one that he desperately needed.

Rahmi could almost taste the freedom and could already smell the stalls in Sha"Hadra that had been too far from the sea to visit for three hundred years. He wondered if they looked the same or had changed in the last few centuries. He imagined the sun baking down on the red-clay houses, the brightly colored tarps flapping in the desert breeze. He thought of the vendors shouting to the customers, urging them to peek at their shares.

Then, Rahmi thought of Kalia. He imagined her in a blue dress, so similar to the red one she always chose to wear. He watched in his mind as she bent over a barrel of dried spices, smelling the herbs at the behest of the shop owner perched behind his stock. Surprisingly, he even imagined walking next to her, casually having his hand on her hip, kissing her forehead at any given interval, and burying his nose in her hair.

"Captain!" a voice shouted, drawing Rahmi away from his thoughts. "Take a drink, won"t ya? It"s about time you joined in!"

Rahmi found a bottle being thrust into his hands, and the cork popped off.

"Take a drink, sir! It"s all thanks to you and the djinn. We"ll be free of our debts soon enough."

Rahmi took a sip, the crew surrounding him drunkenly crying out joyfully. He looked at their faces, each one brightened by the moonlight. Crinkled eyes, heads tipped toward the night sky, easy breaths, relaxed shoulders. Was this how every day could look? Pardoned from his curse, wandering the sea? He took another sip, one that turned into a pulling gulp.

"Where have you two been?" a singsong voice rang out over the men"s low chatter. Elodie skipped over to Kalia and Reshef, both of whom emerged from the lower deck near the ship"s bow. "You"ve been gone for ages and missed dinner and everything."

Shirin followed with a bowl of fish stew settled in her palms. "It"s probably cold by now. I thought I would set some aside for you in case the men finish it all."

Reshef grabbed the bowl first, taking a long swig from the rim before wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You"re a star, the both of you." It was Shirin"s turn to blush, something that didn"t happen often, though that didn"t catch Rahmi"s attention.

No. The look of sheer emotion on Kalia"s face ranged from overwhelming sadness to uncertainty to longing. It was a softness that only enhanced her natural beauty, a softness that momentarily wiped away the years of torment that usually notched a line in her brow. Rahmi had the sudden urge to make his way over to her, one that he had to quash.

"Captain!" Alaric said, jogging over to mizzenmast, where Rahmi had casually leaned. "Captain, I—" He stopped, narrowing his one visible eye at Rahmi. "I don"t like that look on your face."

The quartermaster knew every expression that passed over Rahmi"s features, even those so subtle he was sure he was the only person who would notice.

"It"s nothing, Alaric," Rahmi said, taking another sip of the fion that Thomas had left in his hands. He hooked a thumb into the hilt of the cutlass, tearing his gaze away from Kalia, who had finally taken a hesitant sip of the fish stew. "What did you need?"

Alaric wasn"t buying it. "Are you having second thoughts?" The question was sharp, worded as though it were a dagger flashed as a promise for retribution. At Rahmi"s hesitancy, Alaric gaped. "We"re days away from finding the Luminaria. You— you can"t seriously be considering quitting?"

If Rahmi were honest with himself, he hated indecision more than anything. He hated insecurity. He hated foolish, wishy-washy behaviors of any kind. And yet, he had found himself face to face with it more often than he hadn"t since Kalia came aboard his ship. She had somehow managed to re-center his universe and place a new perspective on his narrowed lens of life.

"What would you do, Alaric? If you weren"t immortal? If you had the choice to start a family, sail the seas, or drink yourself to death in a tavern? What would your life look like?"

Alaric stepped back, staring at Rahmi like the captain had grown a second head. "Why does it—"

"Tell me," Rahmi commanded, taking another sip of the fion. "Be truthful. What would it be?"

Alaric opened his mouth, furrowed his brow, then closed it again. "I—," he started. He turned to look out at the sea, where Rahmi could only see the small white crests atop the waves, each shining under the light from the moon above. "This is all I know."

Rahmi handed the fion to Alaric, who took a hearty swig following his confession. "Aren"t you curious to know how it feels to be mortal? To sail the seas because we choose to, not because we must collect souls? Or to have the honor of aging with a partner, to grow with them over a lifetime?"

Alaric cleared his throat, and Rahmi watched as his quartermaster"s eyes turned toward Reshef, who had thrown his head back in laughter at something Elodie had said. Even Kalia"s lips formed a slight grin. He was suddenly desperate to know what was said to make her smile.

"I think I would like that," Rahmi went on, slicing through the steady silence that had settled over him and Alaric.

Alaric frowned as he handed the bottle back to Rahmi. "She"s a djinn, captain," he said quietly. Rahmi felt his gaze bore into the side of his face. "You don"t know if you can have those things with her."

Or, more importantly, if Kalia even wanted those things. That part was left unsaid.

Cora had sidled up near the group of four, a sneer plastered on her face. Rahmi straightened as Cora leaned in toward Elodie, hissing something that made the laugh slide from Elodie"s lips. Cora had always been mean, a defensive wall that recalled a childhood filled with petty squabbles and parents who were uninvolved on a good day but too involved on a bad one. He had spoken to her at length about it and had tried to get down to the root of her guilt to allow her to heal.

And yet, Core still had the propensity to target those she deemed weaker than her. She went for Shirin once and never did it again. Elodie, on the other hand…Elodie had grown in the decades she and Rahmi had been meeting to work through her pain. She had bloomed from a wilted flower into something far more beautiful, though that growth seemed to hit a wall, even in their weekly chats, not until Kalia.

Rahmi made to walk over, stuffing the bottle back into Alaric"s hands, who briefly fumbled with it. His footsteps slowed as Shirin stepped forward and then quickened again. Kalia stepped before them, her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Nothing good could come from this. Rahmi was sure of it.

As though on cue, Kalia"s eyes narrowed, her vision growing hazy. Cora"s pupils widened. Shirin had turned to place a comforting arm around Elodie"s shoulders. Luckily for him, it didn"t seem that Cora had rallied any other crew to her side, the other men and women still eagerly downing pints of fion. Somewhere on the opposite side of the crowd, a fiddle whined as it began to play.

Shirin took a step back as Rahmi approached, dragging Elodie with her. From the red rim of her eyes, he deduced that Elodie was on the verge of crying. He lifted a hand, ready to tap Kalia on the shoulder when she withdrew from Cora"s mind.

Cora shook her head, her face slackening as her eyes roved the deck under her feet before lifting to look at Kalia.

"You need to leave her alone," Kalia said with a falsely sweet, close-lipped smile. "No one is going to be on your side if all you do is bully those around you." Cora opened her mouth to speak, but Kalia shook her head. "We don"t need to hear your excuses. I saw your excuses." She leaned further to whisper so low that Rahmi almost missed it. "Mommy being mean to you is only a justification for so long. It"s time to grow up."

Cora set her jaw so tightly that the grind of her teeth could be heard over the stomping feet that danced on the other side of the quarterdeck. "You had no right—"

"You just haven"t met someone willing to stand toe-to-toe with you. That person will always be me. And I"ll gladly teach you that lesson as long as I"m on this ship."

"Those memories are private," Cora shot back. She turned toward Rahmi, expectation written on her raised brows. "Are you going to allow her to do this?"

Rahmi sighed, clasping a gentle hand on Kalia"s forearm, which she immediately tore from his grip. "Cora, this is something that we"ve talked about. You can"t—"

"It"s wrong, captain," Cora interjected as she placed her hands firmly on her hips. "Not to mention illegal." She faced Kalia once more. "I could have your head for this. All I need is a single guard, and you will be gone. If I got one message to the palace, I could—"

It didn"t take long for Rahmi to notice the fist balled at Kalia"s side, the tightness of her eyes, or how her smile turned brittle at the edges. He wrapped his arms around Kalia"s chest, pinning her wrists to her side before lifting her feet from the deck.

"Get off me, get off—" Kalia attempted to scramble forward but only managed to elbow Rahmi in the throat.

He let out a choked cough, though he kept his grip tight on her, whisking her away. Kalia needed space from Cora, enough that she wouldn"t be able to break Cora"s mind wide open and rip her soul away from her body, which she seemed on the verge of doing. He knew how quickly Kalia"s mind formed plans for revenge and had been on the receiving end of them himself. But from how her eyes flashed and that dark shadow passed over her face, Cora had hit on something much deeper.

Rahmi marched them through the dimly lit office, finally setting her down in his private quarters. He shut the door with a snap, standing guard to keep Kalia from storming back to the deck.

"Let me out," Kalia said softly, her voice filled with calm malice that, had he been a lesser man, would have chilled him to his core. "Now."

Rahmi shook his head, leaning against the door. He reached behind him and turned the brass key before removing it from the lock, swiftly pocketing it at the front of his tunic. "You"re going to kill her."

"Of course I"m going to kill her," Kalia snarled in reply, accentuating each word as though he were a particular brand of idiot. She paced in front of him,

She was clearly fighting a roaring battle within herself, the fire that raged evident in the stiffness of her shoulders and the curl of her fingers into fists. Her attention narrowed on him, and Rahmi had just enough time to slam down a barrier before her feral and angry power blasted toward him.

It scraped, clawed, and screamed against Rahmi"s mind, threatening to shred him to ribbons if he relented for even the briefest of seconds, but he endured it. And just as quickly as it came, her power withdrew. Kalia collapsed to the floor, a single sob shaking her shoulders. She took a shuddering breath that Rahmi was sure was meant to calm her, only for Kalia to fold over herself and begin to cry.

Rahmi pushed himself off the door and crossed the room, kneeling close enough to her to feel her tremors. "You can tell me, ruehi," he said quietly. "If you can"t tell me, you can tell your friends."

"I don"t have friends," Kalia shot back between sobs, only for the tears to take over again. She shook her head, lowering it to rest her brow against the cool, wooden floor. "I can"t have friends."

"Why?"

She took another breath, lifting her head from the ground. Her green eyes were already puffy, and tears streaked down her cheeks. "It"s too dangerous, I"m too dangerous."

Rahmi nodded slowly, twisting to change his position from kneeling to sitting. He drew his knees up, resting his forearms on them. "Does it have to do with what happened to your family?" He was empty and helpless at how quickly the fear seemed to cling to her, how she struggled to find herself in the sea of guilt she waded through.

And when Rahmi thought she wouldn"t answer, Kalia finally whispered, "Yes."

They were quiet for a long while. Waves of grief and guilt continued to flow from her, pulling Rahmi into their depths. He reached forward, wiping her cheek with a gentle caress of his finger. She didn"t curve away from him, though he half-expected her to, instead leaning into his touch.

"Will you tell me about it?" Rahmi asked, snaking his hand around to wipe her other cheek before letting it rest in the crook of her neck. He let his thumb rub gently along the top of her shoulder, painting figure-eights along her skin.

Kalia took another shaky breath, lifting her hand to swipe the back of it beneath her chin to stop the tears from continuing to drip onto her chest. "I was young when it happened. We had a neighbor, a good friend of my mother"s. He— he felt my power one afternoon. I— I didn"t know..."

Rahmi listened as she told him all of it, bile rising in the back of his throat with every detail that spilled out of her. Magic didn"t run in her family, so no one knew how to look for it. The neighbor alerted the palace guards when he thought Kalia"s family was sleeping that night. How the palace guards stormed the house, attacking Kalia"s mother when she begged for mercy. How her brother screamed that it was him who had the powers to protect his sister, and how he was killed when he tried to get to their mother.

How Kalia"s mother was then run through with a sword as she tried to fight for her son. Kalia slipped into hiding under the floorboards of their home out of pure terror.

Fury tore through Rahmi as he heard how her family"s blood dripped on her for the rest of the night as she sat, stunned and scared, in her hiding spot. The blood had long dried before someone came to check on them, a different and unknowing neighbor screaming to the guards for help. Those same guards laughed when they arrived, having torn the family apart the night before.

"The girl," the betraying neighbor had repeatedly said, " What about the girl?"

"There was no girl," the guards replied. "Take the bodies, bury them in the desert. Give them a traitor"s funeral."

Rahmi held her hand in his as she stared at the worn, red rug near his bed. She didn"t seem to have tears left to cry, her gaze flat and haunted. But she kept talking, kept telling the story even though the celebration was still in full swing just meters away.

Kalia had crawled from the space under the floorboards after the bodies had been taken, dried blood in her hair and streaked down her face. She spent the next five years hustling the streets of Sha"Hadra, running from the guards and keeping to herself. She knew what happened when the children didn"t keep to themselves.

"The madam found me soon after that," she finished, her voice cracking and her lips so dry they were nearly flaking. "I used my power on her to try and steal money. She took me away, threatening to call the guards if I didn"t let her. It"s my fault they"re dead." She whispered the last words, barely heard above the ship"s creaking and the roaring laughter around them.

Rahmi"s stomach dropped to his boots, and there was heaviness in his limbs that hadn"t been there before. "That"s not true," he responded, firmly enough that she looked up and blinked. "Your family was murdered by a petulant king who decided the magic of a child was a threat to him. It was not your fault. None of it was. Trust me on that, ruehi."

Kalia"s eyes dropped to her lap, where their fingers were still threaded together. She placed her other free hand on top of his, patting it twice. "I learned long ago that trust was never meant to be given, not even when you think it should be."

Rahmi sighed through his nose, moving his hand from her neck to pinch her chin and force her to look at him. "Then I will spend the rest of your time on this ship earning it."

Her gaze searched his own, and Rahmi found himself doing the same. He didn"t know the last time his heart thumped against his chest just from the simple look of a woman. He couldn"t recall if it had ever happened. Here he was, pinned in place beneath a pair of green eyes. He was sure he had never seen a color so beautiful before.

Kalia opened her mouth before closing it again, a thought seemingly on the tip of her tongue. "I"m sorry for the sea urchin in your chair," Kalia finally murmured, those fucking eyes dipping to stare at his lips.

Rahmi huffed a laugh. When had they leaned toward each other? The loose locks of her hair fluttered with his breath. Her hand moved up his forearm, her fingers tracing the markings he bore. He felt her heat, could see the flecks of amber within the green, the faint freckles along her nose.

"I should say that I"m sorry for dragging you aboard my ship," Rahmi responded, his fingers leaving her chin to tuck one of those locks behind her ear. "But I would be lying to you. And I just promised to earn your trust."

Kalia"s chuckle was breathy, yet it still thundered against Rahmi"s ears. He wanted to hear it again and again. He wanted to find out how to make her laugh, see what would make her smile—anything, everything.

Her lips parted as they leaned closer, their breath mingling in the inch between them. Rahmi watched as her eyes slid closed, anticipating the kiss that was meant to come.

That was until a resounding boom sounded from the deck, jolting them apart. Rahmi stood quickly, pulling the key from the pocket of his tunic, and hurriedly unlocked the door. "Stay here," he ordered, ripping open the door before running across the threshold.