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“You.”
The afternoon gradually turned to dusk, making it safe for Jarin and Riella to emerge from the inn. They visited a boutique for new attire and continued to the pre-wedding festival at Creta Square. Most of his crew came along, although some went to the docks to plunder ships instead.
They arrived at the festival as night fell, the stars blossoming silver in the navy sky. Jarin determinedly ignored the nearly full moon. He could not ignore its light, though—opalescent, and edging the city in white.
Riella wore a cobalt-blue dress that showed a distracting amount of her décolletage. The dressmaker had fitted her with a headpiece made from gauzy material and elaborate beading, concealing her distinctive platinum hair.
He chose well-cut black attire for himself, to blend in with the merchant class of Klatos. The city crawled with royal guards, and the last thing he needed was to be thrown in jail the night before Riella faced her fate. The breaking of the curse had been a big enough blow.
Creta Square was in a rough part of the city, spitting distance from the docks. Tonight, the square heaved with musicians, entertainers, hawkers, and revelers. Lights were strung between the buildings and every few seconds, firelights bloomed in the sky overhead, bathing the crowd in transient colorful light.
Riella stayed close to Jarin, reaching for his hand, which made his heart want to explode like the firelights. Affection from a siren was the most impossibly perfect thing he could’ve experienced in this lifetime. Nothing was rarer or sweeter or more vicious than Riella. Maybe he truly could die happy.
Sometimes he forgot she’d only been a land-dweller for a very short time. And for most of that time she’d been on Hieros Isle, where she was surrounded by the ocean. To find herself in a drunken crowd of partying strangers must’ve been surreal and unnerving for her.
“We’ll split into pairs,” he shouted to his crew over the din. The pirates were in varying states of inebriation, having mostly spent the afternoon drinking. “If you clock Artus, one of you keeps an eye on him, and the other comes to find me. Understood?”
If he could dispense with Artus tonight, that would leave Polinth as the only remaining threat to Riella. As far as he knew, anyway. He didn’t have a huge amount of information to go on. Would it have been too much to bloody ask that the fates tell Ferrante how the siren might die?
Silas saluted, his eyes unfocused, then plunged into the crowd. A hapless and very sober Drue went after him. The rest of the crew, including an already hungover Berolt, splintered off in different directions.
Jarin guided Riella toward the center of the square, where a tarnished bronze statue of the former King Branimir Nikolaou loomed over the festival. The king who’d ordered the slaying of Jarin’s father. The king his mother had then executed in retaliation.
Like Riella, Jarin preferred being at sea. He felt uneasy here, in the place of his family’s devastation. If he and Riella survived, by some miracle, he vowed to sail away with her, anywhere she wanted to go.
And if she wanted to resume her siren form and return to the ocean, he’d make that happen for her, too. He’d take her to Starlight Gardens. If Polinth could do this to her, surely someone existed who could undo it.
Standing a head taller than most other people, Jarin surveyed the square. He didn’t spot Artus and his crew, but he had faith the chaotic festival would bear fruit. There were too many wealthy foreigners and drunk courtiers cavorting with abandon for the pirates to stay away.
“Riella!”
Jarin whipped his head around. Who on earth would be calling her name? It was a female voice, at least. That made it less likely he’d have to bury his dagger in their gut before they could get near her.
The siren searched for the source of the voice, smiling when her eyes fell on the red-haired woman squeezing through the crowd.
Jarin didn’t recognize her at first, but as she drew closer, he realized she was one of the women from Madame Quaan’s. She wore an expensive-looking crimson dress and had a dapper older man in tow. The gentleman looked politely uncomfortable and out-of-place, bumping up against the great unwashed of Klatos.
“Sehild!” exclaimed Riella, pulling the woman into a tight hug. “I’m so happy to see you.”
Jarin continued scanning the crowd while Riella spoke with Sehild, keeping one ear on their conversation. The older man stood at the edge of the group, twiddling his cane and intermittently bouncing on the balls of his feet.
“Where’ve you been?” asked Sehild. She surreptitiously swept her eyes over Jarin. “I see you’re still enjoying certain earthly delights. Not that one can blame you.”
“I’ve been on an island, mostly. But who’s this?” Riella lifted her chin at the older man, whose face brightened at the merest scrap of the siren’s attention.
Jarin snorted to himself. The gentleman didn’t realize the blonde beauty would flay him alive if Sehild gave even the slightest hint that he was mistreating her.
“This is Olivier,” replied Sehild, waving a jewel-encrusted hand in his direction. “We’ve just been at a salon off the square. They serve the most incredible concoctions. Enchanted with magic, they are. Have you been there?”
Riella shook her head. She started to reply, but Jarin cut her short by grabbing her upper arm. He’d seen two things in quick succession that’d turned his blood cold.
From the northern end of the square, a horse-mounted patrol of royal guards carved a purposeful line through the raucous crowd, heading toward the king’s statue. And to their right, on a balcony of a tavern, stood Artus, smirking and looking directly down at Jarin. Several of his crew mates flanked him.
Artus waved at Jarin, then pointed at the patrol. Dammit. He should’ve realized that Artus would’ve spread the word of Jarin’s presence in the city. The old captain would have sent his men out that afternoon to gather information, just as Jarin had done.
If Riella was captured by the patrol and thrown into the palace dungeons, would she die there, alone in a cell? He couldn’t risk that happening. He needed to draw attention away from her.
He bent low, speaking to Riella. “Go to the salon with Sehild and her patron. I’ll meet you there when I can.”
