Page 41 of By the Flames of Her Fury

18

Vera

SIX AND A HALF YEARS AGO

“Have you ever thought about being a pirate?” I asked, staring up at the ceiling of my cell.

“Not particularly,” Swift shot back through the hole.

“Have you ever thought about being anything?” I shifted onto my side and propped my head up with my elbow.

“Not particularly,” he repeated.

I huffed. “You’re no fun at this.”

“I don’t even know what this is,” he said with a chuckle. Even through stone, the sound made butterflies flap their little wings in my stomach.

“I’m just thinking,” I said, drawing out the word. Lack of food, sleep, and being shut down here in the dark for six months made my brain foggy and my tongue loose. “I’m thinking about what I’d be if I wasn’t here. If I could be anyone else in the world.”

There was that low laugh again. “And you’d want to be a pirate? You’ve never even been to the ocean.”

“Hey, I could do it.” I pushed myself into a sitting position and leaned against the wall separating us.

“I’m pretty sure you could do anything,” he responded, and my butterflies grew a second set of wings. “But why would you want to?”

“Because pirates don’t have rules or people to answer to.” I played with a small pebble on the ground, rolling it back and forth between my fingers. “I’d be out on the open sea, able to do whatever I want. Go wherever I want. After being stuck in this”—I gestured to the cell around me—“wouldn’t you want to live under the sky all the time?”

“Pirates are also constantly in trouble,” he pointed out. “Why do you think every drawing shows them missing a limb or an eye?”

I got up on my knees and pushed the pebble through the hole at him. “Stop being so logical."

“Stop throwing your rocks at me,” he teased.

“What’re you gonna do about it?”

A snort escaped me when his finger appeared, the tip of it wiggling around on my side of the cell. I blamed what happened next on my delirious state.

I snatched his finger between my teeth, and my tongue involuntarily swiped along the fingertip. Dust and salty sweat exploded in my mouth, along with the hint of something spicy.

I sucked in a breath, mortified, and his finger instantly went rigid. I slid my teeth from him and backed away, heat creeping up my cheeks despite the chill in the cell.

I licked my lips, and the salt of his skin lingered on my tongue. “Sorry, I⁠—”

“That wasn’t how I imagined it,” he rasped.

I blinked. “Imagined…what?”

“Feeling your lips for the first time.”

The malnourishment must finally be getting to me. “You—you’ve thought about my lips?”

His gray eye appeared in the hole. “You haven’t?”

More heat surged to my face. I’d thought about a lot of things. It was hard not to when the only other activity to pass the time was when Mortep would come and prick me with his needles.

When I closed my eyes, I sometimes saw a hint of dark skin, a flash of full lips, a trace of rough stubble. I still hadn’t seen Swift, not fully, which would’ve bothered me under normal circumstances. But here, it was the least important thing in the world. All that mattered was that he was there at all. An invisible friend.

I tried to imagine what he looked like, though. Was he tall, like my brother? Did he have dimples? Would his hands feel smooth or rough if he held me? What would it be like to kiss him?