Lindsay Buroker - Encrypted

He snapped his mouth shut. “No.”

The captain stuck his palm out, edge toward her, and she banged her hand against it in the Turgonian gesture for a deal sealed.

“ Choose your weapon,” he said.

She went straight to the bows. They were designed for tall, burly men, so it took some experimentation to find one she could string and draw. For once her long arms were useful, and her months laboring on the plantation gave her strength she had not possessed during her academic tenure.

“ Think she’ll even be able to load that?” one man asked.

“ Probably shoot her toe off.”

“ There’s no way she’ll hit a target.”

“ Better tell the boys in the rigging to watch out.”

“ Don’t know why my languages instructor bothered teaching me the Turgonian word for encouragement,” Tikaya muttered. “Not like they ever use it.”

Bow strung, she joined Bocrest.

“ Challenger shoots first,” he said.

“ No practice?”

“ No.”

“ Best of three shots?”

“ One shot. Deal’s been made. Shoot.”

The lieutenant handed her a single arrow.

“ I see you’re a sporting people.” She should have negotiated the rules of the game instead of trying to finagle baths.

Tikaya nocked the arrow and turned sideways, bow held loosely in her left hand as the fingertips of her right curled about the string. Just like on the plantation back home, she told herself.

Except it wasn’t. Even on the calm day, the ship rose and fell with the swells, and activity on deck offered distractions. The misty breeze licked her cheeks, and she closed her eyes for a moment, considering the affect it would have on the arrow’s flight. She locked her eyes on the red dot in the center of the target and drew the bow, anchoring her fingers in her usual spot against her cheek. The men’s ongoing comments disappeared and focus came. She breathed in the tangy air, blew it out, and waited for the quiet moment when her body and the deck were still.

She released the arrow.

It cut through the air and thudded into the red dot. The surrounding men fell silent, mouths hanging open. Tikaya resisted the urge to smile or make any triumphant gesture.

“ Your turn,” was all she said to the captain.

His expression was less stunned and more dyspeptic. Too late, Tikaya wished she had found a way to make the challenge private. If he did not make as fine a shot, he might lose face in front of his men. And take it out on her.

Bocrest lowered his bow. “A shot that good is worth the prize, for what little reward having that dour bear around will be.”

The men grunted in agreement. Good. She recognized the face-saving gesture, but in this case was relieved he had found a solution. After eliciting a promise that Five would join her the next day, she walked a few more laps.

The captain caught up as her guards were about to lead her belowdecks. He clenched her elbow and put his mouth near her ear. “I trust you and Five aren’t plotting to escape. If you attempt something that foolish, you will be caught, and I’ll let Sergeant Ottotark deliver your punishment. He enjoys that sort of work immensely.”

Clouds blanketed the sky the next day when Tikaya came out for her exercise session, but the darker weather didn’t dampen the curiosity humming through her. Her ally-even if he did not yet know she had dubbed him ally-would join her soon. What would he look like without all that hair and dirt? Would the guards give them enough space to talk privately?

She walked around the outside edge of the exercise area, struggling for patience. The captain was out again, this time trading sword blows with his navigator. Tikaya wondered who ran the ship when these Turgonians spent so much time exercising. Some prisoners of war were probably chained down in the boiler rooms, shoveling coal into the furnaces day and night.

The clamor of crashing steel halted, and Tikaya stopped walking to search for the reason.

If not for the guards surrounding him, she would not have recognized Five. Now clean-shaven with military-short hair, he wore the same boots and black uniform as the marines, though no rank or insignia marked the collars. Taller than the men accompanying him, he strode across the deck, hands clasped behind his back, head up, alert eyes taking in every aspect of the ship.

Tikaya’s stomach did an anxious flip. Her putative ally had turned into someone who looked every bit like one of the officers who had tried to take over her islands during the war. Even with no rank on that collar, he seemed more the captain than the sweaty bare-chested Bocrest, who was also staring. A chilling thought gripped her. What if Five had been a captain during the war? Someone who fired on her people? Took prisoners? Tortured them.

Five’s gaze stopped on the sails nearest the smokestack. A faint sooty black dulled the canvas, and he raised an eyebrow at Captain Bocrest.

For a moment, Bocrest’s cheeks flushed, and an excuse seemed on his lips, but he halted it with a scowl. He stalked across the deck, bare chest puffed out, muscles flexed. He barked at anyone foolish enough to cross his path and stopped in front of Five. Bocrest gestured sharply while spitting words out in a low voice.

Tikaya resumed walking, more briskly than earlier, so she could steer close enough to eavesdrop. Before she neared them, the captain thrust his arm out, pointing his index finger at her. She stopped, feeling self-conscious when both men, and everyone else in the area, turned to stare at her.

Only Five’s gaze was friendly. The right side of his mouth quirked up in a bemused half smile, and she felt the need to brace herself on a nearby weapons rack.

Bocrest growled, “Convince her,” just loud enough for her to hear.

Though Five did not acknowledge the order, those words drove wariness into Tikaya’s heart. Presuming Bocrest’s relationship with Five was entirely antagonistic may have been a mistake.

He left the captain’s side and strolled toward her, his smile widening as he approached. A few strands of silver threaded his black hair, laugh lines crinkled the corners of his brown eyes, and a narrow scar bisected one eyebrow, but Tikaya had no doubt women of all ages swooned at his feet. Experience made her stifle her own urge to swoon. Handsome men did not look at her and smile; they looked through her, usually not noticing when they bumped her out of the way to close in on some buxom damsel with cleavage like the Inarraska Canyon. Most likely, he had an ulterior reason for that smile.

Tikaya folded her arms across her chest and kept her face neutral as he closed the distance.

Five’s first words destroyed her attempt at equanimity. “You’re the cryptomancer?”

“ What? I, uhm, no. I mean-”

Tikaya winced. Even if he had no ulterior motives, her almost-ally would surely turn against her if he knew. Like the rest of the marines, he would resent her, hate her, glare at her and…

He was staring, not glaring, at her, and not with hatred. Was that-her eyebrows arched-awe?

“ It’s your people’s term,” she said, “not what the name plaque on my desk says.”

Hoping for nonchalance, Tikaya stuck out a hand to lean casually on the weapons rack, but her focus was on him, and those gold flecks in his brown eyes, and she missed the target. Her fingers clipped the corner and slid off, giving her no support. She pitched sideways with a startled, “Errkt,” and would have landed on the deck, but Five lunged and caught her.

Chortles burst from the surrounding marines, and flames torched her cheeks. Five straightened and released her with a pat on the shoulder. She groaned and avoided his eyes. If there had been awe there before, that was surely gone now. In avoiding his gaze, she had a clear view of the marines pointing at her and nudging each other. Even Bocrest’s rock-eating jaw flapped with guffaws.