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:  C H A P T E R  T W E L V E : 

He left with Cody, and as the door closed, I found myself staring at Conroy just as he did with me. I wanted this all to be just part of his game. Maybe he was a double-conman, pretending to side with Avarice just so he could help me escape and bring me back to Damunt.

"Please tell me they're lying," I begged, hoping I was keeping my voice strong, but I could feel it shake in my throat as it came out. He had a bit of stubble on his chin, and he scratched at it as he shook his head and stood up from where he sat on the edge of Avarice's desk. He looked so incredibly foreign in this setting, just as I probably had my first day here. Now I was dressed like a pirate and looked like the part. Conroy didn't--he was playing a different part.

"You will understand soon enough. It has been so long since I have seen Aloysius--we have been separated since our mother passed away," he explained. He had a hand on the necklace he always wore, twirling around the capsule of poison that looked black in the light. He paced closer to me, and I backed up until my backside hit the edge of the couch.

"Wh-Why did you become apart of my father's defense then? You're obviously against him," I countered. "No one can hear us through the walls--just tell me if you mean what you say. Y-You can't be related to Avarice. You work for the King!" I was getting angrier the longer he stayed silent, the longer he stared at me with his open gray eyes.

I did not want to see the resemblance, but my mind was yelling at me that they had the same eye shape, the same wide nose that even Cody shared.

I stumbled around the couch when he relentlessly closed in on me. I backed my way between the couch and the coffee table bolted into the ground. "Is it that much of your concern, Maxine? I realize brother can be a bit harsh, but with me around he will not touch you-"

"Don't call him that!" I shrieked, whirling around to march off, but he grabbed onto my arm and spun me back around. He was in my face, and the smell of brandy was on his breath as he bent down to my level and shared with me a pitiful expression.

"I have seen you grow up to be the beautiful woman you are, Maxine," he began, and the soft tone he used on me reminded me of all those times he had been there to protect Theo and I. He had never been this cruel to me, and it was tearing me apart inside. "You share so much with your mother-"

"Do not bring her into this," I hissed, sneering at him as I tried to shake his hand off of my arm. "You're the reason she's gone!"

"No, listen to me, Maxine!" he argued, taking me by the shoulders and forcing me down onto the couch. I slapped my hand over my mouth to keep from screaming when he came so close to my face, I could see the veins in his tired eyes. "I have worked for your family for all of your life, and I'll be damned if I let that all go to waste. So long as I am here, you are safe. I meant what I said when I told you that you should not be afraid of me simply because I am related to Avarice."

I wanted to settle myself down somehow. I was just so full of every emotion that I was capable of feeling. Instead, I pressed myself back into the couch cushions and pulled my hand away so I could say, "Yes, but that doesn't change what you did."

My pulse was beating so fast, even when he moved away from me. I felt stuffy sitting here with him as close as he was to me. He may have walked away, but my insides still squirmed with unease. Being on The Avarice of the Sea was tolerable until he showed up, and now I wasn't sure what was keeping me from jumping off the ship again and abandoning all the threats Avarice made.

I would risk it all if it meant having a chance at survival that didn't depend on Conroy.

"What about your wife? Your kids? Do you not have two little girls?" I blurted out, staring vacantly ahead of me as he walked back to the desk. I felt the clink of glass, and I assumed he had poured himself another glass.

"They passed on years ago. I saw it fit not to tell you and Theo--the King found out, however. That is the thing about working with royalty. They must know everything that goes on in my life, and thus I split all contact with Avarice until the day I decided to stage my inevitable death," he told me upfront. He was much more open than Avarice, and I realized this even as he came back around and sat beside me. I grew stiff as his free arm wrapped behind the chair, dangerously close to my shoulders.

"And you never told me?" I choked, feeling dreadful at the thought. This entire conversation had me swallowing salt and floundering with a dry mouth. I even knew his girls; they spent a days in the summer at the castle when I was small. After my mother left...

"They were murdered in the crossfire? Why would you let that happen?" I demanded. If he had known about the abduction of my mother, surely he would have kept his family away from the battle field. They lived on the outskirts of the estate, but close enough to have been effected by the bombings and the cannon blasts. I was too small to understand why they never came to visit after that.

"It was part of the plan. Rather horrific, isn't it?" he said, sounding gravely disturbed by the event. It showed on his face as he took a large swig from his glass. "I loved Ethel even though I knew I should not. It was awfully cruel of me to fall in love, but then again, isn't it for everyone?"

He was watching me carefully. I was too stunned to say anything. He acted with hardly enough grief to make it plausible that he was ever capable of loving his wife as he said he had. As he spoke I could not stop myself from thinking of Ambrose, and how terrible it was to see him fall away from me as I tumbled down the broken cliff face. It was truly disheartening to know that I had broken a piece of everyone's soul I had come to cherish.

I felt a hair nearby my neck stir, and turned to find that he had taken a loose strand of hair between his fingers. He brushed it over my shoulder and caressed the tangled curls down my back. I was frozen in my place, unable to move, unable to speak, only to watch as he set his brandy on the table top and placed his hand upon my knee.

"Conroy!" I shrieked, snapping out of my daze to shove his hand away. "What do you think you're doing?!"

"Please, Maxine, spare me the suffering. We have known each other for seventeen years-"

"Exactly my point!" I cried, bolting up from the couch and rushing to the door. He chased after me, spewing nonsense in his partially-drunken stupor. I swung the door open, blocking him in his path to me and giving me a few moments of a head start onto the deck.

I had barely reached the quarterdeck stairs before I was yanked back by his hand on my arm. In my haste to get away, my free hand found an unlit lantern atop a crate and swung it up with all my might.

The lantern glass shattered on impact, and oil spilled everywhere. He stumbled back with a cry of pain, releasing me in the process of staggering backwards. He tripped over his feet a moment later and fell to the ground, unconscious.

Panting hard, I fell back onto the quarterdeck stairs. The crew members were muttering amongst each other, and the few that actually knew Conroy personally were running up and checking the side of his head where blood was starting to seep from his temple. There were slices scattered across his forehead and cheeks where fallen glass had slit his skin.

My entire body was screaming for me to get out of there before Avarice saw. In a panic to escape, I slipped past a few of members of the crew and ran towards the hatch, only to be steered back by Cody standing down at the bottom, about ready to come back up with his father.

"Cap'ain! Cap'ain, come quick!" someone was shouting as I ran for the spokes of the mainmast.

As quickly as I could, I scrambled up and reached the first post where Harvey and I sat and watched on occasion. I looked up the sail and spotted the dot overhead that was the crow's nest. Harvey was the only man known to get up there faster than a snake on land.

Avarice was on deck now, rushing to Conroy's side as he started to come to. Cody, however, came to stand at the base of the mainmast and stared up at me as I tried to pry loose one of the extra knives Harvey kept lodged into the mast. My hands were quivering as I stood up and started to climb higher.

"Come down, princess!" Cody shouted, and I could hear Nash yelling from the quarterdeck, "It's too windy!"

"Where's that redheaded son of a whore?!" Avarice bellowed. "Go fetch 'im and tell 'im to get her down from there!"

I wasn't sure what Harvey would do when he found me up in the crow's nest as I planned on doing. It became chillier as I passed between the sails, and a buffet of wind pulled my hair over my shoulders and into my face. I dared to release one hand so I could push it aside.

The wood hurt to grip onto after a while, and it was starting to make my skin pucker where the open edges pinched my fingers. I kept the knife blade between my teeth and picked up the pace when I looked down and found the ginger hair of Harvey talking to the captain.

I couldn't hear much from up here, other than a few shouts from below. The spokes were getting smaller and fewer, until a shadow formed over my head and I looked up to find the crow's nest in my vision and in reach.

A few moments later I cracked open the bottom hatch and crawled inside, arms dead like noodles and chest hurting like nothing else. The crow's nest was like a bowl, and it sent wind whipping in and out and picking up my hair in the process. The majority of the climb was a complete blur, but I knew going down I would remember every bit of it.

Shivering, I shut the hatch and curled my knees up to my chest. The temperature dropped significantly as I climbed, and it brought goosebumps onto the exposed flesh on my wrists. I shuttered and pressed up against the side of the bowl, gripping the knife in one fist and in the other, nothing. My palms were all scraped up and blistering, and to keep them as painless as possible, I balled them into fists.

"Princess! Maxine!" someone shouted from below, and relatively close. I knew who it was before I even opened the hatch to look down at him. It was Harvey, and he kept himself at a safe distance.

"Go away!" I yelled. "And tell Avarice I'm never coming down!"

"Come now, princess! Ya don't mean that!" he said, climbing up fast to reach the hatch, but it was already shut and I circled the rope attached to the mast around the stake hammered into the trapdoor. He tried to push it loose, but it wouldn't budge no matter how hard he hit it. "Open the door, Maxine!" he ordered, this time harsher.

"I told you to go away! I don't want to talk to anyone right now," I admitted, already feeling flushed in the face and prepared to break down.

"If it's bein' punished yer worried about-"

"Stop talking! Leave me alone, I just need to think," I demanded. I waited until I heard his boots start to shuffle back down before checking the hatch again. He was halfway down, and even when he looked up and saw me staring back down, he kept moving.

A gust of wind swayed the mast, and I urgently shut the hatch and kept it closed as I waited for the wind to pass. The swaying of the crow's nest had my stomach lurching with the way my entire body moved with it. I kept close to the center after that, and hooked an arm around the mast to keep myself from becoming nauseous.

Conroy's betrayal felt like it all came from some twisted nightmare. It seemed too insane to even comprehend, and all I could do was sit there, trapped on this godforsaken boat out in the middle of the Donec Sea. There was nothing I could do to get away from here and still have my life with me.

I heard some shuffling down below and twisted the rope off of the stake. I creaked the hatch open just a tad, and screamed without meaning to when it flew up all the way. Cody had his hand on it, heaving himself up into the crow's nest with me. He had gloves on his hands to keep them from getting torn up like mine, but he was still out of breath, perhaps more so than I was.

"Gods, I haven't done that since I was a wee laddie. At least then I could haul my weight," he complained, kicking the hatch shut and leaning back against the side of the nest. His head reached the ledge of the nest when he sat down, and I was almost afraid of seeing him stand up. He would no doubt tip straight over the side.

Now I understood why men taller than Harvey and I didn't come up here.

"Cody! What are you doing up here?" I exclaimed, exasperated by the sight of finding him perched up here across from me. His legs were too long and he kept them bent and pulled up to the side of the nest with more difficulty than I had. It was cramped up here with him.

He huffed out a deep breath and said, "Harvey came down an' wouldn't go back up to get ya, so I came."

"Nash can climb up here better than you can," I remarked, narrowing my eyes at him as he tugged off the leather gloves. He tossed them aside and scratched the back of his head, tugging at his short stub of a ponytail in the process.

"Well, there's somethin' I gotta talk to ya 'bout, an' Nash isn't gonna tell ya so I will," he started. After reclining back and getting settled in, he said, "Archer's gettin' back ta work soon."

"So?" I demanded. "What does this have to do with-"

"Ha! Did ya see that right there!" he exploded, shaking a finger at me as I fumed with embarrassment. Even I could not control my own expressions, and I cursed myself for it.

He gave a light tug on my hand and drew my attention over to him. I felt so far away from him, and for some odd reason, having someone to lean on was something I needed right about now. "I know how Archer is. He's been like that for most every girlie--even Mhyra."

"Who's Mhyra?" I questioned, nudging the back of my hand over my cheek to check for any dampness. There wasn't any, but I got a smudge of dirt off. He didn't even bother wiping it away for me since he was so used to it on everyone else.

"The captain's servant," he explained. It hit me like a brick to the head. I had completely forgotten about her, and felt terrible for it. She was the only other woman on board this dreadful ship, and yet I grew used to not seeing her anywhere, not even in the captain's quarters during the few times I spent in there. The first time I saw her, Cody had his cutlass to my neck and I saw a side of Avarice I never saw again.

It was awful remembering it.

I absently rubbed at the scars under my chin and hummed absently. "I'm sorry for assumin' things, princess, but if ya don't mind me askin', what happened?"

"He attacked me. That's all you need to know," I told him and turned away, focusing on the wall by his legs instead.

"An' with Conroy? What did he want to know?" he questioned. "I didn't see it but I heard ya bashed him over the head wit' one of the lanterns."

"I was just angry, is all," I said. "I'd rather not talk about Conroy. The man makes me ill."

"One o' the first times I met 'im an' he does seem a bit off," he confessed. I'd nearly forgotten the mentioning of cutting all ties with The Avarice. If Conroy distanced himself so much from his brother, that meant he rarely ever saw Cody.

"Yeah, says the son of Avarice," I mocked, and he slapped me on the arm for that one.

"You've been gettin' sassier an' sassier, haven't'chya? Yer becomin' one of the crew," he told me, and I felt my ears heat up as I smiled down at my lap. It was nice to hear that from Cody, and I almost enjoyed the thought of being apart of the crew. It reminded me of Harvey the Monkey and Ivan the Know-How. And Nash, the big flirt who was supposedly a legend back at Brunmere Isle for raking in the girlies at the taverns.

I wanted to be apart of the crew, even if it meant scaring blisters on my hands and sweating under the hot morning sun. I didn't want to just be a prisoner--I wanted to have this experience.

"Perhaps that isn't so bad," I admitted, looking back up and meeting his beautiful blue eyes. His dark skin was a stark contrast to his eyes, and I saw how he smiled and crinkled up the skin at the corners where the white scar passed through his brow.

"That wasn't so hard now, was it, princess?" he mused aloud. There came a tugging in my chest that made my heart thump harder, and it warmed me to my core. He reached over and smudged his thumb against my cheek, just as I expected him to, but then he smiled and said, "I dunno, but you look fine with or without dirt on your face."

"Only you would say that," I laughed. The last thing I saw on his lips was a wide smirk before he came too close to see anything other than his eyes. He pressed his lips to mine, and I shut my eyes to simply savor the feel of his chapped yet soft lips against mine.

We kissed in the crow's nest, and it was incredible.