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:  C H A P T E R  T H I R T E E N : 

I lowered myself out of the nest first, and started down with Cody coming a few moments after. I kept the knife in my mouth so I could use my hands to guide me along the spokes as they became nearer and thicker. It took a good few minutes to reach the sails again, and once we crossed them it was faster to get to the boom. I found my foot holding there and took a break from the climb. I was so close to the ground now that it made me dizzier to look down now than it did before. The men were all scattered below me now, and I found Harvey closer than the rest of them. He looked like he wanted to climb up and sit next to me.

I was tired already. There had been enough commotion for me for last more than just a day, and felt sick to my stomach whenever I thought about what Avarice would make me do to accommodate for what I did to his brother.

Cody arrived at the spoke adjacent to the mainmast's boom. He kept there with one hand hooked around the mast, glancing briefly at me as I did the same with him. From this height we could see out onto the deck of the neighboring ship where Avarice was, having crossed over from the planks connecting our ships together. Him and his men were talking, discussing whatever it was that was happening, but I couldn't keep my eyes there long. The blood from the bodies was making me cringe, and reminded me of the night I stabbed Archer, and the blood that was on my hand.

Instead, I studied the planks between the boats, and wondered what would happen if I ticked all of them out of place, so in the case of them falling away, we could strand Avarice and a handful of his men out at sea. The thought of it was nice to consider.

Cody encouraged me to climb the remainder of the way down, where Harvey held a hand out to me and helped me leap from the mast spokes. He blinked curiously at me in the process of guiding me away from the mast.

"'Sorry 'bout yellin' up there," he apologized, and I could only smile and rest my hand on his arm.

"Don't worry about it," I told him, stepping aside as Cody leapt down and dwarfed Harvey significantly in height. He looked off towards the other ship before turning back to Harvey.

"Take her down into the hold. I'll talk to the captain 'bout this," he said.

"But Myron already told cap'ain not to do anythin' to Maxine 'till Know-How lets 'im back up again," he informed us.

"What?" Cody blurted out, looking downright confused. "That doesn't give us much time then. He'll be up again by tonight."

"I dunno, she smacked 'im pretty hard in the head right there," he said, thumbing his finger against the side of his skull. It may have confused Cody to no end, but I knew all too well why Conroy had no intent of letting Avarice punish me now. Me being punished wasn't apart of Conroy's plan.

"Just take me to my cell. Avarice won't like me up here anyhow," I said, resting the heel of my palm against my temple to try and relieve some of the stress on me. I wanted to know everything they knew about what was going on.

"Alright, I can take ya then-"

"No, you've got work ta do. I think my foot slipped on one a those ropes up there--I mighta loosened it a bit," Cody interjected, pointing up the mast towards the sails that were tied to the booms by thick, heavy-duty ropes.

"Gods, yer such a clumpsy climber, always have been," Harvey complained, already slumping towards the mast and taking his gloves from Cody's hands.

He smirked and called after him, "Not true!"

"Tis, an' ya can't argue it!" he shouted back, shimmying up the mast to the first boom where he checked the rope and moved on to the next.

Cody ushered me towards the hatch where the two of us clamored down. I turned to head straight down the next set of stairs, but he reeled me back up by the arm and nodded towards the crew's hammocks. "What?" I gawked, not sure what he was implying. "I can't sleep with the other men."

He chuckled and rolled his eyes. "As if that's gonna happen. Follow me." I did as he said and walked towards the other end of the hold. I observed the horrible state the pirates slept in--dirty and ragged, but it was a far better arrangement than the cells down below.

We reached the two end doors at the farthest side of the hold. I concluded that we were directly below the captain's quarters where his door began, and where it divided below into two separate quarters. On one door I saw Ivan's name etched onto the wood, scratched above a scribbled out name and a dozen other words carved onto it. Some of them were vulgar, others were simple things like, "Scholarly fellow" or "Brainy".

"I didn't know Ivan got his own room to himself," I admitted, shuffling over to face the door beside Ivan's. It had Cody's name on it, and he had a key in his hand to get in.

"Yeah. When Ivan first joined the crew we needed a real navigator savvy. He was such a spoiled blue-blood before this, ya wouldn't've recognized him. He called for a room, and has had it ever since."

"When was that?"

"I dunno. I was probably five or six," he admitted with a casual shrug. He swung open his door and attached the keyring back onto his belt as he waltzed in and motioned for me to enter. As soon as I was within the threshold, he shut the door and knocked it back into place with his hip.

As I stepped inside, I felt a sudden wave of appreciation for the amount of furniture in his room. The massive bed pushed to one side was crafted into a two-sided wooden frame that was built into the corner, and on it, though it was messy and still managed to look comfortable, were two quilts and a book spread open to a page with annotations in the margins. I was about to observe it for a while when I turned back around and saw the same cabinets that accented the wall behind Avarice's desk.

They were all latched shut, but it was the same dark wood that matched the bed frame. There were two oil lamps permanently mounted on the walls, and on the far side was a door that led out to a balcony I once observed in Avarice's quarters. It faced the stern of the ship, and overlooked the horizon we were leaving behind.

Stepping back around to face Cody, I found him still with his back to the door. He was observing me with cautious ocean eyes, his brow set straight across in a troublesome manner that caused the scar above his eye to wrinkle up on his forehead.

"What is it?" I asked. "I should go to the cells before Avarice comes down here."

"He doesn't come down 'ere often," he admitted. "At least not in my quarters."

"Then what is it?" I demanded. I felt off seeing him so upset and troublesome. He was only ever troubled in serious cases, like the whipping or the arrival of Conroy. This was twice in the same day.

He scrubbed at his chin while stuffing his other hand into his pocket. "I shouldn't be tellin' ya this. We're far enough from the coast, but still," he murmured, shaking his head as he moved to take a seat on the edge of the high-sitting bed. He brought his feet up to rest against the frame and draped his arms over his knees.

"What?"

He looked at me sorrowfully and shook his head. "It was one thing to do this with yer mother, but now that I'm grown--it's an awful thing to do to someone. The captain's takin' ya to the Outer Planes, Maxine."

I was oblivious to the severity of his words. I scratched the side of my head as I came to sit beside him. "What for? I didn't think the Outer Planes existed."

"Lots of ships don't make it there. I don't see the point in ships goin' so far west," he told me, looking down at his hands before bringing his eyes up to meet mine. "I'm sorry, Maxine. I really am, it's just that I was never there to see anything happen. It must've happened before yer mother met yer father, but she'd been to the Outer Planes with Avarice before."

"What for? I always thought she was a blue-blood like father. She came from Procella," I objected. Father always talked about when they first met, and told me the story constantly after she was taken. It was a haunting memory to come across again, because I recalled only the annoyance of hearing the story once more. At first I understood, and I was upset by his sorrow, but later when it faded on me, it faded on him as well.

"Where she came from doesn't matter now." He shook his head and wove his fingers through his hair. "It only matters who her family was. Her mother was here before that, an' before that I don't know. The Avarice has been around forever, Maxine," he stressed, looking me directly in the eye as I attempted to process what he was telling me. There were generations of my family members on this ship, and I still had no clue why.

"I don't understand. You're exaggerating," I accused.

"Probably, but I know that before I was born, my father had this ship for decades. He was the original owner of it, and it has been over fifty years of being held up by him an' yer mum, the mum before that one, an' the one before that one," he explained. "They pass on eventually, an' then Avarice needs the next generation of Lanore's women."

"What for? How is it possible? Avarice can't possibly be older than thirty," I insisted, recalling the lack of wrinkles around Avarice's eyes. If anything, he was the epitome of youth, and Cody was on his way there to being an exact duplicate of his father.

He appeared hesitant to explain anything further, and shook his hands out before saying, "I dunno. I've never been apart of it. But all I know is that had yer mother not been killed the way she had, she would have lived forever, an' never change at all."

"Who killed her," I demanded instantly, tossing everything else out of the window. Cody was giving me the key to why I was here, and now I wanted to know what happened to the woman who raised me in my younger years.

He didn't say a word, so I shoved him in the shoulder and shouted it again. He frantically hushed me and nodded up to where Avarice was probably harboring Conroy.

"Tell me, Cody," I insisted, "I have to know."

After licking his lips twice and pinching his gold loop earring between his fingers, he relented. "I dunno. Avarice of the Sea has dozens of targets on it, an' some pirates know about our key and some of them don't, but one a those that did attacked our ship with his crew, and when he knew he was gonna die, he killed yer mum in the process. Stabbed her straight into the heart. Even with everything Avarice did to preserve any of the Lanore women, a heart can't be repaired by magic."

For some reason, I was disappointed that a stranger had killed her. I was almost hoping it was Avarice, just so I could confirm my suspicions and avenge my mother. I realized that, if anything, Avarice had probably treated Mother like a treasure. I had not died yet, and it was because Avarice needed me alive for his plans to see this curse through.

"Did you kill him?" I asked quietly. I couldn't stop staring at my feet.

"Hm?"

"Did you kill the bastard who stabbed my mother?" I said, a sneer on my lips when I did so. He was quiet for a while, so I looked up and he instantly shook his head. "What?! That's insane! Avarice wouldn't-"

"He's kept in the cells," Cody said, voice hollow and monotonous. "It's worse'n death, I presume. When the captain's angry, he beats on the guy. I'm guessin' in the next month or so he'll get rid o' him for good. 'S'not like he has much of a purpose now. Even if he did get out of the cell, he's just bones now. He'll sink to the bottom of the ocean for sure."

I rather preferred death than such a cruel punishment.

"Where did my mother stay?" I asked, and Cody nodded over towards the wall across from him. I looked and understood instantly. "But Ivan sleeps there now."

"Yeah, he's only been 'ere for a few years. Yer mum was our navigator, an' after 'er we needed a new 'un. But I never knew yer mum when I was a lit'le'un, at least not till she showed up as the Queen of Damunt. Mighty fine cover, don't'chya think?"

"That's insane. How old were you?"

"Seven, I think i'twas. When yer mum was gone, Avarice fancied one of the lassies back in the Outer Planes an' had me, but there was some... problems with the affair and she was killed."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said, and I truly meant it.

"Well I wasn't there so I'm not. Besides, Avarice couldn't've taken her out at see anyhow--the sea is dangerous for a woman."

"What about Mhyra?" I interjected, and instantly he dropped his gaze and shook his head to let me know that bringing up the topic was useless. It was one of the few things he didn't want to talk about now. "She's a native in the Outer Planes, right? I don't recognize her race at all."

"Best if we drop that talk now," he told me, voice stern. I shut my lips up and moved to sit beside him on the edge of the bed. "I don't expect ya to try and pull what yer mum did, but I just want ya to know that it's possible. I can't be apart of anythin' that involves yer escape. I can't risk gettin' another one o' these ones." He pointed to the treason mark on his arm before sighing. "Normally no one gets this mark 'cause they're already fed to the fish. Perks of being the captain's son, I guess."

"He would never kill you, Cody. You're his son--it's not right, not even for him," I told him. Thinking about it brought that troublesome expression back onto his face. I sat back on the bed and defied all the lessons on good posture to slouch over my knees and rest my chin on my hands. I wasn't used to all these conflicting emotions, but now I was being forced to face them head on ever since Eli's Coming of Age celebration.

I figured Conroy was the one who ratted us out to Avarice to let him know we were in Valens. In another country we were near defenseless compared to the army in Damunt. It was no wonder they were able to take me so easily.

"Did Conroy organize the kidnapping?" I asked after a moment of silence.

"Yeah, we were stayin' in a nearby fjord when Conroy told us that you'd be out by the cliff after dusk," he explained. A rush of sadness consumed me again. The image of Ambrose falling away from me flickered into my thoughts, and I instantly pushed it away to refrain from upsetting myself more.

My stomach was twisting from all these conflicting feelings. I wanted so terribly to believe that I could be like my mother and escape Avarice as soon as we reached the Outer Planes, but that wasn't the case. He would be extra cautious now, just as he was before when mother disappeared for over half of my lifetime. Thinking of being here for decades upon decades made it difficult for me to believe in any form of redemption.

Unable to leave, unable to be saved, unable to get my family to see that I was still alive; I was trapped here. Being trapped here with Cody made things a little more bearable.

I nestled my forehead against my forearms and stared down at my feet on the edge of the bed frame. "I don't want to live forever," I choked out, shaking my head miserably. "Why would anyone want to live forever?"

He was quiet for a while. I shifted so I could press the heels of my palms against my eyes and stop myself from crying, but eventually he came closer and wrapped an arm around me. I leaned into him and felt sick to my stomach thinking about Ambrose.

Not only did I want to leave, but I also wanted to forget about my feelings towards Ambrose so I could feel that way towards Cody instead.