Part I: The Avourienne

Today, Archer would murder his lover.

She perched in the dinghy across from him, slender hands folded in her lap like a well-trained court lady despite her ripped capris and stark yellow hairband. She noticed his gaze, then pursed her lips in a tight smile. She knew she was going to die today, and she knew he would be the one to do it.

"Beautiful day," she noted, inspecting the sparkling navy water as it sloshed against their boat.

Archer, whose ankles were propped up on the gunwale, leaned his shoulders back against the bow. "Aye," he said, returning to his infatuating book on rigging knots, the pages of which were dotted with sea spray.

She shifted uncomfortably, wobbling the little boat with her land-learned movements. "Arch," she tried.

"Jeanne," he said back, turning a soggy page.

"Don't tell me you're still mad."

He rolled his gaze to her. The sun beat down relentlessly, not a cloud in the cerulean sky. Her hands were still folded, her posture probably far straighter than any other deathly sick girl in the sea.

"I am not mad," he said, glancing at the sun as it began its leg towards the west. On the horizon was Orphano, the island they'd rowed from, and the only slice of land either of them had ever known. It was nothing but a dot out among the waves now, but he swore he could still see that sign the kids had made for him, complete with three different coloured exclamation marks—Good luck, Archer!!! What morbid children this ocean had created.

"Considering I have less than an hour left to live," Jeanne started, "I figured you might forgive me for the time being."

Archer shifted his eyes to her from the island in the distance. She was probably right, but considering he hadn't exactly decided if he was going to go through with her little game at all, he wasn't sure he had anything to forgive quite yet.

"You agreed to it," she said.

"I did not," he replied. Seafoam crawled up the side of the boat, little bubbles popping in the air. Sure, he might've let Farley and her shove him into this pathetic little vessel under the assumption that he'd go along with their sudden wrench in his plan, but that didn't mean he was going through with it.

It was supposed to be a straightforward proposal—or at least it had been when he and Farley had dreamed it up two years ago: train hard in close combat, figure out the quickest route to the King, and shove something very sharp up through his chest. Stop the suffering with one good blow.

Wrench number one: The only boat that travelled to the Kingsland was the Avourienne, a pirate ship so heinous some people refused to even speak the name.

Wrench number two: The Avourienne had two very difficult people on board. One was the Captain, a man who'd made his name as much out of charm as he had of murder, and the other was his oh-so-pretty prodigy, a cunning half-breed so otherworldly talented that they'd nicknamed her the Champion of the Sea.

Wrench number three: There was a heavy, heavy price to board the vessel.

"I've less than a year to live anyway," Jeanne said.

"Doc's been saying that for ten years," he answered. Granted, the doctors on Orphano were orphans like the rest of them, and no more in tune with the outside world at that. Most of the time, they had no clue what they were talking about, either.

"Fine," she said. "Let's say I've got five more years—not good ones, because I haven't had a good year in my recent memory—before I have the pleasure of being thrown in a grave."

"I wouldn't throw you," Archer offered.

She rolled her eyes, scanning the fantastic curls of purple and pink coral surrounding the shallows near the island. "Either or," she said. "I end up dead at twenty-five, having done nothing more than gasp for breath every time I walked down the street."

Archer didn't answer. He focused on his knots.

"This way," she went on, "I get to have a good ending, for a good purpose."

Archer wasn't sure getting rid of the King was all that good of a purpose. He was a tyrant through and through, but they didn't live in the Cobalts to experience his mistreatment. Orphano sat deep in Myria, where the water was a darker shade of blue and royalty had no jurisdiction. Why should they care what went on a hundred miles to the north?

But all those people, Farley insisted. There is no future for the millions under his rule. Something has to be done.

"I'd prefer you'd have no ending at all," Archer muttered, but the badly sketched knots weren't holding his attention anymore. In some sick and twisted way, both her and Farley had a point; she was going to die, so why not make it an outrageous, memorable death? His only quarrel was his involvement in it.

Maybe if they'd told him years ago, he might've had time to warm up to the idea. But thirty minutes before he set off on what was supposed to be a one-man journey, they'd sat him down and talked of a tiny, miniscule...stipulation to get where he needed to go. It was humourless and cruel, and he'd spent a good hour on the beach screaming and sobbing in quite the dramatic performance before he'd agreed to get in the boat.

"You're an idealist," Jeanne pointed out. "You think everything is going to go exactly as planned, one hundred percent of the time."

"I'm a realist," he countered. He was extensively trained, honed to perfection and sharp as tack. Why shouldn't things go exactly according to his plan? In fact, they would've, if he'd been given all the information. "Maybe Farley's wrong," he said. "He hasn't been on that ship in two years. Perhaps he recalled incorrectly."

"I don't think this is the kind of thing you recall incorrectly."

Archer shrugged. "Maybe he's a fraud. Maybe he was never a crew member of the Devil's ship," he said, emphasizing the nickname just like the gossips did on Orphano. "No one gets off that boat alive, anyway."

Jeanne pursed her lips. They'd known Farley for their whole lives—minus the handful of years he'd spent galivanting off with his best friend in search of adventure. It had been the three of them ever since Farley came back, lacking both his best friend and any morsel of humour and patience. The real world changes people, he told them. It's dark and vicious and nothing like this happy-go-lucky pastel-covered island.

Archer had scoffed at the declaration. They were orphans, abandoned to the sea before they could walk. They were well aware of the vicious nature of the real world, hence why most of them never left their happy-go-lucky pastel-covered island. Except to either murder their lovers or be murdered by their lovers, apparently.

"Perhaps Farley is a theatrical storyteller," Archer said. "Maybe Captain Bardarian is really just a five-foot-even pocket thief who never takes a bath. Maybe his strategist is nothing but a really pretty girl who just looks a lot like a Siren." He tossed her a smile. "Never prettier than you, of course."

She lowered her chin, not quite as susceptible to his charm as she was when they'd met. "Farley's as honourable as they come, Arch."

Archer shut his knot book with a deep thump. Of course Farley was as honourable as they came, and of course he couldn't do the job himself, because he'd already been a crew member of the Avourienne, and he'd already marked himself with a kill order by escaping. Of course Archer was the only candidate for the job, and of course he was the only one with solid enough morals to last a few months in this death trap. Of course, of course, of course. It all worked out just perfectly.

"You know," Archer said, "maybe there's some cure in the Cobalts for you." He waved his hand over the water. "They're always coming up with all these fancy inventions out there, aren't they?"

"Expensive inventions."

He gave her a catlike grin. "Well for you, I'd loot the King himself."

She sighed, adjusting her blonde curls as if she wanted to look poised and ready for her death. "There's no cure. Farley confirmed it."

"Ah, yes. Farley the all-knowing and all-seeing," he mused.

"He's the only one that's been off the island."

"We're off the island right now," he pointed out.

She gave him an annoyed look. "We could swim back to it still."

He pointed his book at her. "I could. You're a lousy swimmer."

"Because I'm dying," she said. "And you can't get to the Kingsland to loot the King without the Avourienne anyway, so it looks like we're right back where we started."

"It appears we are."

She smiled, and to her credit, it was the most genuine expression she'd made in the last month. She was a simple woman, living for sugary baked goods, bright colours and Farley's well-told tales. Archer would never admit it to her now, but he always believed their friend's stories. There was so much detail woven in—down to the exact shade of someone's eyes as they did something atrocious or brave. He was a hardened man, one who no longer spoke unless he had something to say. Jeanne, on the other hand, was always speaking, always rambling on about some herb or event happening on Orphano that she'd planned.

Archer lifted a hand to block the sun and peered around the measly furled sail at her. Their back-and-forth aside, she was the only woman he'd ever cared to want. He'd planned a life with her in his head, somewhere far away from that sad island with all those abandoned kids feigning happiness. He dreamed of taking her to the Cobalts, of building a home of red brick and crawling ivy while watching a handful of their children race through the tall grass, never knowledgeable of what an orphan even was. How could he kill her? How, really would he manage it?

She met his gaze, pale blue eyes stunning in the sunlight. If he took her to the Cobalts in this rowboat, if he built a home for her and made a family, he'd live in fear of their freedom being stripped away like all the other families who'd once fled to the Cobalts under a promise of safety.

"Coming around, are you?" she said, crossing her arms.

He held her stare for a second longer, then sat up from the bow, working his shoulders. He didn't rock the boat, didn't feel unsteady on the water. He may not have stepped on any other land in his sentient life, but he'd been a fisherman for over ten years now, and he was surer of the sea than anything else.

There's something else waiting out there for you, Kingsley.

Archer tried to shake Farley's words from his head. He didn't want their implications making this decision for him. He didn't want selfishness or naivety getting involved.

Jeanne hadn't mentioned it yet, but he knew she knew, and she knew he was thinking of it.

You know what they do to children of king's workers? They drown them. Farley, Farley, Farley. You know where a drowned three-year-old ends up? He'd spread his arms, nodding over to the sign some of the kids had painted—Welcome to Orphano, land of the abandoned.

To Archer, for the longest time, abandoned meant orphaned, and orphaned meant your parents were dead. That's what most people assumed, but Farley had confirmed all of their deepest hope after his time in the real world: Out there, working to death in the Kingsland, were hundreds of couples missing their beloved children. One of them could be Archer's.

"Do you know your plan, Arch?" Jeanne asked, eyes drifting out somewhere over his head. "Remember all the stuff Farley told you?"

Archer rolled his eyes. Farley had ruthlessly tested him on every part of this plan under the sun, from tacking to rigging to the details of every important crew member on the Avourienne. If he didn't remember, the older boy would've smacked him around until he did.

"Leave me to my considerations," he said. "I might be coming around."

Jeanne's posture had straightened even more, if that were possible. With her eyes fixed on the horizon behind him, she said, "Come around a bit quicker, Arch. You're running out of time."

Something cold danced at the back of his neck. He twisted to see what she was looking at, but he knew what he'd see.

Far out at sea, there was a crimson red dot, getting bigger by the minute.

His ride was here.

His gaze snapped back to Jeanne, whose eyes were panicked—not because her death loomed, but because he still hadn't promised he'd do it. Because everything was up in the air and uncertain, and no one liked uncertainty.

"I'm so tired," she said quietly, but no tears dusted her face, no drop in her perfect shoulders.

And she was, undoubtedly so. She had to stop every few meters on their walk to Shark's restaurant every night, where the cook would oversalt his meat to hell and back, and they'd pretend it tasted amazing. She'd struggle not to trip over the kids as they sprinted over the cobblestone main street, everyone but them treating her like a precious glass ball teetering on the edge of a long fall. If she wanted it to be over—if she wanted something more to be born from her death—who was he to deny it?

"I want a legacy," she said. "I want my name to never stop being whispered in port. Tell me you'll grant me that future, Arch. Tell me you'll do it."

Archer peeled his gaze from her to that growing dot, speeding so quickly through the water. Legacies, adventures, the whisper of a reputation. Wasn't that a great thing to die for?

He gave no confirmation, but she knew he'd decided. It was clear in the line of his brow, obvious in the moves he began to make, preparing for their performance.

And so, today, Archer would murder his lover.