Kor talked on, but Eris was no longer paying attention. Because this time as she traced the knife, her fingers found something new. When she raised the blade, trying to catch the lantern light, she found something embossed in the steel: a pattern of fiery-looking flowers.
“Tides, Eris. Would you listen to me?”
She had just leaned in to examine the pattern when suddenly, the knife was gone. Snatched out of her hands by Kor.
“What are you fidgeting with?” He squinted at the knife.
Annoyance broke like a wave through Eris. She reached for it. He jerked it out of the way.
“Give it back, Kor,” she said through gritted teeth.
“Gilt handle,” he murmured, ignoring her as he studied the weapon. “The owner must have a good deal of coin—or at least connections. And the flower pattern is very pretty. Delicate, you might even say. A girl’s knife?” He looked up to see if he was correct.
Inexplicably, Eris felt her cheeks heat.
“Whose is it?”
“It’s mine now, you sandeater.”
She lunged for it. Kor pulled away, getting up off the bed.
“Give it back!” she said, rising with him. But that’s where she paused.
Kor was twice her size and twice as strong. Eris was faster, lighter, trickier. But the cabin was too small to move well in, and the ship rocked over the waves, making it difficult to stay steady.
“I’ll give it back . . .” Kor smiled too calmly, his gaze taking in too much. “If you give me something first.”
Eris’s stomach twisted. Her body hummed with hate. She knew what he wanted.
She also knew she would never give it to him.
Seeing her answer on her face, his own darkened.
“There’s no chance it took the legendary Death Dancer seven days to steal that ruby. What were you doing the rest of the time, Eris? Meeting with a sweetheart?”
A sweetheart? She would have laughed, but he took that moment to lunge for her. With the bed to one side and the cabin wall to the other, she had nowhere to move.
He grabbed her shirt, pulling her toward him.
Before he could do worse, Eris kneed him in the groin.
The ship lurched. Kor stumbled back, dropping Safire’s blade and wincing hard.
“Bitch.” He spat the word as Eris snatched up the knife before it slid across the floor. Her hand shook as she gripped the hilt, pointing it at him. She was no good with weapons, and Kor knew it. He also knew that without her spindle—which was currently locked in a box somewhere aboard the ship—she couldn’t step across.
With Kor blocking the cabin door, there was no escape.
But the scariest thing? Eris didn’t think about all the ways she might possibly get out of this unscathed. Instead she thought about what Jemsin would say.
Kor was cunning and cruel and power hungry. He’d be a dangerous enemy if he ever turned against Jemsin. It was Eris’s job to keep Kor cooperative and loyal and close.
Kor might hurt her if he got his hands on her, but the captain would hurt her worse if he lost his dominance over Kor.
“You’re not so formidable now, are you Death Dancer?” Kor gripped the door handle, still weak from the blow she’d dealt him.
Eris kept the knife steady. Her heart pounded in her temples. Her breath came quick and fast.
“Without that spindle, you’re nothing. Just a helpless . . .” His words trailed off. He smiled, his eyes lighting up with a sudden thought. “That spindle. What would happen if I accidently used it for kindling, I wonder?”
Eris went cold. “You wouldn’t,” she said, even though the look in his eyes said the opposite. “Jemsin would kill you.”
“Or, useless as you’d be to him, he’d kill you.”
He turned the doorknob. Eris moved then, throwing herself at him. But he’d already opened the door. Her shoulder collided hard with wood as he shut it on her. She heard the sound of clinking keys. She grabbed the handle, trying to wrench it open.
The door was locked.
“I’ll come back for you when it’s over,” he said through the wood.
Eris’s rage grew within her like a tempest’s screaming winds.
And that’s when she remembered . . .
She still had the pin in her hair.
Eris didn’t think about Jemsin this time or what the consequences would be. She just took the eight steps up to the deck, Safire’s stolen knife gripped in her hand.
The crisp cold turned her breath to fog. The wind caressed her face. The stars shone down, lighting her path across the wooden planks.
Eris followed Kor into the galley. An oil lamp glowed on the table while he pushed aside pots and pans, then pulled something down from the shelf next to the hatch.
It was a crude pewter box. Big enough to hold her spindle.
Eris crept toward him, silent as a shadow. As he turned the key in its lock, she readied her knife. When he lifted the lid, Eris struck, stabbing him in the back, just below the ribs. She shoved the blade in and twisted. Hard.
Kor screamed.
The box fell, taking the spindle with it. Eris pulled out the knife just as Kor turned to face her. He touched the wound, then stared down at the blood coating his fingers as he stumbled back against the shelf.
“How did you . . . ?”
Eris didn’t hear him as she picked up her spindle. She turned to leave, but at the sight of the oil lamp burning on the table, she stopped, considering it.
Behind her, Kor was screaming again. Screaming at her this time. She felt the heat of his rage. Heard him push away from the shelf, coming toward her.
Before he got within reach, Eris swung out her arm, knocking the oil lamp to the floor.
The glass broke.
The oil spilled out.
The galley floor went up in flames.
At the sight of it, a memory flickered within her. Of another time and place. Of flames that raged, eating away at a place she’d once called home.
Kor stumbled back, away from the fire, and the movement pulled Eris out of the memory. He stared—first in bewilderment, then in fear.
Eris left him there. She stepped out onto the deck gripping the bloody blade in one hand, her spindle in the other. She could have crossed right then. She probably should have. But there was another lamp burning just above the galley. And there was something so soothing about chaos. Something almost beautiful.
Alerted by Kor’s screams, the crew began to stagger up out of their cabins.
But not before Eris unhooked the lantern and threw it across the deck.
It shattered. Fire spluttered up, released from its confinement. As if in a rage, it devoured the wooden planks, moving toward the sails.
But Eris still didn’t step across.
Instead, as the crew panicked around her, she stepped up to the side of the ship, cut the only rowboat free of its ropes, then pushed it into the waters below. From across the deck, her gaze caught Rain’s. The first mate’s hair was a red, tangled mess as she screamed for everyone to get topside and put out flames. At the sight of Eris escaping, Rain’s eyes went black. You are dead, she mouthed.
Not tonight, thought Eris as she swung herself over the side and dropped, landing on one of the rowboat’s benches. Sitting down, she secured the oars in the oarlocks, then started to row, taking the only means of escape with her.
And there she watched the Sea Mistress burn.
The red flames gorged themselves. The smoke curled through the sky, leaving a trail that blotted out the stars above. And all the while, Eris rowed.