The Coldest Sea Read online

  He thought of Maggie instead, because the memory took his mind in a completely different direction. Not of her warmth over supper or the surprised delight when he’d given her the osprey, but of the music she’d played the previous night. After hearing about Dray listening outside, Vinsen had left his cabin after his supper and walked halfway through the ship.

  That had been enough to hear the distant notes drifting through the dim corridor.

  He’d followed the sound like a man lost in a desert and hearing rainfall. Actually, rainfall was what it sounded like at first, soft and faraway. He knew very little about music, but he’d always thought a violin’s notes would be long-drawn-out, rather than those quick delicate sounds like water falling into the sea. There was something sad about the melody—it was clear and true, but it was a lonely sound.

  By then he was outside her cabin, careful not to make so much as a creak on the floorboards, and it startled him when the powerful notes sounded like a sweet thunder. The bow striking the strings, he realized, whereas before she’d plucked them with a fingertip. He could see her clearly in his mind’s eye, as if the door between them didn’t exist.

  Except another door opened nearby. Vinsen was back in his cabin in moments, but he couldn’t help remembering the music. She thought he was talented, but she had the real gift—the one which could not only fill her own silences but also support her. Good thing she wasn’t going to marry whoever-it-was; he couldn’t see parents sending their children to Skybeyond for music lessons.

  He was going to miss her when she disembarked.

  Damn it, now he had to stop thinking about her too. The clouds started to clear, leaving the sun overhead, so he fetched a sextant instead and calculated their position. Well off course by then, naturally, but still safely within Denalait territorial waters, even if he assumed those didn’t include the Archipelago to the east. Word had it the remnants of the pirates who’d once ruled those islands had all sailed away into the sunrise. Most of the islands seemed ripe for colonization, but he was wary, because the pirates could have gone searching for something to turn the tide in their favor.

  “Sir!” a lookout shouted from above.

  The man seemed to be calling to Joama but since Vinsen was the most senior officer on the deck, he replied. “What is it?” If he’d ever heard the man’s name, he’d forgotten.

  The lookout, almost hidden by all the sails in the way and a hundred feet above, nevertheless turned in his direction. “Three points on the weather-bow, sir! About two miles off. Might be ice.”

  Vinsen was in the ratlines at once, climbing up them towards the masthead. He was surprised by how long it took—so many months in his cabin hadn’t helped—but at least he didn’t miss a handgrip or put a foot on empty air where a rope had been an instant before as the wind and the sea swayed the ship. The exertion felt good, too, sending blood in a rush through his veins and making his heart thud faster as he reached the crow’s nest.

  He climbed in, braced himself and pulled his spyglass from his belt, then looked in the direction the man had said. Sunlight struck a fierce glitter off something on the horizon, but then the wind heaved clouds across the sky. A shadow fell and now he saw it clearly. Ice.

  “Good work,” he said as he lowered the glass.

  “Thank you, sir.” The man saluted, then smiled. “My name’s Tuller, sir. Jak Tuller.”

  Oh hell. Was it that obvious? Vinsen kept his expression unchanged only through the ease of long practice, but the embarrassment didn’t last long. Mostly because that was one of the first friendly gestures the deckhands had made to him.

  “Then good work, Tuller,” he said, and climbed back down to the deck. A few more of the off-duty crew swarmed up to look at the ice, which slowly grew noticeable without the aid of a spyglass. A blue-white peak rose out of a calm cold sea.

  Vinsen ordered the sails down, because the last thing they needed was to get any nearer. The Northwater Deep current pushed the mass of ice fractionally closer, but that was slow compared to the brisk wind, so they could up sails and run.

  No, what bothered him was the size of the berg. It kept rising and rising, steady and inexorable, filling the horizon as if it grew from the sea itself, and it was still almost two miles off. He couldn’t imagine how much larger it would be up close. Or if he was on it. Ruay Balquinax could not have mistaken it for the size of a ship unless she was touched in the head.

  Everyone on the deck was silent, which meant they’d come to the same conclusion. Without looking away from the berg, he told Joama to drop the lead to see if there was ice directly beneath them. There wasn’t, but that could change at any moment. The iceberg seemed endless.

  Worse, it was tall. White slopes jagged up to peaks higher than the topmost flag on his ship, and the sides of those looked not only steep but slippery, as though they had been hacked from raw ice that glistened like a wound. The few bergs he’d seen before had been flat-topped. He didn’t know how the survivors from the wreck were supposed to hear a horn and stagger out from cover to wave their arms in his direction.

  For that matter, he couldn’t see any sign of survivors at all. It was possible they’d been too weak and injured to climb a peak to fly a bright scrap of cloth from the top, but he was done giving Bleakhaveners—especially ones whose existence hadn’t been proven—the benefit of the doubt.

  “We’re getting away,” he said. “Come about.”

  Evrett snapped the commands and the crew all but ran to obey. Everyone was evidently relieved to escape from the sight before them, but Joama’s eyes were stony, and Vinsen had some questions in mind for their guest.

  “Hold the deck,” he said to Joama. “I’ll have her secured and I’ll return.”

  “Yes, sir,” she said, and he gave her the spyglass. Then he was down the ladder and striding in the direction of Maggie’s cabin. The deckhand on duty outside barely had time to salute before Vinsen flung the door open.

  He stopped in the doorway. Steel gleamed as Ruay pressed the tip of a pair of shears to Maggie’s throat.

  Chapter Four

  Trapped

  Vinsen’s heart didn’t stop, but he was very much aware of the thump behind his ribs. Slower than usual, but everything seemed to be frozen in the tableau before him. Ruay’s arm was unmoving as rock, and Maggie might have been dead already, she was so motionless.

  Except for her eyes. They fixed on him with a desperate hope.

  The deckhand was breathing audibly just outside, but Vinsen nudged the door with the heel of his boot and it swung shut. Ruay might plunge those shears home if she felt outnumbered—what would she have left to lose under those circumstances?—so the last thing he wanted to do was scare her.

  Time enough for that later.

  “We know you’re lying.” His voice came out as evenly as always. “That isn’t any ordinary iceberg.”

  “You have no idea.”

  Other than the movement of her lips when she replied, she was motionless. Rather than slanting her shears-arm across Maggie’s neck, she stood a little to the left of the chair, probably so Maggie couldn’t shove the chair back into her. The shears were clutched in her right fist.

  Vinsen saw all that in a moment. He also saw the pulse beating fast next to that metal point.

  He had no idea how Ruay had got hold of a weapon, but she’d obviously been doing her best to frighten her hostage with it first. Curls lay everywhere on the rug. But then the Bleakhavener woman had heard him running to the cabin and the fun had been over.

  “What do you think you’re going to do, Ruay?” he said. “You can’t get through the window before I reach you, and if you do go through it, that’s a slower death.” The water, chilled from the iceberg, would do their work for them before she could reach the berg.

  She swallowed, but her voice was implacable. “At least I’ll take her with me.”


  No reasoning with her. “It’ll be all right, Maggie,” he said without looking away from the Bleakhavener woman. “Trust me.” And be ready to act when the time is right.

  Ruay was afraid too, so he had to set her mind at ease. He held up his right hand slowly, fingers spread and palm outward, then lowered it to his knife-belt.

  “We can settle this like civilized people,” he said. “I’ll put this down as a sign of good faith, and then we’ll talk. You want terms? You’ll have them.”

  As he spoke, he was undoing the buckle, one-handed, and the belt fell around his boots. His knife went with it. “See?” he said to Ruay.

  “Kick it away.”

  Well trained or wary or both, which was fine. “If you like,” Vinsen said agreeably, and kicked.

  He did so hard. The belt shot across the rug and hit a leg of the cast-iron washstand with a clang. Ruay didn’t jump—thank the Unity, because that might have made the shears move too—but her gaze darted in the direction of the loud sound.

  Vinsen didn’t need more than an instant. He dropped, grabbed the rug and yanked with all his strength. Ruay staggered, off-balance, and Maggie caught her wrist. The shears flashed in the sunlight, but Maggie hung on for the moment Vinsen needed to close the distance between them. His fist slammed into Ruay’s jaw.

  She reeled back against the wall. The shears dropped with a soft thud, and she did the same. Vinsen wouldn’t have trusted her if she were dead, so he kicked the shears away and pulled Maggie up out of the chair.

  “Are you hurt?” He didn’t want to take his eyes off Ruay’s crumpled form to check.

  “No.” She sounded shaken, but not likely to faint at anytime soon.

  “Good. Open the door.”

  He heard her footsteps move across the cabin. When the door creaked open, he went to the washstand to first retrieve his knife and then lift the china pitcher. Seawater splashed down on Ruay’s face, though he had no intention of drowning her—that was more quick and easy than she deserved. She blinked and gasped, recovering fast. She was hard, he had to give her that.

  Shame for her he was harder.

  Three or four of the deckhands had come in by then, and Vinsen didn’t have to wait long for Ruay to sit up. Her jaw was reddened and starting to swell, but the dazed blankness faded from her eyes.

  “As I was saying, terms.” He replaced the pitcher and buckled his belt. “That iceberg is more of a mountain range. Tell us the truth about it, and I’ll only have you locked up and sent back to Bleakhaven.”

  The look she gave him was so full of contempt it was obvious she wouldn’t respond. Vinsen turned to the deckhands.

  “Take her down to the hold,” he said, “and strip her. Joama’s clothes are too good for her. Then secure her wherever there are the most rats.”

  Ruay’s eyes widened, and her blaze looked paler, but she said nothing as the deckhands hauled her none too gently to her feet. Once she was gone, Maggie closed the door. She’d been standing by it, her back to the wall, looking as though she wanted to be anywhere else in the world but here.

  Vinsen went to her and put his hands on her shoulders, partly to reassure her that she wasn’t alone and partly to hold her at a slight distance from him so he could look her over closely. Not crying, though she was breathing fast. When he saw the small red mark on the smooth skin of her throat, he was thankful she could breathe at all.

  Ruay was very, very fortunate that was all she had managed to do.

  “Did she hurt you before I came in?” he said.

  “No.”

  Had he thought he would hold her away from him? She was entirely too close, and he was aware of her breathing, of her shoulders under his hands, of her gaze on him as if she couldn’t look away. But her face seemed different, and it was a moment before he collected his thoughts enough to realize why.

  “She cut most of your hair off,” he said.

  “She—she offered to trim it, and I agreed—”

  “Did you give her those shears?” His grip tightened.

  Maggie nodded jerkily. “I didn’t know she would go crazy.”

  Vinsen released her, struggling to tamp down his emotions. Despite the tension racing through his blood, he never lost control, but now he was angry with himself as well as with the Bleakhavener woman.

  “I’m sorry.” Maggie’s voice was quiet and a little shaky. “I should have been more careful.”

  “No, that was my call to make.” He was the captain, and her safety should have been his responsibility. It reminded him of the other duties he’d let slide over the past few months, but at least those hadn’t risked anyone’s life. “I didn’t trust her and I foisted her on you anyway. If she’d hurt you—”

  “I knew you wouldn’t let that happen.”

  No, he wouldn’t have. He’d do anything in his power to protect his crew on sheer principle, but principles didn’t come into it with her. That reaction went deeper than training or habit. The cold detachment of years’ experience ceased to exist there, because he wanted to keep her safer than a cupped hand protected a flame. He wanted to hold her, breathe in her scent, taste her, drown in her.

  Most of all, he longed for her to want him even half as much.

  Without thinking, he pulled her into his arms. She gasped, but that was all the sound she had time to make before he kissed her.

  Her lips were warm and her tongue warmer. He tilted his head to meld their mouths closer together and keep her open for him, then deepened the kiss, tasting and searching. So sweet, even though she wasn’t responding to him. Yet.

  He slid one hand up over her back and into thick soft curls. No net any longer, nothing between his skin and her hair, so full of life it seemed to wrap around his fingers of its own volition. His hand sank into it, clasping her head and holding her steady for his mouth.

  She shuddered against him. Vinsen struggled back to his senses like a drowning man and broke the kiss, though it was more than he could do to let her go. He drew in a breath, meaning to calm himself—somehow. Just feeling her tremble, even through layers of thick clothes, made him want to press her down to the rug and spread her legs with his.

  Then her arms moved between their bodies, and he started to draw back. Except instead of pushing him away, her hands slid up over his shoulders. She clung to him and her mouth parted.

  Whether it was to speak or breathe, Vinsen never knew, because at that sight he was lost. He was kissing her again, taking her lower lip between his in a soft sipping caress before he found her tongue. And that time she gave him what he wanted, what he needed, kissing him back. Hot and sweet, utterly intoxicating. He groaned, low in his throat.

  Her hands came down between them and she pushed at his chest, struggling against the grip of his arms. Vinsen lifted his head, at first so caught up in desire that he didn’t understand what was happening.

  “No.” She was still trembling, but now her eyes were wide with shock and chagrin, rather than being hazy with a hunger that matched his. “We can’t do this. It’s wrong.” She tried to shove him away.

  Damn it.

  He let her go, only too aware of what she’d meant. So much for thinking a marriage would keep them safely apart, preventing him from showing he was attracted to her. Not only had it failed to do that, it had intruded at the worst possible moment. He was wildly aroused, and while part of that was sheer loneliness, part of it was Maggie. He had no idea what her body looked like under all those wrappings, but it didn’t matter; her mouth and those honey-colored eyes drew him like a moth to a flame.

  He curled his fingers into his palms. Something soft was in his grip, but he ignored it; such a loss of control had never happened to him before. He’d forgotten about the ship, the danger they were in, everything in the world except her. Drawing in a breath, he reminded himself who she was—not only a passenger, but a sheltered landboun
d woman, just the kind he steered away from so they wouldn’t expect more than he could give.

  And, of course, she was the younger sister of two of the most well-known captains in the navy. Remembering that made all the difference.

  But he wanted to be honest with her, because it was one thing to allow her to believe a misunderstanding and quite another to make her think he was an adulterer. For all his faults, he didn’t break his word to anyone, least of all a wife.

  “Maggie, we need to—” He stopped as footsteps echoed in the corridor outside, heading for her cabin. Maggie drew back into a corner of the room as though he was on fire and she was made of paper. Vinsen clamped down on his irritation and flung the door open.

  “Sir, you’re needed on the deck,” the deckhand outside said.

  The fear in the man’s voice was enough. Vinsen went past him, his mind switching into battle frame; he’d been a naval officer for too long for it not to do so. Lust, regret, and every other emotion vanished like mist, leaving behind only his need to safeguard his ship.

  As he took the ladder, he looked down at what he carried crushed in one hand. It was a single soft curl of dark hair. He shoved it into the depths of a pocket and was on the deck.

  His boots thudded across the boards, and the crew made way for him as he hurried to the stern. They were making excellent speed, running before the wind, so the prow was pointed away from the berg. It couldn’t outpace them.

  When he stopped at the taffrail where Joama and Evrett were watching, the berg was less than two miles from them. They should have outdistanced it, especially since it was so much larger and had no way of harnessing the wind. Water streamed away in the ship’s wake, and yet the mass of ice followed as though it had been chained to them. The wind off it was bitterly cold, stinging on exposed skin.

  “It’s moving faster than we expected,” Joama said, too quietly for anyone except him and the sailing master to hear. “We have every stitch of canvas flying, and we’re barely keeping ahead.”

  “Then we’ll do something other than run.” Vinsen turned to Evrett. “We’re going to change course as fast as possible—we’re more maneuverable than that. Hard a’starboard. Let go royal sheets and foresail, haul in on the mizzen sheet.”