Beyond

Day 13

"Breakfast!"

Something bounced off Haiv's chest. He started awake, blinking in the daylight spilling from the open doorway. Rodigan was walking toward him with a determined look on his scarred face.

Uh-oh.

The captain didn't look at Haiv as he knelt at Haiv's feet and pulled out a key.

Eyes going wide, Haiv asked, "You're letting me go?"

Rodigan grunted. "Eat. Or don't, for all I care. But I warn ye, I'm a hard master to please, so you might could use the extra strength."

Haiv looked down and found a bundle of long greenish-brown stalks lying a foot away. At the top of each stem was a large pink bulb. Though he'd only had this odd vegetable once or twice, he immediately recognized it as rhok, a plant native to the Cardozian Islands.

He ate. Bulbs first, which squished when he bit them and sour fruit juice exploded in his mouth. Yum. Then came the stalks which were crunchy and savory like kryptopitch. It was strange, like a fruit and a vegetable in one plant, but it worked, somehow. Haiv loved it. Someday, he would live on the Cardozian Islands and be able to eat rhok, metza fruit, roia trees, or toma whenever he wanted.

While Haiv munched on the rhok, Rodigan unlocked the manacle around one of Haiv's ankles and wove the chain back under the leg of the table. For a single heartbeat, Haiv thought about kicking Rodigan in the face and making a run for it. But again, where would he go? And...well, he didn't know that he had the strength to get far either. So, he sat patiently as Rodigan returned the manacle to his ankle, this time free of the table.

"Get up," Rodigan ordered, standing himself and stalking over to his chest of clothes.

Haiv glared at the captain's back, then did as he was told. It was difficult for him with his limbs connected by confining chains, and his many cuts puckered and bled as he moved. But he managed to climb to his feet as Rodigan turned back around holding a folded parasol.

He proffered this strange accessory to Haiv and commanded, "Your first task will be to keep up with me and keep me in the shade. I don't want to see a hint of my shadow on deck, boy, and if I do we'll see how you fare with a few more lashes to that collection you've gathered."

Haiv's hands hesitantly closed around the delicate—definitely feminine—silk and lace. He looked back up at Rodigan for confirmation that he really wanted a woman's parasol hovering over his head for the better part of a day.

Mooney-Eye raised one thick eyebrow in a determined scowl that forbade asking any questions. Haiv ducked his head and swallowed, murmuring a quiet, if resentful, "Aye cap'n."

Rodigan harrumphed and spun toward the door. Haiv watched him go for a moment before realizing he was meant to follow. He shuffled after the captain, fumbling with the parasol. The captain had already made it out on deck by the time Haiv got the thing open. Haiv jutted it into the sky over Rodigan's head. The captain eyed Haiv and Haiv ducked his head.

He wanted to throw up. Rodigan had bullied him his whole life. And recently he'd made several decisions, including and especially, not informing his loyal crew what their heading be. This was the man Haiv was to have ousted. This was the man Haiv hated more than any other. This was the man who had gotten Spir killed. Even if indirectly.

And now Haiv was keeping the sun off the Soulless bastard. What, was Rodigan afraid of a little sunburn?

A corner of Haiv's mouth lifted. That would be quite funny, actually.

Rodigan made his way around the deck, inspecting the work of the crew. He'd never done that before, and Haiv couldn't think why he'd start now. It seemed like he was just giving Haiv a hard time of it. He would lean in close to a crewmember, or suddenly quicken his pace, as though trying to get Haiv to trip up.