Live to Venture (#0)

39 | The Shadows of Adventure

Novari was gone long before he woke. It was the way she'd done things before Bardarian, the way she was used to doing them. She'd only begun to stick around because there had been something comforting about the captain's quarters on the Avourienne. She had assumed it was the promise of power, the bloodred colour of the curtains or the smooth lining of every piece of furniture, but she'd come to realize what it had actually been as soon as she'd lost it.

For the first morning in months, she woke up sober. It was a terrible feeling, the clarity of the morning air, the chill and the fog.

She ordered the Starling out of port as soon as the crew had reboarded last night, and now they sped through the navy waters, the spray of seawater harsh against her cheeks. Goosebumps prickled her skin as she wrapped her arms around herself.

Skinner was there immediately, his face white.

"What was the ghost's name, Skinner?" she asked.

"Sorry, ma'am?" the scout replied.

Novari waved her hand. She had a tendency to skip certain parts of a joke.

"Thank you for getting us out of that mess, yesterday, ma'am," Skinner said, dropping into step beside her.

Novari refused to tighten any part of herself. "You don't have to call me that, Skinner," she told him, winding around the side of the deck.

"You're a member of the bridge crew, ma'am. You have a right to be called the equivalent of any man with such a position."

"But it feels different than 'sir', doesn't it?" Novari replied, reaching the wheel and glancing out at the open sea in front of them.

"We're not used to the term, I suppose," Skinner said, pausing beside her. He cleared his throat. "It doesn't carry weight, yet. But it will, especially with women like you around, ma'am."

Novari glanced at him. He was Skinner, older than her but still cowering at her feet. She used to live for that kind of thing. Now she found it near-embarrassing, far from attractive.

"You have ambitious dreams, Skinner?" She felt that somewhere in there, he was more than just a groveller. That without her around, he might be someone worth something.

"I do, ma'am. I'd like to be a navigator."

"You've never asked me to put you under Kitver," she said.

"I figured if you thought I should be there, you'd put me there."

Novari smiled at his naivety. "That's not how piracy works, love. If you want something, you fight for it. Or in this case, you beg for it."

"Truth be told, ma'am, if I told you why I wanted to be a navigator, you'd think far less of me."

Novari looked down at his hands, resting against the rail. She watched him fiddle with his spyglass as though it were something irreplaceable and delicate. So there was more to him. Something much bigger. Maybe he wasn't just Skinner, pining for his superiors. Maybe he was Skinner, with audacious dreams.

"I think you're hiding something."

He smiled timidly. "We're all hiding something, ma'am."

"Of course. But you don't hide it well."

"Nobody hides things quite like you do, ma'am."

Novari tilted her head. Clever misdirection was something she hadn't anticipated from him. "Is that newfound boldness so I won't pressure you into telling me why you want to be a navigator, Skinner?"

He smiled coyly. "It's nearly impossible to get anything by you."

"Tell me why you want to be a navigator."