The Pirate's Legacy: New Identities

Chapter 9: Heaven's Reward

From Cecil Leyal to Representative Thyreum, greetings:
My sincerest apologies for sending you this letter belatedly, but I bear the most wonderful news:
I have found the missing Princess Emelia. She is alive and well. More shall be explained in due time. The princess and I stay currently at a seaside inn in the town of Malia. I would have journeyed back to your villa right away if not for Princess Emelia having fallen under a small illness shortly after our reunion. Please accept my deepest regrets for any offense I cause to your hospitality. I await for the princess's recovery, which I pray to Esculapius will be swift. I shall send a letter in advance of our return.

Representative Thyreum was a sympathizer of the Hawks, the rebellion organization dedicated to overthrowing Queen Annalyn. In fact, the Hawks sent Cecil directly to Thyreum under their leader's orders. Swiftling Island's representative could be trusted not to breathe a word about the discovered princess of Tarym. He could also be trusted not to sell out both Cecil and Em to bounty hunters—or worse, directly to the Tarymian queen herself. Cecil worried only that he was imposing on his host for taking long to return to the countryside, where Thyreum resided. He'd written and sent the letter three days after finding Em, and he was concerned that it would take more until she was finally in some semblance of mental and emotional stability.

Calling the malady which Em had "fallen under a small illness" was a severe understatement. She was heartbroken over Dread Pirate Robin's leaving her, going as far as to balk at leaving his old room. She locked herself inside it, refusing to speak to Cecil, even after he packed up her belongings from her old room and transferred them to her new one. She hadn't opened her door to let him inside. He left the duffel bag full of her meager possessions on the floor.

The innkeeper took the situation with stride, delivering at her door meals which Cecil tried to get her to eat. Cecil paid for everything: the food, their rooms, and any utilities he used within his room since Em did not allow anyone to enter hers. But her food went barely touched. Cecil was worried for her health and her sanity.

He glimpsed her only once after Dread Pirate Robin left Swiftling Island, and that was the day he sent his letter to Representative Thyreum. Cecil had taken the silver tray with her supper on it from the wizened innkeeper and demanded from the other side of the locked door that she eat every last crumb on it. When she unbolted the door and opened it, he was shocked by the apparition of the young woman he once knew standing before him.

Em's dark hair was matted and tangled from sleepless nights tossing and turning on the bed. Her face was pale and drawn. Dark circles had formed under her puffy eyes, but it was those bloodshot windows into her soul that affected Cecil the most. Where once they carried joy and life, now they were hopeless and lost, dimmed by the pain that shadowed her heart.

Cecil stood in front of her with a slack-jaw. The sharp remonstrations he had wanted to say to her were stuck in his throat.

Em lowered her eyes and shut the door in his face without a word.

MMMMMM

The night when Em found the mantle of sleep and wrapped herself in it, a clap of thunder woke her. All the curtains in her room flapped and twisted about like birds frightened of the storm's wailing screams outside. Em was wide awake when she ran over to the balcony, bracing through the icy air with a hunched back and bent head, hair whipping everywhere. The smell of rain was in the air, but all was dry. The ocean before her was grey and, because of the wind, choppy. The sky was full of dark clouds. Every few seconds, streaks of lightning lit up the mortal world.

Em gripped the stone balustrade. She turned to face the large cliff that loomed over the seaside town. Though she couldn't see it clearly because of the night's darkness, she knew that on top of the cliff stood the decrepit temple which the island's foreigners used to worship their gods. A bolt of lightning at that moment zigzagged through the clouds and illuminated the temple.