The Midnight Storm (A New Dawn #2)

Chapter 48 - Alex

She hadn't planned on returning to Fox. 

Then the screaming had come, a scream she had heard a dozen times over in her dreams and told herself she would never ignore again.

As the Silvermark soldiers were rushing towards Fox, following wherever the ends of their iron chains led them, her feet decided to run as well. 

Why she could not explain. Fox was but a dark shadow of the boy who had left Laneby, tied to the back of the horse belonging to the man he now adored. His crying fits replaced by emotional outbursts of wind and fire that had reduced to the Kraken's Kiss from a mighty three-master to a smouldering wreck bubbling up air as it slipped deeper and deeper into the bay. His powers were off the world, fuelled by the Gods of Sin. Her crewmates had jumped off the burning ship into the water, some of their bodies now floating face down.

Given the right weapon, she too might have fired.

But she hadn't. Pan had.

The crossbow confiscated, the white-haired Muttonhead of a pirate stood there, content, grinning. 

She halted, shivered as the cold northern wind cut through her already frozen clothes. 

One of the soldiers threw himself to the ground, catching Fox before he smacked down, breaking the fall.

A heartbeat later, the man's comrades flew onto him, six adults against one boy. Without removing the arrow from his bleeding hand, they bound Fox's arms behind his back. Muzzled him. Restrained him, shackles and fetters included.

Now he looked even more like Katla. Master and apprentice. Two monsters confined, alive only because of someone more powerful wanting them to suffer and die at their hands. The new King of Silvermark. Fox had killed Ariel, she reminded herself. One good deed for the many sins he had committed.

Her fear and hatred for what he had become shifted to pity, to a longing to simpler times when Fox had been her little brother, not by blood but by friendship; someone who looked up to her, wanted to be like her. 

She walked up to him. The boy who built fires while daydreaming about being the best warrior in all of Laneby. He couldn't even enter a stable without getting hurt or walk down a path without falling flat on his face. 

What would Seb think if they—by the grace of the Gods—ever met again?

The troops rejoined. Katla and Fox both given the choice to walk along or be dragged to Moonstone Castle. Whatever Fox's muffled reply was, the soldier controlling the chain around his neck yanked him right back.

"And our money?" Pan asked the retreating army. When none of the blonde-haired men replied, he raised his voice, grabbing the poster of Fox and Katla he had stolen. "It's thanks to me you have captured them. You owe me. A thousand silverlings."

A tall man with sunken cheeks let the others pass. He planted his hands on his hips. "Do we look like we have a thousand silverlings at our disposal?"

"Then tell me where I have to be. We did you lot a favour."

"A favour?" The man huffed. "You almost killed the lad, with a crossbow you stole. Perhaps he was right about you after all... Bloody pirates... Real merchants would know folk 'round here don't care about  no spices or fancy bracelets when they can't even afford bread and coal."

"Life has been hard for us too. A man not trying is a man who has already failed." Pan crossed his arms. "But we'll be sure to pass on the message... Silvermarkers have no honour. They promise you a good deal but don't hold their end of the bargain."