“I’m not holding you to your word,” Sol argued. “I’m asking you to drop me off—”
“I said no.”
Sol rose onto her feet and met him in the middle of the cabin. She placed her hands on her hips, and Fynn would have laughed if that wasn’t such fierce determination flickering in her hazel eyes. “You and your crew are in danger,” she pointed out. “More than you realized. If you leave me in a port, you’ll be safe.”
“We’ve been in danger all this time,” Fynn quipped. “And you didn’t care.”
“Neither did you, if you’ve known who I was all along.”
Fynn gritted his teeth. “We’re not stopping until we reach Nedros,” he said. “End of discussion.”
“Why?” Sol demanded. “I’d be out of your hair—”
“Because I am not letting you leave until I’m ready to say goodbye.”
Sol straightened, her brow furrowing as she stared at him. “What?”
Fynn pinched the bridge of his nose. He hated himself for such a confession, one he had not admitted to even himself. “For Thymis’ sake, Sol, I don’t care about a godsdamned betrothal. I don’t care about Thane Grayclaw beyond what he could do to my crew if he ever finds you.”
“Then let me—”
Fynn threw his head back and groaned. “You are my crew now, Princess, and what Thane does to you, he does to all of us.”
Sol’s hands fell slack at her sides. “Oh.”
“Even if I left you in Nedros—in any port, really—you’d never be safe. The bounty hunters would find you eventually, and I wouldn’t be there to protect you.” Fynn yielded a step and sighed. “Everyone leaves me, Sol, usually because of Caidem and Thane, and they usually don’t do so willingly.”
A frown pulled at her mouth. Sol backed across the space between her and the Captain’s bed, sitting herself on the edge amongst the furs. “What do you mean?”
Fynn collapsed onto the planks at Sol’s feet. “Caidem murdered my mother,” he explained quietly. Sol’s gasp was audible, a sharp spike in her breathing that tugged at Fynn’s own lungs. “And Thane is who kicked the barrel from beneath Vasil’s feet when he was hung in a courtyard in Knamelle.”
“Who is Vasil?” Sol asked. “You’ve never told me.”
“Riel’s father,” Fynn murmured. “And mine, too, in a way. He was the Captain of this ship before me.” He flipped over his hand, resting it palm-up on Sol’s knee. She reached for him, her fingers tracing over the pale, puckered scar slashing through his skin. “Before the bounty hunters dragged him away, Vasil made me promise to look after this ship when he was gone. He made me promise to give a home to those in need and to honor the favor he had given me.”
Sol brushed her thumb across the scar. “Why’d they hang him?”
“Because he was a pirate,” Fynn said. “A real one. He had bounties. And I…I betrayed him when I brought Nedra onto this ship.”
The Princess quirked her head. “Nedra?”
He hated the way her name sounded on Sol’s tongue. “She was…I loved her. Or at least, I think I did—thought I did. I’m not so sure anymore.”
Not so sure, indeed.
“I thought I was saving her when I brought her aboard the Refuge, but the stories she told me were a ruse to get close to Vasil. She knew about his bounties, knew she’d get the most money in Dyn, and she turned him in once we reached the port in Knamelle.”
“That’s why Riel didn’t trust me at first.”
Fynn nodded. “She knows who you are, too, and she was afraid you’d betray us like Nedra did.”
She wove her fingers between Fynn’s. “Why are you telling me this?”
“Because we all have our secrets,” he said quietly. “And I will not fault you for yours. But I will be damned if I lose you the same way I lost my mother and Vasil. I won’t let the Grayclaw’s get their hands on you.”
Sol caught her lip between her teeth. “I’m sorry,” she said. “For not telling you.”
Fynn couldn’t help himself as he dropped his head into Sol’s lap. He felt heavy, like the weight of this ship was perched precariously on his shoulders. “If you want to go to Nedros, I’ll still take you. Just know that I won’t be happy about it.”
A moment passed before Sol combed through his hair. “This isn’t why I came in here, you know.” Her nails scratched gently against his scalp.
Fynn’s eyes fluttered. “Oh?”
“I wanted to tell you who I was, but there was something I wanted to discuss with you.”
He waved a lazy hand at her. “Discuss away, Princess.”
Sol flicked his ear, her nail pinging against the silver cuff it was pierced with. “Don’t call me that.”
Fynn chuckled, lolling his head enough to peer at her through the spaces between her fingers. “Apologies, milady.”
Her sigh was one of the longsuffering. “I want to stay.”
Fynn bolted upright, his head cracking sharply against Sol’s jaw. “What?”
The Princess yelped, cradling her chin where he’d struck her. “By the Gods, Fynn, you clumsy idiot.”
But the Captain was not listening to her, had nearly scrambled into her lap at such an outlandish declaration. “Say it again,” he breathed, prying Sol’s hands from her face as she tended to what would later be a bruise. “Please.”
Sol glared at him. “I want to stay,” she repeated. “But not if you’re going to head-butt me.”
Fynn’s heart was near-bursting. He threw his arms around Sol, gathering her against him as he buried his face into her hair. “I want you to stay,” he said. Sol wrapped her own arms around his torso. “I was too afraid to ask.”
The Princess huffed a laugh into the space between his neck and shoulder. “So was I. But Amael said you wouldn’t mind.”
“Trust me,” Fynn told her. “My boatswain is usually right.”
Sol curled into the Captain’s chest. “I’ll keep that in mind for next time.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
SOL
Perhaps now she understood why Silas had kept Quint so close to him, why she’d always seemed to find them with their hair in disarray and their clothes wrinkled. Sol had never imagined herself as the type of person to drag someone between stacks of ancient tomes and kiss them until she was breathless, but she had never imagined herself kissing the Captain of a pirate ship next to a table of sparkling crystals, either.
Fynn was sprawled across the bed beside her, lying on his back and with his arms tucked casually beneath his head. His eyes were closed, and he’d kicked off his boots nearly an hour ago, but he sighed contentedly as Sol placed a hand on his chest. “You know,” he mused, and Sol knew his tone meant trouble. “When Riel and I first met you, it was a standing joke between us that I would only share a bed with a pretty prince, not his sister.”
Her brow furrowed. “If Silas is pretty, then what am I?”
Delighted surprise flickered across his face, and his smile was positively wicked. “You, Sol Rosebone, Princess of the Sonamire Empire, are the most—”