Of course, the Quartermaster knew. Sol doubted there was anything he did not share with Riel.
The Princess quirked her head. “Why don’t you?”
“I have no desire to rule. Besides,” Fynn closed his eyes. “I’d be bad at it.”
Sol swept the Dragon’s Heart into her fist. It thrummed with life between her fingers, her Magic surging in sudden answer to a silent, ancient demand. She tucked the scale into her pocket, lying next to Fynn and nuzzling her head into the space between his neck and shoulder. “I don’t think so,” she disagreed. “Perhaps not a practical King, and not always a serious one, but a fair one. You and Silas would be a force to be reckoned with if you worked together.”
Fynn turned onto his side and pressed a kiss to her brow. “Not going to happen, Princess. You gave up your chance to be a Queen when you snuck away to Valestorm and met me.”
Sol rolled her eyes and placed her hand against the center of Fynn’s chest. She smiled at the heart that lie beneath. One not of Grayclaw lineage, but a heart honed by the family he’d built for himself. Its beat was fierce against her palm. “What now?”
The Captain thought for a moment, tapping against Sol’s hip as he slung his arm over her waist. “Now, we go to Nedros,” he decided. “We stock up on supplies, and then we go wherever the wind takes us.”
A breeze tousled Sol’s hair.
“Just not to the Irican continent.”
Fynn nodded, toying with Sol’s curls. “Just not to the Irican continent.”
A yawn escaped her, one that tugged at her bones. “I’m tired,” she said. “How far are we from the port?”
He shrugged. “No idea. Someone saved my ship and fainted, and I haven’t left my cabin since I brought her here.”
“She doesn’t remember saving your ship,” Sol grumbled. “But she does remember discovering that not only does she carry that blasted Dragon’s Heart, but her Captain is the brother of her betrothed. Her mind is as jumbled as broken puzzle pieces, and she’d like to sleep it off.”
Fynn’s laughter was a brush of air against her cheek. “Stop talking in the third person and rest,” he said. “I’ll wake you when we reach Nedros.”
She curled into his chest, her fingers twisting into the dark blue fabric of his tunic. “For what it’s worth,” Sol said through another yawn. “I said nothing about being your Queen.”
The Captain grunted. “You didn’t have to,” he replied. “And there’s no one else I’d offer the job.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO
FYNN
“What’s the port like?” Sol inquired, bouncing on the heels of her feet as she gripped the helm with both hands. Fynn hovered close, prepared to wrangle the wheel from her should the Princess steer them straight into the harbor. “Is it like Valestorm? Arrowbrook? Can I come with you into the port? I haven’t been on land in weeks.”
The Captain grinned, reaching for one of the wooden spokes of the wheel. He lightly corrected Sol’s course into the quay. “So many questions, Princess.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said offhandedly. “What’s it like?”
Fynn stepped over Draven, the direwolf lounging at his charge’s feet, and wrapped his arms around Sol’s waist. “A bit like Arrowbrook,” he told her. “More to your right. And a bit like Valestorm.”
Sol turned the helm. “Can I come with you into the market?”
She’d been asking him all morning, since they’d first spotted the bustling port along Nedros’ never-ending shoreline. Fynn was hesitant to let her go given what had happened in Arrowbrook, to let her off this ship at all when Nedros had been her intended destination. But the Princess had asked him to stay, and he’d agreed, and she had conned Riel into dying her hair for her last night. She’d complained as she covered the Princess’ red roots with a chestnut brown that Fynn thought suited her beautifully.
“Of course you can,” he decided. “But you have to stay close to me. Do you have—”
“No.” Sol pressed her fingers to her chest, feeling for the necklace that was not there. “I haven’t worn it since the storm. I don’t want that kind of power, Fynn. Not when I don’t need it.”
Fynn sighed through his nose. He never thought he’d see the day where the Dragon’s Heart was within his reach, and within the hands of his brother’s betrothed no less. Such a terrible day it had been, the day Fynn had told her who he was, who his family was, and he had seen such disgust on the Princess of Sonamire’s face. Not for him, of course, but for the family he’d left behind all those years ago.
If he could even call them that.
But he would do it all again. He would fight in the war and run from his homeland if it meant meeting Vasil and this crew. If it would lead him into the arms of Sol Rosebone, granting him just a smidge of satisfaction in knowing he’d stolen Thane’s bride.
“That thing won’t respond to me now, anyway,” Sol reminded him. And indeed, the Heart would not. She’d tried, had gripped it in a trembling fist last night, but all the scale had granted her was a splash of water. “Not consciously. It’s like now that I know I have it, it’s gone dormant. I left it on your fancy rock table. No one will ever know the difference between that scale and all the others you’ve collected.”
“It can’t protect you from the table,” Fynn chastised. “Head for the empty dock on the end.” They’d discuss this again later when she was not steering his ship.
Sol’s confidence waned as they approached the harbor, her feet shuffling nervously beneath her. “Can you slow us down? I don’t want to hit the walkway.”
Taking a breath, Fynn’s eyes fluttered as he exhaled. A gentle wind pushed against the sails, slowing their speed and fighting the ship back against the current. “Slow and steady,” he murmured, one hand resting gently on Sol’s hip, the other inching for the helm. “Angle us into the dock, and we’ll sidle right up beside it. Amael will drop the anchor before we hit anything.”
Sol scoffed. “Or he’ll run right into it and spend the next two months mocking me.”
“True,” Fynn chuckled. “But I happen to like my ship all in one piece. Besides, you break it, you buy it, and I’m not paying to replace half the dock because my boatswain felt like being an asshole.”
He said it loud enough that Amael heard him from the prow. With the anchor thrown over his shoulder, his muscles straining against its weight, Amael offered the Captain a display of his middle finger. “Wasn’t a thought in my mind until now.”
Fynn felt the hitch in Sol’s breathing as they approached Nedros, her hands gripping the helm until her knuckles were bone-white. She turned the wheel, and the ship coasted into the harbor at an angle. “Good,” Fynn praised. “A little more to your left.”
The Princess swallowed. “I can’t do this.”
“Yes you can,” Fynn promised. He reached for the bottom of the wheel, but he did not turn it, did not wrangle the helm from Sol’s hands. “I’m right here. I won’t let you crash into the pier.”