“Isn’t that what you do?” Safire held Eris’s gaze, thinking of the conversation she’d overheard in that crawl space. “Unthinkingly follow your captain’s orders?”
Eris shot her a withering look.
“My soldats are free to leave at any time,” Safire went on. “They stay because they’re loyal.”
“Loyalty,” Eris muttered, her jaw clenched, “is a luxury most of us can’t afford.”
She said it so matter-of-factly. As if she believed it.
For the merest of heartbeats, Safire wondered what that would be like. To be devoted to no one, and have no one devoted to you.
It made her sad to think about.
Safire quickly changed the subject. “Why do you want my cousin so badly?”
“I don’t want her.”
“Your captain, then.”
Eris opened her mouth to answer, then closed it.
“How about we play a game,” she said, clasping her hands. “For every answer I give you, you give me one in return.”
Safire frowned and fell back against the wall of this room, her wrists locked above her.
“I’ll tell you why the captain wants your cousin if you tell me where she is.”
No way was Safire doing that.
It gave her hope, though. If Eris had no idea where the Namsara was, it would be much easier to lead her afield of her target.
“Even if I knew where she was,” said Safire, “I wouldn’t tell a pirate.”
“I’m not a pirate.”
Safire narrowed her eyes. “You run with pirates.” She looked Eris up and down, taking in her yellowed cotton shirt and dirty trousers. “You look like a pirate. You even smell like a pirate.”
Eris stepped back suddenly, then pulled up the collar of her shirt and sniffed. She wrinkled her nose and dropped the shirt collar.
“Come on, princess. It’s only a matter of time before Jemsin comes through on his promise. He’ll use you—dead or alive—to lure her in.”
“And what will he do once she arrives?” Safire said. “Doesn’t he know that where Asha goes, so does Kozu? Jemsin and his crew are no match for the oldest and fiercest of dragons.”
“A dragon can be taken down,” said Eris simply.
“And you’ll take Kozu down with . . . what? A net made of sails?”
As if she were suddenly bored with this conversation, Eris took out a knife—one of hers, Safire noticed with hot fury—and started picking her fingernails with it. It was the one Eris had stolen from beneath her pillow.
“There are no less than twelve harpoons aboard this ship,” said Eris.
Safire’s heart sank. She didn’t think Kozu could withstand twelve harpoons. She tucked this information away for later. If she couldn’t escape, she would somehow find those harpoons and drop them to the bottom of the sea.
“And the king?” Safire continued. “I’m the commander of his army. You don’t think that army will come after me the moment Dax figures out where I am?”
Eris smirked at this. “The king’s army is in Firgaard, leagues away from here. It would take them a week to catch up, and that’s if they have ships, and good weather, and navigational skills.” She shot Safire a skeptical look. “I’m willing to bet they have none of those things.”
Safire opened her mouth to defend her soldats. But Eris was right: they were an army, not a navy.
“Listen.” Eris set down Safire’s knife. “That wasn’t an empty threat back there. I’ve seen Jemsin cut up men with my own eyes, piece by piece.”
Safire didn’t care. All she cared about was that Jemsin never find out where Asha was.
And yet, if she didn’t give them something, she would be used as bait to lure her cousin into a trap.
“What will he do to her?” she asked.
Eris’s eyes brightened, excited that Safire was beginning to play her game. She leaned back, gripping the table behind her, and pushed herself up onto it, letting her legs swing free. “Jemsin doesn’t kidnap people for no reason. So either she did something to provoke him, or she’s valuable to someone.”
As far as Safire knew, Asha had never had a run-in with a pirate. But if it was the latter, who would she be valuable to? She was no longer a fugitive. After the law against regicide was struck down, Asha was pardoned for killing her father, the former dragon king. There was no longer a bounty on her head.
“If she’s valuable to someone, he’ll keep her alive,” Eris went on. Pulling her feet up onto the table, she rested her arms on her knees and leaned forward. “You, however, are in far greater danger. If you don’t talk, he won’t hesitate to cut you up. And I very much doubt your cousin wants you dead. More important, you’ll be no use to her dead.”
Why do you care? Safire thought back to the conversation she overheard from the crawl space. Jemsin had offered Eris freedom in exchange for the Namsara. Which didn’t make sense to Safire. Eris was the legendary Death Dancer. What kept her—a girl who could walk through walls and disappear at will—tied to the pirate captain?
Safire discarded the question. It didn’t matter right now.
“Assuming I do know where she is, what’s to stop you from killing me as soon as I tell you?” asked Safire, having no intention of ever doing such a thing.
Eris rolled her eyes. As if she couldn’t believe what a novice Safire was. “The only person who’ll kill you is Jemsin. And that’s if you give him bad information.” She gave Safire a hard look of warning. “I don’t kill people.”
“No,” said Safire darkly, remembering the barrels of water. “You only torture them.”
Eris raised her hands innocently. “I saved you a bundle of pain today. Jemsin’s crew is far less kind in their methods.”
Was she suggesting her methods were kind? Unbelievable.
“I answered two of your questions,” said Eris, voice hardening. “It’s time you answered one of mine. Where’s the Namsara?”
Safire looked away, thinking of that barrel of water. Of the building panic and the moment before she was certain her lungs would burst. She couldn’t go through that again. She needed to give Eris something. So she said, very softly, “Asha’s on her way to Firefall.”
Eris went very still, her eyes fixing on Safire’s. “I’m not sure I heard you.”
There was an edge in her voice. A warning not to lie.
So Safire turned her face and held that green-eyed gaze, ignoring the sweat collecting at the back of her neck. “My cousin is flying to Firefall. It’s a city west of Darmoor, ruled by—”
“I know what it is,” said Eris. “Are you telling the truth?”
The truth was that Asha returned from Firefall a few weeks ago.
“She’s building a school,” Safire went on, burying her lie beneath fact. “A school she hopes will preserve the old stories and restore the severed link between draksors and dragons. Firefall’s library has one of the oldest and biggest collections of old stories in existence. Asha’s gone there to collect them and bring them back.”
Except for the fact that this had already happened, it was all true.