Fool's Promise (Eterean Empire Book 2) by Angela Boord

Author:Angela Boord [Boord, Angela]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Impossible Books
Published: 2024-06-27T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 40

ARSENAULT

ALABAD, TWENTY YEARS AGO

The Good Fortune dropped anchor as the sun was setting, hiding around a curve of coast that sheltered the pirate hideout of Alabad. As dusk settled on the water, a black sliver of a boat set out from shore. It reached the ship at full dark, and a rumpled shape climbed out of it and up a rope ladder onto the Fortune.

The flash of a lantern revealed a small woman from Saien. Her crewmates grabbed her up and pounded her on the back in congratulations, presumably for staying alive. Her black hair was pulled back severely into a bun that hid in the folds of her abaganda, but her eyes—black in the darkness—crinkled at the corners with a smile as she greeted her crewmates. Yeo, Etranée called her.

While they fed her, Yeo gave Etranée the information she’d ferreted out of the hideout.

“The mate and a couple other men have rooms at the Sailor, which they’ve been terrorizing. Flashing lots of coin, hiring whores every night. The whores don’t like them. But they’ve been bragging that their coin flows in an endless stream, so the girls are putting up with a lot.”

Arsenault leaned into the circle sitting on the deck. Predictably, Koji glowered at him. Seely, the quartermaster, cracked his knuckles loudly. The Qalfan navigator gripped the helm but turned his head for an instant, the tail of his urqa fluttering in the wind.

Arsenault shifted uncomfortably under the weight of their attention. “I think he’s running magic—metal, people. Bits and pieces of Eterean machines he looted as we went. The galleymen were mostly Fixers. Whoever bought them must have paid handsomely. Or else Fariq has a whole side business running Fixers and it’s giving him a steady stream of income instead of one big flush.”

“There were rumors in town he’d just run in a load of Ceyles,” Yeo said. “The little weasel-man was bragging about it. They said they set up a fake distress signal on the ship’s deck and tricked a group into sending out a rescue ship. Then they captured the rescue ship and everyone on it.”

“What’s special about the Ceyles?” Arsenault asked.

Koji answered reluctantly. Her gaze continued to smolder but felt a little less likely to burn a hole in him. “The Ceyles are wizards. They live down south on a barely navigable archipelago of islands. People are frightened of their reefs and their magic. No one has been there for hundreds of years.”

“Many people think they only exist in fairy tales,” the navigator added. “The last person to land upon their shores and return to tell a tale was Oji la Kaif.”

Oji la Kaif again. Arsenault rubbed his jaw. His name seemed to be turning up everywhere. He didn’t know why it should bother him so much. “I suppose they’d fetch a pretty price.”

“They would,” Yeo replied. “If you were looking for magic, I guess. But what would you need so many Fixers for? And why go to all the trouble of searching

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.