The Pirate King Ch. 24

This is the final chapter of The Pirate King.

This journey has been incredible. Thank you so much for allowing me to share this story with you. You have been so kind; you have helped me more than you could know.

All things come to an end. Take comfort in this. Nothing ever truly leaves. Take comfort in this.

Long live the King. Hail, for the King will never die.

*****

The falling snow made the deck slick. We planted our feet against choppy waters, holding on to ropes and casting our eyes out into the storm.

The red sails were nearly upon us.

"Cannons," Natch suggested. It was more a plea than a word.

The Captain shook his head.

"They've more fire power than us," I told the boy.

"And men," Finn supplied.

"Less to lose." The Captain's voice was cold. His hand was tight on the ropes that held him upright. "Since he doesn't care if any of his men get killed."

Finn spat on the icy deck.

Natch nodded. "Then do we run?"

Finn shook his head. The Captain said nothing, pulling out his eye glass. He scanned the skyline, as if there might be another ship. As if the one approaching did not carry a god.

"It won't do us any good," I told him quietly.

"This ship is fast." No one responded to the boy. "The fastest. Ghost, can't you make the winds -"

"His is faster." I stared at my home - no, that ship had not been my home for years. I watched the nightmare place where I had spent my childhood grow closer. My father's ghost was close in this place, *there can only be one, kill them all, do as you're told and you won't die tonight*, the stories of my past even closer, *the King drinks the blood of those that stand against him, the King is only half human, you must never fall in love with the King because he will eat your heart*. It had once my form that had worn the crown.

My head was light. I did not wear the crown any longer. "Besides." I looked out towards the man that did. Those stories now belonged to him. Let him drown in their voices. "Anything I can do, he can do just as well."

"Then what?" Natch's words danced among the snow, swirling around my legs. I felt them bite against my skin. "What are we supposed to do?"

What are we supposed to do? In my soul, a sea monster grinned. In my hands, the memory of a blade sat sharp and bloody. I didn't want the knowledge in my chest to manifest here in this world, to invade the home I had so wonderfully built myself, the person I had created outside of his influence. There were times in my life where I would have taken this truth and held in in my hands, black and violent. There were times when I would have taken the knife the world had offered me, and turned to my side, and killed the King.

Those times were over. My dreams sat heavy in my stomach and made me feel as if I might become sea sick.

*Do what you were meant to do*, the Captain said.

I turned quickly to look at him, stomach churning. "What?"

He turned to look at me, snapping his eyeglass shut. "I said, we'll kill him."

"Aye," I agreed, although I wasn't sure. The word tasted like blood in my throat. I thought it might be my own. "We will."

***

The Russian wanted to storm the ship when it reached us. Sneg pulled me aside and quietly suggested a diversion and ambush strategy. Cookie refused to speak to me at all, nerves and uselessness manifesting in anger.

We put down anchor and waited.

The King's ship moved silently; no shouted orders, no frenzied movements. Everyone knew their place. Sails creaked as it dropped anchor next to us.

"We could set fire -" the Russian began, but he was cut off by the shake of my head. Thron stood at his side. Their fingers entwined silently. Desperately.

To my left, the Captain was a statue. To my right, Natch bounced on the balls of his feet, his face calm. His body nervous.

Across from me, my brother stood on the deck of my ship.

I had intentionally kept my eyes from his form as the ship had chased us. I was not ready to discover what the shape of his soul would do to my body. I had expected anger - rage, maybe. Perhaps even fear. This was the man who had stolen my crown. Killed me. This was the monster who had hurt my love. The only family I had left on the sea. I expected my soul to boil. I thought my body would follow the path of my past without the consent of my present.

But instead when I saw him there, standing with his posture as perfect as I remembered, so neat, so pressed, so put together, the only response my body had was release. He pressed the air from my lungs in a long, even sigh.

Fate, I thought. The Captain looked back at me, and I smiled. My hand reached out for him without thinking. It is not about my past; it is not about me at all. What happens now is up to fate.

The Captain did not believe in fate. But he did believe in me. I felt it in the way he grasped my hand tight, saw it when his worried face lightened looking at mine. "Ready?" he asked.

I squeezed his hand. I had waited a long time for this.

"Good." When he turned to look at Natch, I swear drops of the night sky shook from his hair. "Drop the gangplank."

"Us?" Natch's bouncing picked up speed. "But -"

"Do it." The Captain looked back at me, his smile sharp and dangerous. "We go to him."

***

There's a feeling you have just on the wrong side of death. It is not a good feeling; it does not feel like winning to return. Your body does not know how to hold such an impossibility. It presses it tight against your skin until you worry that you might burst.

It was Minnie who first explained this to me, sitting in her kitchen, my hands full of coals and my mouth full of frustration at a man freshly brought back in a deal worked out with Dave. She had listened to my words and then, her hands never wavering, her pace never slowing, she had laid out the explanation of his actions. She was good at that, Minnie. The kitchen is a place of fact, she would say. You cannot escape what is real here. Things burn too quickly for you to look away.

That day she explained with words punctuated by the punching and rolling of dough that there is a feeling you have just on the wrong side of death. And I listened, and I watched, and when she was done the dough rose and the bread flaked and it was as it should be and I felt as if I understood.

Years later, lying on the deck of Yarrick's ship with the taste of my blood in my mouth and my soul burning with the freshness of air, I realized that I had been wrong. No amount of explaining, even from someone as good at explaining as Minnie was, could make sense of that.

Stepping onto that ship felt like returning from death all over again.

"Brother." Dreyfus stood with his hands behind his back, a slight frown on his face. "I thought I killed you."

The last time I had seen his form he had been standing above me as they tied me to a board. The order to drag me beneath the the ship until my blood filled my lungs, until the barnacles ripped open my back past recognition, until I drowned, had been forming on his lips.

"You did." The words dripped like my blood had. Slow. Dangerous.

He did not seem to notice. "Apparently I did not do a very good job. Frustrating."

And then his gaze moved to the Captain.

A saw a shift in his body; the sneer that passed over his lips, the way his eyes narrowed and darkened in a way so different, so much more unpleasant than the dark I was used to seeing from my love. The brief moment where his hand tracked up towards a scar he wore across his cheek, rope-like and ugly, before he caught himself and returned his errant fingers back to their place clasped behind his back.

"You." His voice sunk, heavy with disdain. "And after everything I offered you."

"What?" The Captain's words lifted light against the weight of my brother's. "Years of abuse?"

"Ungrateful slut." His voice cracked out like a whip; the man beside him flinched. The Captain did not. "I would have left you in that whorehouse if I'd known how little you'd thank me."

"You should have." I smiled to hear the eternity held in my love's chest. "Then you might have kept your looks."

Dreyfus's face soured. This time he made no attempt to stop his hand's motion. I watched him finger the raised mark and knew it was more than a physical pain that caused his grimace. My brother had always been a vain man.

"That scar is new." His eyes snapped to me, angry and holding more malice than I anticipated. "Were you injured, my brother?"

I would have looked for lightning at the look he gave me if we we not already in the middle of Val's storm. If my soul did not hold enough force to thrust any electricity he pulled through the sky back at his body. He felt my soul against his and turned away.

"You think you're nameless." Why he thought the Captain was a better target, I did not know. Could he not see the stars held just behind his skin? Did he not fear the eternity this man commanded, wrapped in the curls of his hair, tucked away in his eyes?

But I do not think Dreyfus thought to look. His face was ugly in and out, the words flying from his lips and poisoning his skin. "I have hundreds of names left for you. Are you sure you want your new boyfriend to hear them?"

And the Captain, oh the Captain. There on that hell of a deck, faced with such ugliness. He smiled. And he was beautiful. And I was home.

"Why did you chase us down, Dreyfus?" Constellations sparkled in his expression. Fate churned in his words. "Have you come to kill us?"

Dreyfus waved his hand as if he could disperse what the Captain had called into the air: ridiculous, preposterous, how uncouth. "We're all friends here. Aren't we, darling?" I heard the Captain's breath catch as a hiss. "Brother." The word slipped off my skin like water from an oiled sail. "Or perhaps my brother's new darling would be more appropriate for you. You always did move beds quickly. You'll have to let me know where you lay now. We have so much to catch up on, don't we, my dear?"

He turned, showing his back to us with a lack of care that told me how much he trusted his hold over the men standing scattered around us. "Come, join me for dinner." When he reached the door leading below deck, he turned and smiled. That expression hurt more than any of the words he had yet thrown our way, and I turned my eyes to my feet.

"I always knew you'd come home," he said, and then he ducked below deck.

The only noise left was the creaking of the sails. Men stood all around us - enemies. Old friends. Landboys, in the end, and nothing to me. I did my best not to look at them as I turned to the Captain.

He was staring at the dark hole that led below deck. I knew he didn't want to go; I didn't either. How many times had I been down in those depths? How much fear had I spilled on these wooden boards?

But go we must. "Ready?" I asked. I held out my hand.

It took a moment for the Captain to respond. He first took everything in; with his eyes, then with his breath, his chest expanding until I was afraid that these things had too strong of a hold on him, that they would force him to take more and more and more until he could no longer stand. But then he let it all out, his chest collapsing back. It was a shaky release, but he released it still.

He met my eyes. Took my hand. And nodded.

"Ready," he agreed.

I smiled at him, and he smiled back. The men parted for us as we made our way across the deck. I tried not to look too closely, but it was impossible to ignore the familiarity of their forms.

Every man had the twining marks Dave left on his arm. I watched as some tried to cover this from me; I watched as more tried to cover their faces, remembering their parts in my death. Fearing my revenge even still.

Rex, my old friend, the closest thing I had to a first mate back when I was King, did neither. He merely hung his head. A tear rolled down his cheek. I ducked through the doorway quickly so that I would not have to see his expression.

Dreyfus was waiting for us in the dimly lit hall. As soon as we ducked through the door, he turned and began leading us toward the dining room. As if we did not know the way.

Rage thrashed about in my chest; at Rex, at Dave. At myself, for being away so long. At the man before me for all the ways he had destroyed my life. "You've made deals."

"I will have order on my ship." He glanced back at us. His gaze landed on the Captain, and I felt him stiffen beside me. "It is easier to have order if there is an understanding of place and consequence. Isn't that right?"

The Captain said nothing.

"I see you've made your own deal." He smiled, gesturing at the shadows that barely danced at the edges of the Captain's skin. "Is he a bit of a family heirloom, then?"

The Captain's hand was so tight in mine. "Have you seen Dave lately?" Did you know the man you turned your back to so frightened the god of death he all but begged to have him taken from his halls?

My brother did not respond. I let him walk in his silence, slowing until there was space between him and us that could be filled with words.

"How are you doing?" I quietly asked.

I felt the sigh more than heard it. "Fine." We walked quietly for a bit. Both our feet knew exactly where to go. Both our bodies had made this journey many times.

"It's -" the Captain began, then fell silent. I squeezed his hand slightly and felt him squeeze back. "I hate being back here. Seeing him is - I mean, it's awful, but it's not as bad as I thought it would be. But being here..." He looked around.

It felt like purgatory. I felt, for the first time, as if I were truly a ghost.

"I've had so many nightmares that start like this," he told me. "Walking down this hallway."

My hand was tight around his. Our footsteps were in sync. "Me too," I confessed.

There was more silence, punctuated only by boots hitting floorboards. My bare feet made no sound at all.

"Did you give him that scar?" I asked.

The Captain's eyes were busy. His body was drawn up tight. "Aye. The night we ran. Or mutinied. Whatever it was." He did a quick, violent shrug. "I was drunk, and angry. I should have gone for the throat. I just wanted him to suffer." He watched the back of his nightmare, walking real and physical before us. As it must have so many times before. "I didn't even try to kill him. Honestly, I don't think I thought he was mortal."

"I'm not." We had come to the dining room. My brother held the door open for us, his smile generous and false.

"Neither am I," I reminded him. We had killed a sea monster. We had drank his blood, and it had made us immortal. "And you still killed me."

"And yet here you are."

Here I was. My father's dining room loomed large in my vision; when I had been King, this room had been bolted, chained. Forbidden. It had been nothing but a source of pain to me. From the way the Captain stood beside me, the way my brother smiled, I believed that my brother had followed in my father's footsteps.

There was a place set for me at the table. Take your seat, I heard my father's voice echo. My father's voice could never be far in this place; it had been his temple. We were called in to worship at his feet, to offer each other up as tribute.

My father had been a hungry god. It made sense that he should settle his soul in a dining room.

I walked to one of the place settings. Take the knife; do what you are told.. I pulled the chair out for my love, waiting until he was seated to press a kiss to his temple. His hand found mine again and we stayed there; me, breathing him in, him, feeling the strength his presence gave me.

When I lifted my head I found my brother watching us. The expression on his face was one of amusement; the rage behind his eyes came from something else. I met his gaze evenly.

"Anything can be killed," I told my brother. My love. Myself. "You just need the right tools."

His smile was empty. "I'll remember that for next time. Please, take a seat. Brother."

I looked down at the table. I had never, ever been allowed to eat here. When only one remains -

"Relax." My brother sat down primly in my father's old seat. I was surprised at how viscerally I reacted to seeing him there, my entire body readying to fight. "Dad's not here. It's just us kids."

The crown my father had worn hung on the back of the seat; it was garish, and against my brother's tastes, and powerful. And it was my brother's.

This man was the King. This man killed children and rescued his family and demanded tribute from his men. He was the threat, alive and real and sitting here. He rang a small bell beside his place setting. A man materialized from a door behind him carrying a pitcher of wine. Another followed behind with plates of food. The smell of the familiar dish settled me enough to consider sitting at this cursed table.

"Besides," he said as I slowly lowered myself into the seat next to my love, "I already did it. When only one remains," he parroted, his voice close enough to my father's that I flinched, and the Captain grabbed my hand and held me tight, "and I'm all that's left. Miranda, chained to the island. The sexless worm slithering his way over the land where he belongs. He never was strong enough for the sea. And now you, collared by - what? A landboy?" He laughed, but there was no joy in it. I squeezed my Captain's hand and let the sound pass right through me.

"He is the sky," I told him quietly. "He is the sky eternal, and you missed it."

But he ignored my words, focusing on berating the man with the wine pitcher for spilling a few drops on the table. I watched him pick up his utensils so carefully, saw the delicate way he chose to sip from his crystal cup. He looked at home in that seat. He filled the space too well. "You are our father's child," I told him. It was merely an observation, but the words hit him with a velocity I had not intended. He pointed his fork at me with malice.

"That man," he spat, "was nothing compared to me. Father?" He waved the fork dismissively. "His ghost does not deserve that title - I am unbound by his influence."

And yet you define yourself by his wishes, I thought. You parrot his words and only understand your achievements as they look against his. You have made your home in his bones.

Beside me, the Captain picked up his fork. I tugged at his hand lightly. When he glanced at me, I shook my head. He frowned, those beautiful brows drawing close and concerned, but he put down his fork. I turned my attention back to the man we had come to kill.

"But all that's in the past. Old news. Let's catch up." He leaned on the table as he chewed his meal, his cruel smile glinting in the light of the candles. "He's a good fuck, isn't he?"

Both of our bodies stiffened, anger and fear, in different mixes, perhaps, singeing the air around our souls.

If the King noticed, he didn't care. "We should share tips, brother. Have you figured out how to make him cry yet? Christ, does his ass get tight when he cries." He held his hands before him as if he were holding a precious object; the look on his face disgusted me.

"Fuck you, Dreyfus." The Captain's voice wasn't as dangerous as I'd expected; it almost felt rote, everyday. The mundanity of his reply made me want to scream.

"I found he's best on his back," Dreyfus continued. I wanted to rip the words from the very air, to open Dreyfus's chest with my fingers, to return the knowledge he gave me to the black pit of his heart. "So I can watch his lovely face try and convince me he's not loving every second. But come, tell me. How do you fuck our whore?"

"Better than you ever could," the Captain said. There was real anger in his words, and I ran my thumb over his wrist in thanks.

Dreyfus ignored the Captain, instead looking at me as he drained his wine. He called for it to be refilled, winking at me as the red refracted in the crystal cup. "Oh, come on, brother. Don't be so quiet. I'm only being polite - sharing notes. Spicing up your sex life. And maybe I'll save you some heartache, since it looks like you've actually fallen for him." He took another bite of his food, smiling his empty smile. "You know he'll leave you. It's what whores do."