Declan
It never got easier. Even after seven years of avoiding this, Declan McCallagh’s stomach still clenched in protest, his feet shifting on the pine needles that covered the dirt path. They hadn’t told him who. They never did, only providing a time he needed to be here, ready.
The location wasn’t marked by anything more than a large boulder off to the side of the road, whose black soil was divided into two wheel ruts with a strip of grass between them trying desperately to survive. To the infrequent traveler, it was an inconsequential rock, not unlike the ones that could be found along the coasts of Cregah. But to Declan it meant doom.
Not for him, thankfully, but for the poor soul who had crossed the council.
Whether he was the only pirate who struggled with this arrangement between the council and the lesser pirates, he didn’t know. He’d never asked anyone and never would, not when his reputation hung by a quickly fraying thread and all his hard-won prestige was at risk of being dissolved by the pirate lords, who continued targeting him one after the other.
Declan forced himself to remain still, steeling his expression as the rumble of carriage wheels hit his ears, still faint but growing louder. They were coming fast. Faster than usual.
Urgency wasn’t typically part of this gig, as most of those found guilty and sentenced to exile came along willingly, either unaware of their true fate or accepting their martyrdom for their rebel cause.
But this one... this one was different.
The pounding of hooves against the hard-packed soil reverberated in his head even before he could see them.
He drew in a deep breath, his fingers itching to hold the familiar steel of the dagger concealed at his waist. Silly how they expected him to dispatch their exiles while forbidding use of weapons.
He ignored the urge to reach for his blade and crossed his arms over his chest instead, leaning against the rock. The door flew open as the carriage skidded to a stop directly in front of him. Standing, he prepared to grab the exile, but he stopped and waited, watching as a mess of red hair filled the doorway of the carriage. The woman’s back was to him, her hands gripping the edges of the opening, and she was screaming with desperation as her captors tried to push her out.
Declan might have found the display humorous if he hadn’t known what the woman faced, what she fought and screamed to avoid. Pity and remorse brewed within him, gripping him tightly around the throat.
You’re a damned pirate! Get it together!
With a clearing of his throat, as if he were about to speak, he dislodged the invading emotions and stepped forward, wrapping his arm around her waist as the women inside the carriage worked to get her fingers loose from the carriage.
She continued fighting, kicking and flailing, screaming and writhing, as Declan carried her away toward the boulder. He’d need to hold on to this one. More so than the others he’d dealt with.
“Good luck with this one!” one of the women called. The door hadn’t even latched shut before the driver sent the horse off with a flick of the reins.
Declan pulled her close against him, ignoring how her hair threatened to suffocate him as it pressed against his face. He needed to get her to calm down or he’d have to find some way to knock her unconscious. He probably should, especially since she was so feisty, but something within him pushed him to avoid that.
Still, time was against him here. Even under the cover of these tall trees, he could see the sun nearing its highest point. Gavin and Tommy would be arriving at the pub in a matter of hours. He needed to get this over with.
Holding her tight, he tried to coax her to quiet down, whispering against her hair for her to relax. A laugh echoed in his head at the absurdity of his request. Would he have relaxed in her position? Would he have gone without this same fight?
He waited for her body to tire itself out, for her growls to die down. When he felt she had finally given up, he loosened his hold on her. But before he could move her to face him, her foot came down hard on his, her elbow landing in his gut at the same time.
That was unexpected.
But he was no amateur, and he regained his hold of her waist, snarling as he did.
“Hey!” he barked at her. “Stop it. Now. Fighting will do you no good here.”
But she continued to buck against his hold, her feet scrambling for purchase against the black soil. This was not going at all as planned. Perhaps another tactic would work.
“Let’s stop. Talk. Relax a bit. This doesn’t have to go badly.”
His words must have surprised her—as intended—because she froze and turned her head to look at him over her shoulder. Her glare pierced him, her eyes searching for any deception in his words.
“Of course it has to go badly,” she spat at him. “I know what you do for them.”
“Aye,” he replied, allowing the remorse he’d shoved aside earlier to return. “Doesn’t mean I like it. Doesn’t mean it has to hurt.”
“So you want to talk?” she asked and started to pull away from him.
Though he eased his hold, he kept his guard up, ready to grab her if she tried anything again.
He dipped his chin. “Aye. Let’s talk.”
When he was sure she wasn’t going to dart off—not that he wouldn’t be able to catch her if she did—he lowered his arms and took a step back. She turned fully to him now, her arms crossing defiantly across her chest. Despite her curves, this girl was no woman. She couldn’t have been more than twenty years old, if that. The smooth alabaster planes of her face, framed by deep red waves of hair, showed little weathering. She didn’t get outside much.
She scowled at him but didn’t make to move away. Standing there with her arms still crossed, she eyed him. Seconds went by and then minutes, as they faced off in silence.
Declan searched the blues of her eyes, wondering what this girl—a girl so young—could have possibly done to be marked for exile by the council.
What do you care?
Giving his head a shake, as if it could whisk away the scolding words, he started to say something. But she spoke first.
“Well? You wanted to talk? What about?”
He had originally planned to ask her who she was and what she had done. But something churned in his gut, warned him about getting too involved. His mind whirred with an ominous feeling that he should complete this job, pay this fee to the council, and forget about it as quickly as possible.
But could he do that? Eight names repeated in his head, and with each one, a face appeared, some scared and begging for mercy, others at peace with their fate.
Taking a life wasn’t against his moral code. He did so when he needed to, doing away with his own rivals or defending his crew, but being hired to dispatch those who posed no threat to him and had done him no wrong gnawed at him.
No, he didn’t care. He couldn’t. Wouldn’t. But then he couldn’t quiet that part of him that insisted everyone had a right to be remembered. Even if only by their executioner.
Shifting his feet, he forced himself to relax a bit, hoping it might put her more at ease with him. The thought caused him to laugh internally, though he was careful to keep it from escaping. As if she could or should be at ease with the man tasked with—
He cut off the thought with a question. “What’s your name?”
The girl’s brow shot up in surprise, but she blinked it away quickly before answering. “Lani. You?”
“Declan.”
“And you’re a pirate.”
He answered with a nod.
“Hired to take care of me.”
“That’s one way to put it,” he said. “And you? What landed you in such a…predicament?”
She didn’t respond immediately but instead swallowed hard. Her eyes glazed over. Tears began to form, but she blinked them away before they could spill over. She took a deep breath, her whole torso shifting as she filled her lungs, and lifted her face to the treetops. When she looked back at him, there was no longer any trace of the temper that had been there a moment ago, her blue eyes now frozen over.
“I fell in love.” Her jaw tightened before she added, “And I trusted the wrong person.”
“Classic blunder, that,” Declan said. “The trusting part, that is. Though I don’t know why love would warrant such a sentence from the council. Did you fall for one of the lords? Or perhaps had an affair—”
Lani lifted an arm, keeping the other tucked tight across her ribs, and examined her nails, as one might do when bored. And then, ever so slowly, she turned her palm toward him, exposing the delicate white of her forearm where an unmistakable design lay in stark contrast, its twists of smoky shadows creeping out from beneath her sleeve down to her wrist.
Declan’s gut twisted. “Ah, I see. And I take it you didn’t fall for one of the lords you were to be matched with?”
Once more crossing her arms in front of her, she gave him a small shake of her head.
“Well, this is certainly a first for me.”
Her chin snapped up, her eyes burning with surprise.
“Not my first…well, you know,” Declan said, chiding himself for being such a bumbling idiot, “but it is my first time with an heir to the council.”
Lani pursed her lips. “And what did you do to deserve such an honor?”
“Wrong time, wrong place,” he said, lifting his hands to the side in a shrug. “And no money.”
Her eyes went wide for a moment before she uttered a quiet “Interesting.”
“So the heirs don’t know then,” he said, not quite sure why he bothered going down this path in the conversation, but then again, any information was worth having. One never knew when one might need leverage of some kind.
“No.” The word was barely more than a whisper.
“But you knew.”
Dipping her chin, she said, “I had my suspicions. And I guess I was right, as we are nowhere near the docks and a ship to take me away.”
“Aye.” Declan gestured with a nod to the nearly invisible path that twisted through the trees beyond the boulder, noticeable only to those who knew it existed. “That trail doesn’t lead to any ship, but it is a different sort of freedom perhaps.”
Lani looked over her shoulder briefly, and when she turned back to him, tears lined her bottom lashes. He waited for her to break down, but then this girl didn’t seem the type to shy away from, well, anything. She lifted her chin, squared her shoulders, and lowered her arms until her hands were clasped together before her waist. “Well, let’s get it over with then. You probably have other things you need to be doing.”
Declan led the way through the trees, and they spent the entire twenty-minute walk in somber silence, with only the crunching of pine needles underfoot. Until the sound of the Aisling Sea—usually a comfort to him—joined in, faint at first and growing louder as they neared their destination.
Her sharp inhale broke the silence—and echoed in Declan’s chest—as they stepped into a clearing in the trees.
The sight never got easier to behold.
Not ten feet ahead of them, the ground simply disappeared. Stretching fifty feet to their left and right, it was no more than twenty-five feet across at its widest point, which lay directly in front of them. The trees didn’t venture near the edge, as if the drop made them as uncomfortable as it did Declan. Lush grass filled the space between the pit and the forest, and the clearing might have been pleasant if it had existed anywhere else.
Lani approached the cave on careful toes, testing the ground to see if it gave way before putting her full weight into each step. Declan could have told her there was no point in doing that. The ground here might as well have been stone. When he’d come to the pit all those years ago for his first exile, he’d wondered how such unforgiving soil could support this forest, but every visit since then simply left his stomach dropping into a pit of its own.
“How deep is it?” Lani asked, her words barely audible over the sea’s waves below and the breeze that had begun to pass through the trees above. The world seemed to be bidding her farewell.
“I don’t know, myself, but—” He stopped short.
“What? What were you going to say?” Lani had turned to look over her shoulder at him, her blue eyes boring into his, forcing him to look away.
What harm was there in telling her the truth?
It would terrify her unnecessarily, he thought.
But there was nothing about this situation that would warrant anything less.
“I, well…” He paused to rub the back of his hand across his brow. “I imagine it’s rather deep. Over a thousand feet at least.”
She turned back to the black void that lay inches from her toes. “And how could you guess that?”
“Based on the length of their screams.” He winced as he watched her arms begin to tremble. So many times he had imagined what the fall would feel like—the air rushing past you, not being able to see what awaited you until you…
When she spoke again, there was no hint of the fear that still coursed visibly through her body, and in any other moment he might have marveled at the control and poise she exhibited. “You said it didn’t have to hurt. How? I can’t imagine being thrown onto solid rock—or whatever awaits down there—from this height would be painless. So, how?”
“There are ways to kill…”—he nearly added you, but stopped himself again—“that are quick and relatively painless, as far as I am aware. I have, after all, never experienced them myself.”
She gave him another glance over her shoulder. “But you’ve done it often enough to assume.”
“Aye. After the first exile I was tasked with, after hearing those screams as they fell, it affected me more than I expected. Haunted me. More than I care to admit. A pirate shouldn’t have a problem with it, but there I was, facing nightmares after throwing them over that edge. So after that, I offered each a choice.”
“Who would choose to be alive for that fall?” she asked as she turned fully away from the drop-off to look at him.
“You’d be surprised. Some welcome the chance to feel the wind upon their faces one last time. Perhaps they want to be reminded that they once lived, that there are things of beauty in this world—even if just in the feel of air on their skin.”
“You’re rather poetic for a pirate. You don’t meet too many of those.”
And you won’t get the chance to meet another.
He kept that thought to himself and let the silence stretch out between them. He could have offered a witty remark, a word to tear down the lords and their fleets, but the darkness behind her seemed to widen, gaping like a yawning mouth, reminding him time was quickly fading.
Taking a cautious step toward her, Declan opened his mouth to speak, but Lani cut him off.
“Is it time for me to make my choice?” Although she appeared calm, her words quivered, betraying the fear she was trying so hard to contain.
“Aye. Only delaying the inevitable, and I do have other things I need to do today.”
That’s an understatement. Why are you being nice to her? Just push her in and get it over with.
It was what any other pirate would have done.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” Her question echoed his own thoughts.
“Would you rather I be mean? In addition to the whole killing you thing?” He narrowed his eyes, taking another step toward her until there was no more than a foot between them. Close enough that he could reach out and shove and be done with it.
But he didn’t.
“Still. Why? You’re a pirate.”
He couldn’t stop from pulling his mouth into a smirk. “How could I forget?”
“I suppose it makes sense though,” she said, lifting a shoulder before relaxing more than she ought to given the situation. When he didn’t respond, she continued. “No need to worry about your reputation with me. Not like I’m going to have the chance to ruin your good name. Still, I’d think it’d be easier to do this, be less traumatizing for you, if you gave yourself over to the pirate within. I mean, at this point I’m starting to wonder if you’re a real pirate at all.”
He gritted his teeth as her words struck a nerve. She was right. He wasn’t acting much like a pirate here.
She inched toward him, looking calmer than she had any right to be. “I wouldn’t be surprised if you simply stepped aside and let me go.”
Declan grabbed her then, and the force caused her to stumble back, though he kept her from going over the edge. “Don’t let my politeness fool you, Lani.” He hardened his gaze, searching her eyes for any of the fear that should have been swimming there. “I might have more manners than the other pirates, but I am still a pirate. Now, make your choice. And quickly. Because if you don’t, I will make it for you.”
Lani stared back at him with confidence, testing him, searching for the cracks in his hard exterior. But she would find none. He’d wasted enough time here already. His plan had been to get her to calm down, and he’d done that.
When she still hadn’t moved or spoken, he tightened his fingers around her arms and stepped forward again, edging her heels past the edge of the drop until she stood on only her toes with her body leaning slightly over the darkness. She grabbed his jacket, the desperation for survival kicking in, fear rushing into her eyes. Her head gave tiny shakes as she begged him to be different from the rest, to not do what was required of him.
He could say he was sorry, but it would do him no good to reveal that part of him out. He shoved it back, securing it once again.
“Choose.”
“Don’t,” she whispered, her terror increasing as he let her body angle away from him more.
“Now. Or I will.”
He counted five seconds before he tensed his muscles, preparing to push her and be done with it, readying himself for the inevitable screams, knowing he wouldn’t forget them soon enough.
“NO! I’ll choose.” Her words stopped him in mid-motion, and he raised his brows at her, a silent request for her answer. “Not like this. I don’t want to know I’m falling. I don’t want the air or whatever it is the others seek. Just end it. Quickly. Please.”
Declan pulled her a few inches away from the edge, and without another word, he released one hand, keeping her firmly held with the other as he reached for his blade. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply, one last breath before the end came.
He didn’t look away as he lifted his dagger. He looked her over one last time, this girl who had done nothing more than fall in love with the wrong person and dare to dream of a life she could never have. Pulling in a breath, the air ripe with the scent of the sea and the pine trees, he drove his blade in just behind her collarbone and pulled it out in one clean motion.
She gave a gasp, and as her eyes flashed open, he watched the light in them go out. With the dagger still in hand, her blood smeared across its smooth surface, he closed her eyes with the edge of his hand before letting her lifeless body fall away into the darkness.
He backed away from the edge, forcing coldness into his features, as if there was anyone here to witness his reaction. Wiping her blood from his dagger with the sash around his waist, he turned, not to go back to the road but to pass around the massive hole. Eventually he would go back—back to Morshan, back to the pub, back to his men and his ship—but if he was going to focus on the next task, he needed to clear his head.
And he knew just how to do that.
