I needed to pull my damned self together, harden my bones, and drag my battle-scarred body from this bed. The sooner I did that, the less of a burden I would be, and the quicker I would find my father’s treasure and repay my crew for their loyalty.

But the infection wasn’t finished with me.

My acute pain combined with continued strong fevers was to be dreaded, no mistake. The danger that I would fall into deep delirium and die loomed in the tired eyes of Priest, Ashley, and my doctors.

As the fever wore on, chills overtook my senses and smothered my consciousness, leaving me to wander alone in my mind. I found myself back in the hole on the admiral’s flagship, surrounded by the stench of death.

Whenever I woke, it was in flickers of warped reality. I was still in that black hole, watching a door open and close only feet away. Priest and Ashley flashed in and out of the doorway, talking to me without sound, reaching for me, always too far away.

Shackled and weak, I couldn’t crawl toward them. My legs wouldn’t move.

Gradually, the door opened less often, and the murk around me grew darker, stretching longer. Flashes of Priest transformed. His cheeks hollowed out, narrowing his face. Whiskers thickened, lengthening into a short beard. I barely recognized him.

Where was Ashley?

I called out for him, but he stopped appearing in the doorway. Sometimes Priest was there, his silver eyes ablaze with grim emotion. But Ashley was gone. I sensed his absence like a missing limb.

Perhaps that was the impetus that drove me from death. From within the suffocating black hole of silence and decay, I clawed my way out. Hands scrabbling, muscles writhing, and lungs panting, I woke on a gasp in the blinding rays of sunlight.

There was no motion. No rocking or waves. I was on land?

My surroundings came in bursts of hazy images—silk fabric, sumptuous wood furnishings, embroidered brocades, silver sconces, and mullioned windows that yawned open to a cerulean sky.

As the mingled aromas of brine and sweet grassy fields tickled my nose, I had no sense of people. No sound. No movement.

Where the devil was I?

49

“Ahoy? Anyone there?”

Faster than the words could leave my mouth, Priest was in my face, climbing onto the bed and leaning in with bright gray eyes and a freshly shaved jaw.

Everything rushed at me at once—questions, breaths, dizziness, joy, and pain. Yes, the pain persisted. But it didn’t consume. It felt nothing like before.

“Where are we?” I tried to sit up, commanding muscles that refused to respond. “How long has it been? Where’s Ashley? My ship? Reynolds and—”

He pressed a finger against my lips and pinned me with his steady gaze, calming me, compelling my lungs to slow down. His touch lifted to my forehead, his palm flattening to test my temperature.