Princess Elodi's Arc

Chapter 34 of 55

The cabin below deck smelled of salt and tar. Blackwell's crew carried the exhausted griffin to a stall of stacked crates, where it folded its wings and slept. Elodi sat on a low bench, her otter curled in her lap, its jeweled collar catching the lantern light. Damon stood beside her. Across the room, Captain Blackwell poured wine into a tin cup and set it down without drinking. "You want to know about Erik," Blackwell said. She leaned against the cabin wall. "But you walk onto my ship, eat my bread, and expect I owe you the truth. I owe no one anything for free." Elodi's hands tightened on the otter's fur. She had begged captains before and lost. She would not beg now. "You called him a name you had not spoken in years. That was not the face of a stranger." She met the captain's dark eyes. "You knew him. Tell me how." Blackwell was quiet. Then she pulled back her collar and showed a long white scar down her throat. "My first ship burned and sank eleven years ago. My men drowned around me. A stranger pulled us from the water one by one. He never asked our names or our flags." She let the collar fall. "That stranger was your father. I have carried the debt since." Elodi's breath caught. Damon set a hand on her shoulder. "Then you know where he went," she said. "Where he is." "Trust is not a thing I hand out because you share his blood," Blackwell said. "Prove you carry more of him than his eyes. He gave without counting the cost. What have you given?" Elodi looked down at the otter, at the ring on her own hand, at the sleeping griffin that had nearly died carrying her here. She had left a safe home, a wool stall, a mother who finally loved her freely. She stood. "I gave up a life I built with my own hands," she said. "A home, a trade, safety. I crossed water no captain would sail because a letter said he might still breathe. I did not come to take from you. I came because he showed me the stars once, and then he was gone." Her voice held steady. "That is what I have given, Captain. Everything." The cabin went still. The otter lifted its head. Blackwell studied her for a long moment, then pushed off the wall and picked up the tin cup at last. She drank. "Good," she said. "That is his answer, near enough." She set the cup down hard. "Your father lives.”