Siren Call

Negotiations

The ship pitched once before shuddering to a halt.

They had reached port.

As soon as she stepped aboard the West Wind, Framcil had shoved her roughly into the dark compartment of the captain's hold, free from any interaction with any other living soul. Here, it seemed, was also where he stashed the treasures of the ship. It was fitting that she had been stuck there amongst the unfeeling and silent Kwessien ivory statues and cold glint of Xianggian gold.

Every so often, Framcil would throw a sloppy bowl of food down at her as she huddled into the furthest corner from the opening in the ceiling but other than his thankfully rare appearances, she was utterly alone.

However, it seemed that from the snippets of faint conversations that would drift down to her through the wooden floor, this boat ride had already been nearly a month long.

Yet the most curious thing to her was when a young, yet authoritative voice would sink down to her. For some reason, as the owner of that voice spoke, a soft pale face would bloom in her mind. A face with the most startling blue eyes that she had ever seen, and one that she prayed to see once more, for she had never seen any other prince before — besides Bernal, that is.

Her heart had not had time to get over her loss. The simultaneous blows of losing her home, her father, and her brother had stilled her tongue, murdering her words before they had a chance to blossom.

She leaned back against the plush Cierban rug and tugged her knapsack onto her lap. Thankfully, Framcil had let her keep it after having decided that it had little worth. Her storybook weighed heavy against her and she pulled it out to trace her fingers once more across the dedication her father had inscribed inside the cover.

A quick stomp against the opening in the ceiling disrupted her musings.

Thrusting the book back into the knapsack, she huddled back into the corner.

"Time to go girl," Framcil's hateful voice ordered as he pulled open the trapdoor. A thick rope ladder was thrown down.

Quickly slinging her pack firmly around her shoulders, Adalynn made her way to the rope ladder and stiffly climbed upwards into a violent haze of light.

Despite her abhorrence for the Xianggians who captured her, staying down in that musty hole was unacceptable.

His thick hand clawed onto her shoulder and hauled her onto the floor of the captain's office.

He sniffed disgustedly at her, as his mean eyes raked over her shivering form. Due to her long time in the darkness, her eyes burned and sizzled at the intense amount of light that was pouring in through the windows. Framcil's own form was hazy and dark before her.

"You smell sickening," he scoffed as he threw a cloak at her. She managed to barely catch it on her fingertips and draw it around her. Her mangled dress still hung desolately onto her thin frame, having gone without a new article of clothing for weeks.

She did not respond to him and merely waited for her eyes to adjust.

"We are going to wait here until the Crown Prince's party has departed and then I shall be able to cash you in, so to speak," he explained loftily as he crossed to his desk and began to scribble away on a piece of paper.

Giving him no inclination that she heard him, Adalynn's stormy grey eyes slid over to the wide and large window that made up the end of the wall behind Framcil.

The boat bobbed gently in the harbor and outside the warped glass laid a framework of wooden docks dipping into the harbor.

Her legs locked and frozen, Adalynn merely stared out the window and waited for her fate.