Venture to Uncertainty (#1)

01 | The Anticipation of Uncertainty

As soon as he stepped over the threshold, a weight came billowing down on him, bringing him to the ground. He rolled over and groaned, pushing Farley off.

"The ceiling," he mused. "That's new."

Farley rolled onto his feet. "Nothing is new to your soon-to-be-friends, Kingsley."

Archer lifted his hands in surrender as he stood. "I want to believe you, mate—I really do—but I simply cannot imagine any self-respecting member of the Avourienne hiding in the rigging to jump me."

"You're arrogant," Farley snapped back. "I know them like I know myself."

Archer sighed, moving to wash his hands in the bucket by the sink. "Fine. I promise to find every doorway highly suspicious once I'm a pirate."

Farley pursed his lips, dark eyes as intense as ever. "Arrogant," he said again.

"Then I'll fit right in," Archer pointed out, giving him a pat on the shoulder as he went by.

Farley turned to follow him. "Until they find you showing mercy to fish," he said

Archer laughed, taking the balcony stairs of the house they shared. "I don't have a clue what you're talking about," he said. "I'm as bloodthirsty as they come."

That was a little far from the truth. Archer may have a reputation for nursing the birds that flew into his window back to health, but he could be bloodthirsty if he needed to be, obviously.

Farley watched him come back down the stairs, having switched from his fishing clothes. "If they suspect a thing, Kingsley—"

"They'll murder me slowly," Archer finished, glancing at the sun to estimate the time. He was late already, like always.

"He'll murder you slowly," Farley corrected.

Archer glanced back up. "I'm not scared of him." He folded his cuffs, refusing to break. He wanted to add I'm not scared of anything, but that might've been a little much.

"You should be terrified of him," Farley replied. "Otherwise you're just—"

"Arrogant?"

Farley lifted his chin. His aim to break Archer's spirit, but his inability to do so was a good thing. If his protege couldn't handle this intensity, he would never handle what was to come.

Archer ignored him and his doubts if only to pretend he didn't have the same ones. He'd been training for months. Doubts were ridiculous.

Farley settled back against the wall, crossing his arms. "You never understand the seriousness of anything, Kingsley."

"I'm saving the world, mate. I understand the seriousness, thank you."

With his arms still crossed and his jaw set, Farley reeked of disapproval. He was a highly unsettling man, causing most of the islanders to steer clear of him. It was in the depths of his eyes, in the way he couldn't fully recount what happened to him when he'd left Orphano.

It was less of a mystery to Archer. Myria was an unforgiving place teeming with all sorts of dangerous things, and within one month of Farley's group taking off on their excursion, he was the only one left. He'd call his dead friends lucky, because the worst Myrian horror had yet to come. When the Devil's ship found Farley, it made use of him.

It was a long time before he escaped, likely the only man to ever make it off that ship alive. He washed up back on Orphano months later in the middle of the night, armed with knowledge about the real world and desperate to speak with Archer.