Chapter 677: Elowynn Embershade [II / Bonus - ]
In that half-second of obscured vision, Elowynn didn’t attack from the front.
She used her lightweight momentum, slipping around the blind side of the saber’s rotation and stepping directly into Morwenna’s personal space.
Her face was inches from the other woman’s ear with her cheek practically brushing Morwenna’s dark hair but she didn’t swing her cutlasses.
Instead, a wicked triumphant smirk spread across Elowynn’s lips, and she whispered.
"At least I’ve slept with a man... You’re still a virg—"
BAM!
The universe seemed to caved in.
A massive calloused hand clamped onto the back of Elowynn’s neck with the speed and violence of an iron bear trap and before the word virgin could even finish vibrating between her teeth, Morwenna’s entire frame torqued.
CRRRRRRRR-RACK!
Morwenna slammed Elowynn’s face straight down into the reinforced ironwood deck.
The concussive impact shattered three planks, cratering the timber in a three-foot depression.
A cloud of oak splinters, pulverized salt, and steam exploded outward, accompanied by a literal column of white-hot vapor shooting violently out of Morwenna’s ears.
The pirate queen stood hunched over her with veins bulging along her neck as her scarred face contorted into an expression of such pure rage that the surrounding storm seemed to freeze in terror.
"Say that shit one more time," Morwenna snarled, her voice dropping into a guttural rumble that rattled the iron fixtures of the mast. "Say it. I dare you to let your lips form that word again, you little wretch..."
Beneath her hand, Elowynn lay in the splintered crater with her nose throbbing and her cheek pressed hard against the cold damp wood.
’Holy hell...’ Elowynn thought, her eyes spinning in dizzy circles as she stared at the cracked grain of the timber. ’She is... unbelievably sensitive about the virgin thing...’
Carefully, Elowynn tapped the flat of her palm twice against the wood, then rolled her hips and wiggled out of the depression, sliding five paces away across the deck like an eel.
She sat up, holding her bruised nose, waving both hands in exaggerated surrender.
"Yield! I yield, you maniac! Yield!"
Morwenna let out a long shuddering snort with the steam slowly clearing from her ears as she aggressively wiped her sleeve across her mouth.
She kicked the loose wood splinters away from her boots, grumbling a stream of filthy curses that could have stripped the paint off an imperial flagship.
Sitting on the damp deck while brushing wood dust from her voluminous cleavage, Elowynn let out a quiet sigh.
’I lost... again.’
To be completely honest... Elowynn had never slept with a man in her life.
She hadn’t even kissed one.
From the secluded island where she had awakened centuries ago, men had looked at her with one thing in their eyes... drooling lust.
With her bountiful curves, narrow waist, and the small mole beneath her left eye as well as her fox-like purple eyes, she had been a magnet for every swaggering lecherous pirate captain who thought a bag of stolen coin earned them the right to touch her.
She had gut-punched more men than she had killed beasts... It was the entire reason her crew on the Cinder Maiden was comprised exclusively of women, she couldn’t stand the way men postured, smelled, and looked at her like a prize to be hoarded.
In truth, she had never met a single soul who caught her interest.
’But...’ Elowynn smirked internally, rubbing her sore jaw, ’it pisses Morwenna off so wonderfully that I can never resist taking the shot.’
Besides, what did it even matter?
What was the practical difference between a virgin and a woman who had spent an hour with a man?
You had someone’s clumsy hands on you, so what? You got to taste those slimy things called dicks... So?
So what if she and Morwenna were both pushing past several centuries of life?
With the longevity granted by their high-tier classes, they had centuries more to burn. Sex wasn’t an operational necessity... it was an optional distraction for people who didn’t have ships to sail and hulls to patch.
The tension slowly drained from the air.
Across the water, the ten crew members of the Cinder Maiden waved enthusiastically across the gap, shouting greetings to Morwenna and calling for their captain.
Morwenna glanced down at Elowynn with her wild scowl softening into an exasperated familiar grimace.
"Fuck you."
Without a word, she reached down, caught Elowynn by the belt of her corset and hoisted her to her feet with one arm, setting her upright before nodding toward the aft cabin.
"Get in here before you catch a chill, Big Breasts," Morwenna grunted, turning her back and stomping toward the heavy oak door.
Elowynn rolled her eyes, smoothing her torn tunic, and followed her inside.
The captain’s quarters of Morwenna’s vessel were Spartan, smelling richly of pitch, cured leather, and high-grade spirits.
Weapons hung from iron pegs along the bulkheads, and half-rolled nautical charts were pinned to the cedar table with heavy boarding daggers.
Morwenna dropped into a wide battered leather chair, kicked her boots onto the table, and gestured vaguely toward the heavy iron cabinet bolted against the starboard wall.
"How do you feel?" Morwenna asked, rummaging through the drawer until she pulled out two dark glass bottles.
Elowynn leaned against the map table, crossing her long legs. "I feel fine... My nose is only slightly broken, thank you very much."
"Hah! Your fault for running your mouth with that oversized chest leading the way," Morwenna teased, uncorking one of the bottles with her teeth and spitting the wooden stopper across the room.
Elowynn sighed, staring down at her boots.
They only saw each other once every decade or so, meeting at unmapped coordinates in the outer reaches to trade intelligence and test their steel.
...And once again, she had performed miserably.
She had been forced to rely on a cheap childish distraction just to slip past Morwenna’s guard.
"I’m sorry," Elowynn murmured softly, the bravado slipping from her posture. "For wasting your time. I thought... I thought I had closed the gap this time but I’m still just as clumsy as I was a century ago."
Morwenna paused mid-swig.
She lowered the bottle, looking at Elowynn through the dim lantern light.
A genuinely warm smile touched her scarred lips as it was a look that lacked any sort of mockery or competition.
"You’re an idiot, Embershade," Morwenna said quietly.
She took a slow gulp of the dark liquor, wiping her mouth with the back of her wrist.
"You’re doing well... Better than well... Your mana control with that liquid flame is sharper than anyone I’ve crossed blades with in the last fifty years, You’re growing stronger every time we meet. It won’t be long before you can actually match me blow for blow."
Elowynn blinked with a faint surprised chuckle escaping her throat.
"You’re not just saying that to keep me from crying?"
"I don’t lie about steel," Morwenna snorted, taking another deep draught. "You fight smart... You read angles better than most admirals and you’ve got the instincts of a true corsair."
A quiet genuine warmth settled in Elowynn’s chest.
Hearing those words from Morwenna meant more than an entire mountain of stolen loot.
Morwenna finished half the bottle in three massive gulps, set it down with a heavy clatter, and stood up from the table.
She walked over to the cabin door, resting her hand on the iron latch, looking back over her shoulder.
"We’re friends, aren’t we?" Morwenna asked with her voice sounding very steady.
Elowynn nodded slowly. "We are."
"Good then don’t get yourself sunk by some two-bit privateer before our next meeting," Morwenna said, her lips curling into a soft fond grin. "See you in ten years, Elowynn... Pick up something new by then, will you?"
The heavy oak door swung shut behind her as Elowynn stood frozen in the center of the quiet cabin.
’Elowynn.’
The name echoed in her ears like a distant ringing bell.
She hadn’t imagined it. For the first time in three hundred years, the Dread Queen hadn’t called her a nickname... She had spoken her true name.
A radiant dizzying smile broke across Elowynn’s small face.
Her amethyst eyes sparkled, and she threw her arms up in a silent, ecstatic cheer, bouncing lightly on her heels like an excited girl.
’This calls for a celebration!’ she thought, practically floating out of the cabin and back across the gangplank to her own ship.
She stepped onto the quarterdeck of the Cinder Maiden, looking at her navigator with a wide bright grin.
"Captain’s orders!" Elowynn declared, her voice ringing with sheer joy. "Swerve us south! Set course for Kuvikui Island!"
She leaned against the helm, letting the wind whip through her glowing crimson hair as the sea sprayed over the bow.
’I’m going to drink to my heart’s content,’ she promised herself, her heart lighter than it had been in centuries. ’Ten years until the next spar... Tonight, I celebrate!’
...
"Ugh..."
A low miserable groan scraped past Elowynn’s dry parched throat.
The air was suffocating, thick with the stench of sour, stale ale, cheap tobacco, and the greasy film of cold tallow candles.
Her head felt as though an iron band had been forged around her temples and tightened with a heavy wrench.
Every pulse of her heartbeat sent a sickening thud through her optic nerves.
She peeled her face off the sticky beer-stained surface of a scarred pine table.
"Girls...?" she croaked, blinking against the dull murky light filtering through a grease-covered window. "Sabine? Vanya... where are you...?"
There was no answer.
It was only the rhythmic monotonous sound of a dry rag wiping down an oak counter twenty paces away.
"Excuse me, miss," a flat tired voice spoke from across the tavern.
An elderly tavern-master in a stained apron stopped his wiping, leaning heavily on the bar, looking at her with hollow unimpressed eyes.
"We’ve been closed since dawn," the man said. "The boys tried waking you three times. Doused your hands in cold well-water, shook your shoulders... nothing took. If you’re done sleeping off the barrel, I need you to settle your tab."
Elowynn rubbed her temples with trembling fingers, her thoughts dragging through a thick syrupy fog.
"My crew..." she mumbled, squinting through the gloom. "The women I came in with. Ten girls... they were armed, where did they go?"
The barkeep stared at her blankly.
"Your crew? Miss, they left hours ago... They walked out before midnight while you were still facedown in your cups."
Elowynn’s brow furrowed. "Left...?"
She pushed herself up from the bench, swaying slightly on her boots as she reached instinctively into the hidden pockets of her leather armor to fetch a purse of coins.
Her hands found nothing.
...Empty.
She checked the inner lining of her vest.
The small silk pouch of high-grade gems she always kept pinned against her ribs was gone.
Her wrist-cuffs, forged from silver-mana alloy, were missing.
Even the small spatial ring she wore on her right thumb, the one containing her emergency rations and sea-charts, had been cleanly stripped from her hand.
Her bare thumb looked strangely small without it.
’That’s... impossible,’ she thought, a cold prickling sensation washing over her skin, instantly cutting through the alcohol haze.
She hadn’t carried much physical cash into the tavern as she hated hauling heavy iron coin when traveling ashore, but her gear alone was worth a small fortune.
Desperate to leave, she unclasped the heavy masterwork brass gauntlet from her left forearm and slammed it onto the counter.
"This is forged from fourth-grade volcanic brass," she rasped, not waiting for his reply. "It covers the tab three times over... Keep the change."
She didn’t wait for his answer.
She burst through the swinging doors of the tavern, breaking into a dead sprint down the cobblestone incline leading to the docks of Kuvikui Island.
The morning air hit her face feeling cold and smelling of dead fish and low tide.
She vaulted over the wooden barricades, running straight onto the high stone pier, her sharp purple eyes scanning the forest of masts anchored in the harbor.
...The Cinder Maiden wasn’t there.
The slip was empty.
Only two frayed mooring ropes bobbed uselessly in the murky water, severed cleanly by a serrated knife.
She stood on the empty slip for a long moment, staring at the two frayed ends as though they might explain themselves.
𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶
"Looking for the crimson sloop, are you?"
Elowynn whirled around and standing near the harbormaster’s toll booth was a portly one-eyed dockmaster, chewing on a matchstick.
"Where is my ship?" she demanded, her voice shaking with a dangerous crackling heat.
"Cleared the breakwater four hours past midnight," the dockmaster replied casually, spitting into the harbor. "Your quartermaster signed the departure slip, she said the captain was resting below decks... paid the harbor tax in full and sailed east."
Elowynn’s breath hitched in her throat as her hands fell limp to her sides.
’They... left without me.’
The realization struck her with the sickening concussive weight of a falling spear.