Chapter 4
“Who’s going to sell goods to the likes of us?”
Kalina smiled brightly.
To obtain food or goods produced on land, one had no choice but to either pay several times the fair price or resort to plunder. Or, failing that, simply make it themselves.
Left with no other option, pirates pooled together their individual knowledge and experience to craft the tools they needed to survive.
Methods for lighting a hidden fire, tools for starting one, herbs and instruments for treating wounds, even sturdy rope.
She checked over the remaining tools, gathered up the rope, and rose to her feet. When Kalina drew the sharp cutlass from her waist as well, Lucian instinctively tensed his body, bracing himself.
Kalina jerked her head up and scanned the surrounding trees. Palm trees, the kind commonly found on islands. And the ivy vines she’d noticed earlier while gathering firewood.
“…What exactly are you planning to do?”
“You didn’t hit your head too, did you, Lucy? You know as well as I do how unpredictable the sea’s weather can be. We need to build at least a small shelter to keep the rain off.”
With the same razor-sharp blade she always used to cut down men, she began hacking through the thick palm tree without the slightest hesitation.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Kalina felled the tree, lashed together two posts and stood them upright, then covered the top with palm leaves to form a roof. The entire process flowed as smoothly as water.
Lucian watched her move about breathlessly, his expression somewhat sour. However notorious a pirate she might be, he couldn’t just stand by and let a woman handle all the dirty work alone.
More than anything, since there was no telling what tricks she might be up to, having some hand in the work himself put him more at ease.
“What do you need help with?”
Unable to hold back any longer, he took the log she’d been about to hoist onto her shoulder right out of her hands. His reluctance was plain on his face, his expression as stiff as ever, but it was, in any case, his way of offering to help.
‘Oh.’
With her shoulders suddenly lighter, Kalina’s mouth curved up, amused.
Pirates, regardless of age, were traitors condemned to death without exception. Even a child, the moment they became a pirate, would be dragged mercilessly to the gallows to meet their end—that was the law of the sea.
And besides, hadn’t Lucian himself crossed swords with her out on the sea until now, vowing to kill her?
And yet here he was, treating her this way simply because she was a woman. Or was this ease of his born from confidence that he could subdue some feeble woman like her whenever he pleased?
Either way, it struck her as a strange, and rather amusing, thing to witness.
“Not there—drive it in here.”
Kalina tapped the ground with her foot, indicating a spot chosen with the wind direction and the reach of the fire’s warmth in mind.
While he drove the log in, Kalina straightened her back for a moment and gazed up at the sky.
Under cover of darkness, a massive black shadow spread its wings wide, circling the sky. Unlike an ordinary crow, its black feathers carried an ominous tinge of red.
She glanced sidelong, gauging Lucian’s attention, then quietly opened the lid of the worn locket pendant hanging from her neck.
Tilting the small mirror hidden inside, she caught the moonlight and reflected it in a fixed pattern, drawing a brief flash of light across the darkened air.
As if receiving the signal, the crow stopped its circling and flew off far into the darkness. Once she confirmed this, she quietly closed the locket’s lid.
The moment she turned her back, Lucian deliberately kept making working sounds while his eyes darted rapidly. The brush, any sense of movement, the sky, Kalina’s own movements.
He hadn’t gotten a clear look at what she was doing, but a crow—a diurnal bird—flying about at this late hour was deeply suspicious.
Even more so if that same crow had suddenly changed direction right after whatever Kalina had just done.
Were there more of her comrades here? Even if there weren’t, right now, there was no telling when they might come storming in. Lucian ran through the weight of the weapons fastened about his body.
A longsword, one pistol, a powder flask, a knife. Beyond that, a pocket watch and a compass. As far as he could sense in his own body, it felt no different from before he’d lost consciousness.
‘Ha. Confidence that he could win even armed, or sheer arrogance?’
Either would do. If his weapons proved useless, he’d tear out the pirates’ throats with his own teeth if he had to, cutting off every last one of their lives to the fullest extent he could. Even if it meant dying alongside them.
Though he had no idea how many enemies there might be, it wasn’t a level he couldn’t handle. But if, by some chance, far more came than expected…
‘As long as I don’t end up a hostage.’
Better to die than become some pirate’s hostage. His blue eyes settled into a cold, hardened calm.
His gaze naturally shifted elsewhere the moment Kalina began to turn her body.
Unaware of his movements, Kalina slowly surveyed their surroundings.
Animal droppings and tracks she’d noticed along the way here. They were somewhat removed from the campsite, but that was no reason to let her guard down just yet.
‘Being an uninhabited island, the animals here wouldn’t be wary of people—if anything, they’d see us as easy prey.’
Most wild animals recognize humans as the apex predator at the top of the food chain. And from the animals perspective, that assessment wasn’t wrong, exactly.
However strong each of them might be individually, they were nothing but helpless creatures before weapons wielded through intelligence.
But animals on an isolated island like this, who had never once encountered humans before, would likely be different. As long as they remained in hiding, they couldn’t use the fire—the most effective means of driving such creatures off. Which meant…
As Kalina turned her back and began walking away, Lucian swiftly drew his sword.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
Even with the sharp edge of a blade pointed at her, Kalina shrugged, unbothered.
“Hate being apart from me that much? Saved your life once and now you want to be glued to my side? Not that I’m complaining, of course.”
At her brazen remark, Lucian’s face twisted into a scowl, as if he’d just been hit with a stream of foul curses.
“Honestly, no sense of humor at all, this one. Anyway, there are animals around here. Since we don’t have a night watch, shouldn’t we set up some kind of substitute? So bear with it if you miss me too much, Lucy.”
Lucian scowled, but sheathed his sword once more all the same. He had no idea whether this “substitute” of hers referred to a person or some object, but if it was the former, he needed to check his own weapons quickly as well.
Nothing had been taken from him, but having fallen into the sea, he needed to check whether his gunpowder had been compromised in any way.
As he returned to his own work, Kalina spun around and made her way back toward the beach.
Crunch, crunch.
The closer she got to the shore, gravel and seashells crushed noisily beneath her feet, making a fairly loud sound.
She pulled Lucian’s uniform jacket off her shoulders and spread it wide across the ground. Then she gathered up armfuls of seashells and gravel and poured them onto the uniform.
Scattered around the campsite, this would serve as an excellent alarm system, alerting them to any nighttime intruder’s approach.
Using the uniform as a makeshift sack, she returned carrying a hefty load of shells and gravel, and Lucian, unable to hide his puzzlement, arched one eyebrow.
Ignoring his questioning look, Kalina poured out what she’d gathered a short distance from the shelter.
Watching her actions in silence from a distance, Lucian finally realized this was the “substitute” she’d mentioned earlier.
The animal cries he’d been hearing since a while ago. They wouldn’t be able to stop a person this way, but it could at least warn them of hungry animals closing in on them.
Having already finished a quick check of his weapons, Lucian made his way down the path she’d taken. There still wasn’t nearly enough gravel to serve as a proper warning of intruders.
Behind him, Kalina followed along with a light step, the corner of her mouth curling upward.
* * *
Rustle.
At the faint sound of gravel being stepped on in the darkness, Kalina shot upright at once. Before she knew it, the dagger in her hand was already raised, its cold edge pointed toward the direction of the sound.
The man who met her gaze let out a deep sigh and straightened from his bent posture. Had it not been for his injury, he wouldn’t have made a sound at all. The problem was that, unable to bring himself to sleep in the same shelter as a pirate, he’d settled down leaning against a tree instead.
Shot as he was, exposed to the cold wind, keeping watch over both the pirate and any possible enemy—there was no way sleep would come to him.
And yet, to end up in this state after just one sleepless night. He found himself thoroughly disgusted with himself, for having tripped some alarm system meant for nothing more than wild animals.
Thanks to that, his plan to scout the area while she slept had fallen apart entirely.
Her sleep thoroughly chased away, Kalina roughly ran a hand through her disheveled hair and pulled Lucian’s uniform, which she’d been using as a cover, over her shoulders.
It was quite heavy, but then again, being a garment worn by some noble lord, it seemed to be made of fine cloth. Certainly in far better condition than her own clothes, already reduced to little more than rags after being soaked in seawater.
“Where are you off to?”
“I was planning to find drinking water.”
That had indeed been one of the things he intended to do, so it wasn’t a lie. He simply hadn’t mentioned the most important part.
Kalina stepped out of the shelter and looked up at the still-bluish glow of the early dawn sky. She herself had planned to get moving early, but this was far earlier than that. Especially given how grueling the previous day had been for both of them.
However well-trained a naval officer he might be, he must have had just as brutal a time of it as she had. Kalina tilted her head to one side.
Hollow, sunken eyes, skin gone dry and rough.
“Guess you didn’t get a wink of sleep all night?”
He flinched.
As his eyes met hers, Lucian jerked his head away, and Kalina’s mouth curled upward.
“Seriously, not even a little?”
“…”
“Because a woman was nearby?”
Of course that wasn’t it. Even as she said it, Kalina thought it was a ridiculous joke. Did she really think he didn’t know he was wary of her? He’d clearly lost sleep keeping watch over her.
That was surely all it had been.
And yet, across his twisted expression, alongside contempt, another emotion flickered through as well. Catching it with sharp perception, Kalina’s mouth curved into a crooked smirk.
“Our Lucy—don’t tell me you’re a virgin?”
***
