Read Online The Farthest Shore (Eden Series Book 3) by Marian Perera - Free Book Online Page A

fingers felt numb where they clutched the towel. “I was just curious.”
    “Were you.”
    The sardonic edge to his voice could have cut steel. She held his gaze with an effort of will so great she couldn’t breathe and thought that she might be guilty of being a half-salt, but she wouldn’t be a coward. She’d throw herself over the side before she let him intimidate her.
    He went to a cabinet and turned a key in a lock. Miri took advantage of the moment to draw in a silent gulp of air and pushed the sodden mass of her hair over the chair’s back. There was a soft thud and a slosh, and she looked up to see another bottle of Admiral’s Blood on the table. He handed her a glass.
    Just one . No risk of talking too much with just one. She sipped slowly, welcoming the heat, and he sat down, half-turning away from her so he faced the window.
    “The message said a new Turean ship is after us,” he said, and tossed off his own drink. Miri kept her features blank. It didn’t matter that he was in profile to her, because she knew he had only told her that to check her reaction. He was as aware of her as she was of him, albeit not for the same reason.
    “Well, they’d have to be fools,” she said, “if they’re sending one ship into the Sheltered Ocean.”
    He smiled slowly, though there was no amusement in his eyes. “Best not to underestimate them. I’ve seen what one ship can do, even in foreign waters.”
    “But isn’t it likely this ship will be seen and intercepted before it can reach us?” She thought of the journey from the Iron Ocean, rounding Cape Claw, passing through shipping lanes traversed by freighters and fishing vessels. Seawatch supposedly had eyes and ears everywhere, even in the middle of the ocean. “I suppose they could disguise their ship to look like one of ours.”
    “I thought of that.” He rested the rim of his empty glass against his upper lip, as though inhaling the scent of the rum. “They hardly need a real disguise—if they seized a Denalait ship and sailed her back into our waters, they’d pass unnoticed as long as none of her crew escaped. But the message specifically said they had a new vessel. Perhaps one with capabilities we haven’t foreseen.”
    Like steam engines? Miri wondered. No, the Tureans were resourceful as only people living on another kind of frontier and fighting a losing war could be, but she’d never heard of them being wealthy enough to buy or develop that kind of technology.
    “Does the ship have a name?” she said.
    “ Kraken .”
    Miri drank the rest of her rum. She’d looked out over the sea not half an hour ago, and somewhere on the water was a Turean ship searching for them. For a moment she wondered whether anyone on that ship might be related to her, but she pushed the speculation out of her mind, because that way lay madness. Or worse, treason to the Unity.
    She poured a second glass, and then, as Captain Juell turned to her with brows raised, she tilted the bottle over his glass too. No wonder people thought sailors drank to excess. If she had to live with those kinds of fears, night and day, she’d be drunk whenever she could as well.
    “To your victory,” she said, “over Kraken and every other ship.”
    The surprise faded into a half-smile. He clinked his glass against hers and drank. The storm seemed to be over, because she couldn’t hear anything apart from the sea and the constant rumble of the engine, but she was so used to those she was able to listen to the rainwater dripping from her hair.
    She sipped the rum. It still scorched its way down her throat, but the searing was almost pleasant, and waves of warmth radiated out from her stomach, unknotting her muscles. When she leaned back in her chair, she felt boneless.
    Did he feel that way too? Difficult to tell. His hair, dampened and then raked back, was unruly for once, but the half of his face she could see looked as it always did. Tanned skin over prominent cheekbones darkened