Sky Song: Overture Read Online Free PDF

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    They kept rehashing the story of the day. I secretly hoped they might all forget me by the next. I didn’t want to be Falcon. Falcon was highly visible. How long would it be before one of them teased me for having no facial hair or challenged me to wrestle? I wanted to go back to being their taciturn minstrel who didn’t like to be touched.
    Captain Dirk came through the crowd and held out his mug. Ned filled it with Skye and Dirk polished it off. He almost never drank with the men.
    “Get down from there, Fitz!” he snarled. “A storm’s coming through that will send you flailing in the cloudswell!”
    Fitz pulled himself upright on the cable and dropped to the deck. “Yes, Captain! Sorry, sir!”
    The deck was no longer alive with laughter or rowdy, excited stories of Falcon. Thunder bellowed in the distance. I could hear the wind reeling, and my heartbeat did the same. Captain Dirk gestured for me to go with him. I obeyed without hesitation.
    He took me to his quarters and we went through an adjacent room into a small library. I appraised his collection out of habit. It was worth a hefty fortune. The sets of leather-bound encyclopedias and thick tomes of rare variety were all in fine condition.
    Dirk plopped down on a pile of cushions and furs in the middle of the floor. He kicked off his boots, crunching and cracking his toes. I wasn’t sure if I should join him. My conduct had to be different with him. He knew my secret.
    “Sit. Drink,” he said. He uncorked a bottle with his teeth and took a swig before passing it to me.
    “Yes, Captain.” I knelt on the edge of the furs.
    “Wine from the valley of Shale. That’s where you’re from, isn’t it?”
    “Yes, Captain.”
    “Who better to share it with then? Drink with me!” I took a sip of his wine to avoid insulting him and handed it back. “Quite an impressive stunt you pulled today. I guess we both know I can’t give my sister away without you.”
    “What happens to me once you do give her away?” I asked.
    “I don’t know yet. I had to make the men love you to explain not killing you, which complicates things… Falcon,” he said with a sneer, taking another gulp of wine. He knocked on his chest and belched.
    I veered the conversation in another direction. “Why did the witch curse you, Captain?”
    “Oof,” he sighed. “Maive has been my paramour for many, many years, but recently we quarreled. Bah! It’s amusing in retrospect. I was in Amaranthia when a couple of female bards offered me a night I couldn’t refuse. The next day, I learned that it was my dearie sorceress in disguise.”
    “So Maive was one of them?”
    “She was both of them. Of course, she called me a cheat, though I argued there was no foul as technically it had been her.”
    “Oh my,” I said, smiling in spite of myself.
    “The woman is twisted,” he scoffed. He tilted the bottle back my way, but I shook my head.
    “Thank you, Captain, but I’m already—”
    “Drink,” he commanded.
    I drank. I had a liver for wine from Shale, but I could already tell my captain did not. I took this chance to offer counsel. “You should swallow your pride and apologize to her. She might undo Molly’s curse.”
    “Unnecessary. We need only trick the prince until the marriage is consummated.” He reached for the wine again and I let him have it. He chugged it down to the last drop, the sod.
    “Your sister is suffering. Don’t you care at all about her happiness?”
    “Has she ever cared for mine?” he asked. “Her housing and schooling have been tremendously expensive. I’ve not turned a profit in years. The Wastrel needs repairs, and I need a holiday, so the day Molly turned thirteen, I proposed the marriage to the emperor’s advisors.”
    “And they agreed to the prince marrying a pirate’s sister?”
    “They agreed to his marrying a princess.” Dirk looked as if he wanted to suck those words back in, but it was too late. He was drunk on my