She hated to let him hold her hand.
Mainly because his hand was sticky from him keeping it on the messy tables of the White Horse, but also because of their common history that felt like it materialized into physical layers of mistrust. Their memories were a cage around Mariana's lungs. The time they had sacked Vananas was a lump in her throat. The time they had almost kissed drew her mouth into a tight line.
It was a constrictive feeling of being oppressed by her own body, but she let him pull her into a secret room that had a door opening up to Tanner Street and all its filth. She couldn't let her honor or her anger get in the way of her survival.
That black vest, those leather pants, where did he even get those clothes? Mariana had instructed him to dress like a noble. Nowadays he made his own decisions and ended up looking like a deadrouser, which was a sort of a high-brow necromancer.
She got all flustered when he pulled her outside and handed her a scarf to replace her own.
"Here, since you care about looking like you can afford everything," he said, but the words didn't sound anywhere near as rude as they should have.
It was a really nice scarf.
The pattern was one that Mariana had often seen in tropically inspired art, with little more than abstractions making up a big chunk of the delicate needlework. The fabric itself had to be costly, too. It was a great way of displaying one's wealth as a woman, much like a beautiful sheath for a knife was for men.
Mariana took a discreet look at the sheath he was carrying. Of course it was filled with a nice knife. Everything about him was so effortlessly luxurious that she wanted to tear off that expensive skin covering the treacherous sack of dirt that he had become.
It had not always been so, but that was another story entirely.
They stood there for a minute. It was starting to rain. The wet season swept over Neul and the northernmost parts of Sennas, nourishing the crops and bringing the Festival of Cherries to the city. If one wanted to buy a cheap and decent ship from a merchant who was too drunk to name a price to benefit himself, this was the time for that. Although the religious origins of the Festival had long since been forgotten, it was still the number one excuse to get absolutely, stupidly drunk and do things to regret for the rest of the year.
Mariana had been planning to do something she would regret, too. Daniel had been away for so long that she had considered hunting him down and killing him. Now he was here. He was not afraid of her, even though he was one lunge and the length of a blade away from becoming her favorite dead ex-lover.
Why was he not afraid?
"I didn't miss you," she said, but she still wrapped the scarf around her head so that her beautiful hair cascaded from under the fabric, framing her face.
"Good, nobody asked," Daniel grunted and turned away. "Unless you have anything else to say…I have deals. Appointments."
He started to walk towards the harbor district, but a shot came through the door, almost hitting Mariana.
He didn't seem to have any doubts when he jumped back to cover her body with his own torso.
She passed through the instant feeling of fear as they both pulled away from the secret door. She just wondered if this was truly what lovers did for each other.
First they hated each other and then they fought to save each other?
What was the point in that? Except that it felt validating and good. His protective aura started to spread across her body, starting from her stomach like she had just tasted hot coffee.
The battle that had apparently raged inside the White Horse was going to rage outside, too. The pirate king ushered Mariana away from the tavern. Not wanting to attract any unwanted attention, they did not run as much as they speedwalked.
"I may not love you, but I will protect you," he grumbled as soon as they felt safe enough to stop for a moment.
Mariana didn't know what he was thinking. Did he want to own her? Was that what she was to him, a possession among so many things that could be put on a shelf? She searched for answers inside those icy eyes, finding nothing but his southern heritage and northern sensibilities. Even the strange red sparks were gone.
She huffed, frustrated by how she could not provoke anything out of him.
The rain poured down with all the force the sky had used to hold all the drops over their heads. The water caused the dirty fumes spilled on the streets to rise up as unhealthy vapors, and it did the same thing to a bottle of perfume that a woman had thrown onto a rock in a fit of rage. The combination was stunning, and not in a good way.
There was a little bit of magic in the air, though. Daniel wasn't even wearing a hat, the staple item of the wet season. He had always said that hats were for pretentious people. His hair licked his face with water pouring down and gluing the dark strands onto his face.
Right now, Mariana agreed about hats being stupid.
He looked so good and she wondered if he would look as good as a dead man. With her weeping over him and claiming that she had never had a choice but to take his life…
He had been victorious tonight, sure, but the next round would be hers.
They parted without saying anything that would have been cathartic or something close to a resolution.
Curious and willing to wash off the memory of him saving her, Mariana slipped back into the White Horse. She knew it was unwise. They were cleaning up the blood. Three men had died that evening. Someone was in the corner, gurgling and sounding like he was not doing too well, either, but the lady of the house had blown out most of the candles and Mariana couldn't see who that someone was. The staff was making a half-hearted attempt to save the nerves of the patrons.
Mariana came to look at the dying man and realized two things.
One, it was the surgeon who had been with the smugglers.
Two, that knife in his chest belonged to Daniel, the pirate king, being identical to the one in his sheath. Daniel had come back and left just a moment before her return.