"You're doing it all wrong. Don't you exercise?" Rebecca teased.

"I'm into more cultural things," Amias said.

"Adjust your hips. Relax, now toss."

Amias's eyes slanted. "You don't have to get so close." A rouge strand of Rebecca's hair fell onto his shoulder. Her hands grasped Amias's waist as she instructed. The smell of foreign spice drifted from her amber tresses. Amias blushed.

"Are you charmed or are you drunk?"

Amias aimed and struck. The metal-tipped dart landed with a thud into the red. He turned to Rebecca and grinned.

"The wine is of no use, only your beauty intoxicates me."

Rebecca rolled her eyes. She grabbed darts from a wooden bowl set atop her bed. "Flattery?" she lifted an eyebrow and smiled. Her cheeks glowed in the orange glow of her candelit room. Effortlessly, she tossed two darts, both marking the bull's-eye. "Anything else?" she turned to Amias.

Amias pinched the dart between his thumb and finger and aimed again. His eyes squinted; his accuracy blurrily declined with each cup of wine. His gaze strayed to Rebecca's back as knelt over to fumble through his rucksack. His mouth twitched. Amias gulped and he shot again.
From his bag, Rebecca removed a book. She raised her finger to its title.

"The Prince. How'd you come across this?" she asked.

"My people carried it here from overseas." Amias shrugged and threw his next dart, not nearly as keen as his first. Amias could feel the tide sloshing beneath his feet. His belly overturned; the wine waded in his gut. Rebecca had begun to read.

The Captain's quarters consisted a mahogany box with two ways of entry. A spacious arrangement, the place filled with books stacked perpendicular, shimmering trinkets and yellowed parchments detailing foreign destinations. A lone candlelight guttered atop her bedside table. It illuminated lavender sheets and the soft scents of sandalwood and cinnamon permeated the air.

Rebecca's voice drifted from the pages. "Did you ever come across the Bible?"

"Yea..." Amias' earliest memories were spent with his peers studying the text, Sunday school lessons and fireside nights. "I remember the maps of the Holy Lands. They were colorful and the Dead Sea was pale blue, just looking at it made you thirsty. We used to say. That's where we'll go for our adventure! We'll bask in the ocean until the sun sears us into the blues."

Amias licked his lips. He could taste the heavy brine. The sloshing sea tides whispered beneath the crackle of her bedside candle. The wickering flame scorched the wax till it melt and driveled down the candle's length.

Rebecca's lips curled to a wry smile. "Every light probably looks a flame to you now." she closed the book in her lap.

Amias chortled. "You should've been a poet."

Rebecca batted her eyelashes. "I was, isn't that obvious?"

Silvery moonlight spilled from three arched windows positioned just above her bed. Its hoary light played fancifully with Rebecca's expression and her jade eyes shimmered when she smiled. Rebecca traced a finger across her bottom lip. "I know you're wondering how a lady came to be the captain of a band of ruffians. It's quite simple, actually. Kill the king, be the king."

Amias' cheeks flushed when he frowned. The candlelight reflected off his apricot skin and his silvery hair tumbled loose and glossy around his shoulders.

"I wasn't wondering that at all," he lobbed another dart.

A knock sounded at her door.

Rebecca sat up from her bed and extinguished the candle with her fingertips. She lit a new one and hollered. "Enter."

The cabin door opened and the grizzled lieutenant stepped inside. "Everything's ready, captain." He said with a thick accent Amias could not place.

"Perfect." she flicked her hand as if batting a fly. "Take Amias with you and provide the boys with food and drink."

"Aye."

Amias followed the lieutenant to quarterdeck.

The Captain's door closed with a click and the lieutenant's boots snapped over the ship's wooden planks. His gait was hurried but deliberate. His ebony face stern and his bearded jaw so tight, the corsair could probably crush walnuts between his teeth.

"Who are you guys?" Amias asked.

"We're bandits."

"And your name?"

"I go by Ban. Bandit Ban."

"But what's the name of your company?"

Ban looked sideways at the teen. His amber eyes dyed darker in the moonlight. "We don't have anything fancy as a name, boy."

"Goons, thugs, cutthroats." Amias recited.

"And nothing more."

Amias followed Ban downstairs to a crude kitchen. It was a murky, dim-lit mess of cupboards and iron black pots. The floor was covered with two inches of water and the earthy smell of rotting timber permeated the room.

A row of six wooden stools were pushed against the wall beside the door and to the far side of the room a single window stared out to the dark sea. There was no light in the corridor aside from the moon's luster. Ban's dark skin made him scarcely visible in the damp gloom.
The lieutenant clamored through the cabinets for a waterskin and a few loaves of bread. He placed everything in a wicker basket and proffered it to Amias.

"Take this."

Amias obeyed wordlessly and received the basket with both hands. He followed Ban back to Eli and their cell. The moonlight traced faint lines around Ban's exposed shoulders as he walked. His sinewy frame swam with muscles befitting a seaman. Beneath the thin white cotton of his shirt, Amias could see a tattoo; even when he faced away, Amias could feel the sawtoothed scrutiny of his lupine gaze.

****

Eli groaned listening to the rumbling of his gut. Eyes shut, he leaned into a corner of the cell. His face to the bars, he scented the cerulean breeze. The cell door swung open and he alerted. With a copper key, Ban fastened the lock and departed. Amias sat down.

"Where have you been? You smell like... like wine." Eli inquired.

"Eli."

"Yes, Amias?"

"I have food."

"Thank you, Amias."

Amias handed Eli his ration.