Chương 166: 15. Blackbeard Bay 2

When we dragged our soaked gear into Blackbeard Bay proper, my first coherent thought was: if this place qualifies as a port, the capital's sewers could petition for noble status. The night sea wind should have been cold. Instead it arrived warm and adhesive, as though on its way across the water it had deliberately detoured through wine barrels, fish markets, tar pots, tobacco leaves, sweat, rotting timber, cheap perfume, and whatever was producing those ambiguous sounds from nearby alleys.

The harbor's lights followed no organizing principle—red, yellow, green, all hanging from crooked eaves, ship masts, rope frames, and signboards, as though the entire district had collectively decided that visibility was an obstacle to commerce. The vessels at dock matched the aesthetic. Large ships that looked capable of swallowing city blocks whole. Small boats barely sufficient for liquor, contraband, or transporting someone who'd drunk themselves unconscious.

People were unloading fish, moving crates, arguing, kissing, gambling, and standing in doorways demonstrating their commercial offerings with considerably less fabric than the weather warranted. If I had to describe it: not a frontier port of the Kingdom, but a place where every disreputable maritime profession had been boiled together until the whole thing was bubbling.

And I, Cedric Rosa, was walking into it soaked to the skin as though I'd recently escaped from inside a sea monster, carrying a bag heavy enough to make me question my past life's debts, with a Fire Dragon Princess at my side. If this wasn't the worst possible entrance, it was only because recent days had substantially elevated my baseline for "worst."

"These humans," Ignicia said beside me, surveying the chaotic lights and crowd, golden slit-pupils narrowing slightly, in a tone that had no business carrying the faint note of interest it did, "live like they're about to catch fire."

"That's because most of them aren't about to catch fire," I said sincerely.

"They've already burned through one round and are actively looking to add fuel." She didn't respond immediately, just let her gaze travel slowly across street signs, open-air drinking stalls, half-open doors, and passing crowds. People in the capital, upon seeing her, generally either trembled or knelt.

Here, everyone was too occupied—drinking, haggling, lying, earning, conducting affairs, conducting theft—and the glances we attracted were closer to which shipwreck did these two fall off than there is a dragon in our midst. This was actually useful. The less respectable a place, the less it cared about your origins. As long as you could pay and didn't die too conspicuously on someone else's territory, most people were willing to see nothing.

The problem was that I currently did not look like someone who could pay very much.

"We need shelter first," I said quietly.

"Get dry, hide this equipment, and find someone we can actually talk to."

"Someone who knows ships to the Dragon Lands?"

"Yes. You can fly, but not far enough to reach the mainland. I can walk, but not across open ocean. A ship is the only practical option." She nodded, but didn't follow my gaze—instead she was staring at a tavern across the street, door open, interior loud enough to suggest furniture was being used as a communication device. Several sailors leaned against the doorframe with drinks. Someone was asleep on the ground outside—or possibly dead; it was difficult to confirm.

Most notably, several pipes were propped smoking on a barrel by the entrance, next to a half-full cup of dark ale. I saw where Ignicia's attention had settled, and a deeply unpleasant premonition surfaced.

"What are you thinking?" She turned to look at me with the expression of someone asking what's for dinner.

"I want to try that."

"Try what?" She pointed.

"The ale." Two heartbeats of silence.

"Your Highness, this humble servant respectfully notes that the last time you applied your curiosity to an unfamiliar liquid, you consumed ancient engine fuel." Her brow contracted very slightly. Good. There was still shame attached to that incident. I'd half-expected her to have incinerated the memory entirely.

"Ale looks considerably more normal than fuel," she said coldly.

"That is a reasonable observation for which I refuse to accept any responsibility." She ignored me and looked elsewhere. An old man sat on a crate, smoking and telling stories to two sailors, rings of smoke drifting upward into the sea wind and sweat, producing an atmosphere that made one want to hand over one's lungs for cleaning.

"What about that?" Ignicia asked. I followed her gaze and my vision went dark.

"Tobacco."

"Is it food?"

"No."

"A drink?"

"Also no."

"Then why do humans put burning leaves in their mouths?"

"Because humans occasionally harbor unnecessary hostility toward their own lungs." She studied the drifting smoke with genuine contemplation, as though seriously evaluating this novel method of self-harm. I immediately added: "I also don't recommend trying that. Particularly before I've located somewhere for you to be sick."

"What do you take me for?"

"Based on current evidence: a Fire Dragon Princess who approaches both unknown liquids and unknown botanical materials with exceptional enthusiasm." She gave me a look that said you've been talking a lot tonight. Before I could relax, her gaze had already found somewhere considerably worse. Across the street, a row of establishments with more colorful window dressings than anywhere else in the district. Women in the doorways dressed in considerably less than the weather suggested was advisable.

They smiled with professional precision, gestured with equal expertise, and appeared capable of relieving a passerby of both their attention and their coin purse simultaneously. The lanterns above the doors communicated, without ambiguity, that legitimate lodging was not the primary offering. Ignicia studied this for a moment, then asked, with complete seriousness:"What is that place for?" My scalp prickled.

"A specialized type of inn."

"Why are the women outside actively pulling people in?"

"Because they offer... particular services." She looked at me.

"Mating?" I nearly choked on my own saliva.

"Your Highness—""What?" Her expression was entirely innocent—and clearly genuine.

"I've been observing since we arrived. Those men being pulled in all paid money first. Why do humans pay for mating?" I closed my eyes and sincerely wished for a lightning strike—anything to spare me from providing cross-species sociocultural orientation to a Fire Dragon Princess on the main street of a port district.

"Strictly speaking, not all humans—""So it's a practice specific to certain humans?"

"It's more like a... transaction."

"Mating is a form of transaction?"

"Your Highness, I am begging you to lower your voice." She watched my expression—the expression of a man who wanted to personally become part of the dock planking—and appeared genuinely puzzled.

"Is this unusual?"

"For a human diplomat standing outside a brothel district, soaking wet, carrying a weapons bag, looking like he recently escaped drowning—extremely unusual." She considered this, and then, with the air of someone reaching a satisfying conclusion, nodded.

"I see. The inland regions are more conservative."

"... Yes. In the Kingdom's interior, these topics are generally not raised in the middle of public streets."

"Is that because you don't ask, or because you don't do it?"

"Your Highness, I am developing a genuine headache." She finally stopped pressing, though those golden slit-pupils still clearly retained considerable research interest in the human port civilization surrounding us. Excellent. In addition to finding a ship, concealing our equipment, and managing unidentified ancient materials, I was now also serving as the Fire Dragon Princess's docent for human cultural anthropology. I found myself nostalgic for the simpler days in the capital, when she only threatened my life.

At least then my headaches had a consistent direction. We moved further along the harbor's main road, and the difference from the Kingdom's interior became more pronounced with every step. Inland taverns, however rowdy, still maintained the pretense of standards. Here, the standards appeared to have been hanged outside the door and their trousers used to polish the glasses.

The waterfront stalls offered everything from grilled fish and salt-cured meat to patent medicine, smuggled blades, and spices of highly questionable provenance. The people we passed spoke in accents from everywhere, dressed according to no shared aesthetic philosophy—the apparent standard being: if it stays on your body and doesn't immediately fall off, you've met the harbor's basic dress code. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

And the people here stood way too close to me. Way too close. Someone brushed past me reeking of cheap spirits, laughing loud enough that I was fairly certain he wanted to use my eardrums as collateral for another round. A woman leaned against a doorframe, delivering unsolicited market evaluations of every breathing creature that shuffled by.

Another drunk nearly face-planted straight into my chest—until Ignicia silenced him with a single glance, at which point he managed to fling himself backward into a water barrel entirely of his own accord.

"You inlanders," she said, strolling forward with the unhurried curiosity of someone conducting field research on human civilization, "do you all live this... constrained?"

"If Your Highness is referring to the fact that we generally don't have citizens vomiting and singing simultaneously, then immediately visiting a brothel mid-chorus, then asking if they can put it on a tab—" I hitched my equipment bag higher on my shoulder, "—then yes. We tend to be considerably more restrained." She actually looked intrigued by this cultural discrepancy.

"I like these humans."

"I don't."

"Because you look like something that's been placed in the wrong cage."

"Thank you for that precise and timely diagnosis of my current psychological condition, Your Highness." Eventually, guided by a wooden signboard swinging with the quiet determination of something that had long since abandoned structural integrity, we found a place that barely qualified as respectable. The sign bore the painted head of a heavily bearded old man with a pipe clenched between his teeth, and above him, in letters that treated straight lines as mere suggestions: The Old Captain. Tavern and inn.

The frontage wasn't large, but it was measurably more dignified than the brothels and gambling dens flanking it. No women stationed at the entrance to drag customers inside—just a scrawny porter dozing against a keg, and the dense, honest smell of ale that had been brewed with conviction rather than skill.

"This'll do," I said.

"Because the name suggests maritime connections?" Ignicia asked.

"Because places like this usually have the most information and the loosest tongues." I adjusted the gear bag one more time.

"And if I don't put this down within the next five minutes, my shoulders are going to file for a formal separation from the rest of my body." The moment we stepped inside, the alcohol fumes doubled in intensity. The Old Captain was dimmer than the street, but no less lively. The front half was pure tavern—tables packed with sailors, smugglers, and the particular breed of individual who made their living knowing things other people desperately wished they didn't.

Further back, a staircase climbed toward the guest rooms. The walls were decorated with harpoons, torn sails, aged charts, and a carved wooden beard that had presumably once belonged to some previous incarnation of "the old captain." The overall effect was of a place that had very deliberately arranged itself to communicate: I am safe, because I am too filthy to be worth robbing.

Behind the counter stood a woman of considerable age and even more considerable build—the kind who could, if circumstances demanded, throw a drunk from the second floor using only one hand. Her eyes swept over my wet clothes and bulging gear bag, paused on Ignicia, then settled into the flat professional neutrality of someone deciding what category we belonged in.

"Room or drinks?" she asked. I considered my options.

"Room first, drinks after. If the door locks and the hot water isn't the color of mud, that would be an appreciated bonus." She made a sound suggesting I was pushing my luck with the bonus conditions.

"Two rooms?" I opened my mouth. Ignicia spoke first.

"One." I turned to look at her. Her expression was perfectly calm—the look of someone streamlining a logistical decision, not making one with any particular implications. The woman behind the counter, however, produced an expression of profound and knowing understanding that made my temple twitch with immediate violence.

"Your Highness, I feel that—""You feel too much," she cut in, voice cool and final.

"Everything we're carrying—is it safer split between two rooms, or watched together in one?"

"... Together."

"Then one room." I shut my mouth. The logic was impeccable. So impeccable that even knowing the woman behind the counter had already filed us under some category involving the words soaking wet, in denial, and bound for trouble, I had absolutely no ground to argue. We were given a corner room on the second floor. Small, but functional. A door that closed. Enough space to stack our equipment.

And most importantly, enough room for me to immediately drop that bag stuffed with ancient weapons and assorted explosive residue, and exhale—long, slow, and with the full commitment of a man releasing approximately half his remaining life force.

"Get settled first," I said.

"Then back down to ask about ships." Ignicia stood by the window, watching the scatter of lights across the harbor. She nodded once. By the time we'd wrung our clothes halfway dry, hidden the items that absolutely could not be seen by anyone with a conscience or a bounty office, and performed the minor miracle of transforming ourselves from survivors of an ancient nuclear submarine explosion into something resembling two travelers who still had enough money to be worth deceiving, we went back downstairs.

The tavern was even louder now. I settled at the counter and ordered two ales—primarily to establish ourselves as paying customers rather than interrogators—and set a reasonably shiny silver coin on the wood with practiced ease. The woman behind the counter looked at the coin, then at me, and finally produced an expression that was at least twenty percent more businesslike.

"What do you want to know?" I kept my voice low and went straight to it.

"Any ships heading southwest?" She continued wiping a glass without looking up. Two full seconds passed before she asked, "For what?"

"Passage," I said.

"As close to the Dragon Kingdom's mainland as possible." The glass-wiping stopped. Just for a moment. Not from surprise—from calculation. I knew this look intimately. Capital nobles wore it when dowry figures were announced. Black-market tavern keepers wore it when weighing dangerous routes against potential profits. The expression was universal; only the currency changed.

"No scheduled routes here," she said.

"I figured."

"No fishing runs either."

"Also figured."

"And it's not a direction any respectable traveler asks about."

"Which is why I'm not asking at a respectable port." She looked up. No warmth in her eyes, but something that might have been acknowledgment—not that she liked me, but that I at least understood what kind of establishment I was sitting in.

"What's your business over there?" she asked. I picked up the ale and drank first. Ordinary. Heavy on the malt, straightforward about the bitterness, no lingering complexity worth writing poetry about—but clean enough that I felt genuine gratitude. After gasoline, ancient rations, shipyard explosions, and a speedboat enthusiastically taking on water, my standards for trustworthy liquids had been permanently recalibrated.

"Taking someone home," I said. Her gaze moved past me to Ignicia. Ignicia had barely touched her drink. She held the cup like a researcher conducting a field study on why humans chose to ferment grain into this particular substance. She'd sniffed it—a small, precise frown—then taken the tiniest possible sip, her expression clearly asking: Is this a beverage, or a very slow form of revenge? Honestly, that reaction reassured me more than anything else tonight.

At least the ale hadn't been immediately classified as worth a second taste on her internal danger scale. The woman behind the counter studied Ignicia for two beats, then looked back at me.

"She's not your wife." I nearly choked on my ale. Ignicia didn't even blink. She simply set her cup back down with the serene detachment of someone who had determined this question involved her not at all. I took a slow breath and made a deliberate decision not to think about why everyone tonight seemed personally invested in arranging my relationships.

"No."

"Not something you purchased either." My temple twitched violently.

"No." I lowered my voice another register.

"And I'd appreciate not being grouped with people who would." She made a neutral sound—impossible to tell if she believed me or simply didn't care.

"Then she's trouble," she concluded. I was quiet for half a heartbeat.

"Yes," I finally admitted.

"The catastrophic variety." That actually made her laugh. Not warmly—it was the laugh of someone who had just heard the first honest sentence all evening. She draped her cloth over her shoulder and leaned in slightly.

"Blackbeard Bay doesn't ferry people. We move cargo, contraband, counterfeit coin, fugitives, and the occasional corpse. If you want a ship to carry living passengers—and in that direction—" She paused, her calculating look sharpening.

"—you need a captain willing to stake his life along with his hull."

"Money isn't the issue," I said. She snorted.

"Everyone who walks through that door says that."

"Do they all end up paying?" She looked at me steadily and set down her glass.

"Most of them only end up paying with their teeth." Wonderful. Very on-brand for Blackbeard Bay. Quote the price, extract the teeth, then see if you can still negotiate from the floor. I pushed a second silver coin across the counter. This time she didn't collect it immediately. She pressed one finger over it—a reminder that this was still just the speaking fee, not the answer. Fair enough.

In a place like this, anyone giving away information for free was either losing their mind or scheduled for a burial at sea by morning.

"We're not particular about the ship's condition," I said, "or the cleanliness of the accommodations. It needs to float, it needs to arrive, and the captain should refrain from selling us mid-voyage. Those are our only requirements." Ignicia added beside me, in a tone as mild as if she were commenting on the weather:"And if he does try to sell us, he simply needs to survive long enough to reach shore." I closed my eyes briefly.

She hadn't whispered it—not quite loud enough to carry across the room, but nowhere near quiet enough to stay between us. The woman behind the counter heard it, looked at Ignicia, and instead of taking offense, her expression shifted to something between entertaining and exactly what I expected. Excellent. In her professional assessment, we had just been upgraded from two inconvenient travelers to travelers who will cause significantly more inconvenience, but may also generate significantly more profit.

Under the circumstances, I'd take that as progress.

"What you're looking for," she said slowly, "is someone who can run the southwest sea lane and still has the nerve to approach that coastline. That's not work you throw at just any drunk with a boat."

"Which is why I'm asking a professional."

"I'm not a professional." She rolled her eyes.

"I run a tavern."

"You've run a tavern in this location long enough to still be breathing. In certain circles, that makes you more reliable than most professionals." She actually smiled at that—small, but genuine.

"That tongue of yours probably does well with the ladies inland." I glanced at Ignicia and answered with complete sincerity: "No. It mostly just generates additional headaches." Ignicia gave me a sideways look.

"At least you're self-aware."

"Thank Your High— thank you." The woman smoothly collected both silver coins, then leaned forward and asked, voice dropping: "How urgent?"

"Urgent."

"How urgent?"

"The kind where, if our pursuers find out we're still alive, they won't just send one ship to check on our wellbeing." Her eyes shifted slightly. Blackbeard Bay residents didn't deal in honor, but they read the wind better than anyone. The moment I said someone's following us, she began recalculating—whether this money was worth earning, or whether she'd end up paying for her own funeral. After a moment's silence, she turned toward the far end of the tavern and called out.

"Hey, Porter!" From a corner table, a stubbled man looked up from a card game he'd been losing with great dedication, answering with clear irritation.

"What?"

"Any ships lately crazy enough to run southwest?" He frowned first, then glanced over at us. The look wasn't hostile or lecherous—just the flat, professional appraisal of a black-market man evaluating merchandise. First: what's it worth. Second: will it bite.

"Southwest?" He spat something that had once been ale onto the floor.

"That route's been dirty lately. Yanxia Empire patrols more than before, and there are dragon-kin shadows all over the water. Normal people don't run it."

"I didn't ask about normal people," the woman behind the counter said flatly. A few low, uncharitable laughs rippled through the tavern. Porter scratched his stubble, considered, then finally said: "If someone really had to run it, you'd need the kind who doesn't mind losing a ship and isn't too attached to staying alive."

"Name," I said. He didn't answer immediately. He reached for his mug, took a long pull, wearing the expression of a man deciding whether a particular name was worth releasing into the world. For a moment I genuinely considered walking over and shaking him like a bottle I was trying to get the last drops from. Unfortunately, this wasn't the capital, and it wasn't my family's training yard. In Blackbeard Bay, words cost less than swords and information cost more than life. Basic etiquette.

Ignicia, apparently watching my patience erode in real time, picked up her cup and took another small, unenthusiastic sip of the ale she clearly despised. Then she said, with perfect, unhurried calm:"If it takes this long just to produce a captain's name, I begin to understand why human maritime efficiency has historically been so underwhelming." The tavern went silent. Then someone laughed. Not one person—several.

The kind of laughter that had watching a spectacle in it, and more than a little glad that wasn't aimed at me. Apparently even in Blackbeard Bay, being matter-of-factly criticized for operational efficiency by a foreign woman was not something everyone absorbed gracefully. Porter stared at her for two full seconds. Then he laughed too.

"Fine." He set his mug down with something that might have been respect, or might have been surrender—in this establishment, the two looked remarkably similar.

"If you can actually pay, there might be one lunatic willing to take this kind of work." I straightened. The woman behind the counter didn't interrupt—she clearly already knew which name was coming. The tavern's noise seemed to recede slightly. The firelight, the ale-smell, the rattle of dice, the sea breeze slipping under the door, the questionable sounds drifting from upstairs—all still present, but pushed to the periphery. My attention narrowed to the name about to surface.

Porter grinned—the grin of a man reporting someone everyone considered mildly cursed but undeniably capable.

"Look for One-Eyed Marro," he said.

"In all of Blackbeard Bay, if there's still someone willing to ferry live passengers toward the Dragon Kingdom's mainland—someone who doesn't pray first and only asks about the price—that's probably him."