The Cursed Sea

by Lauren DeStefano

  Her palms spread across the subtle dunes of his chest, his stomach, the hollows of his hips. He breathed as though her touch had hurt him, and all her blood went cold and then hot with expectancy.

  It wasn’t just his heart that drew her, Wil realized. It was all of him. Every tendon, every muscle, every loose curl that puddled around his head as he lay beneath her. She loved all of him, and she wanted him the way that he wanted his kingdom.

  After, she lay still, considering the subtle ache that had pooled somewhere deep between her hips, the flutters of warmth that trailed up and down her chest in erratic lines, sharp and then soft.

  Loom kissed her temple, nudging her, and she knew that he was asking if she was okay. He had done this several times throughout, pausing in motions that were otherwise deft, searching her eyes until she nodded up at him, her lashes lazily fluttering. Yes, she was telling him. Yes, she still wanted him. Yes, she was still here.

  She leaned against him now, anticipating his arm wrapping around her side an instant before he moved.

  Her body had changed in some subtle way that intrigued her. From the time she learned to fight, she had come to understand all the cogs that shifted and stirred when she moved, like a sort of machine. She had always relied on herself, but now there was someone who knew her the way that she knew herself. Someone she knew just as well.

  She rolled her head against him, placing a loose, sleepy kiss against his chest.

  They coasted into a light half-sleep, stirring and shifting to stay close to each other.

  Wil saw dreams that were too flimsy to fool her. Things like castles and her mother’s shanty songs. Through it all she felt Loom against her as steady as a rock in shifting tides.

  It was the dawn that finally woke her for good. She sat up, craning her neck to see through the porthole. The water was placid, everything calm.

  Pale light spread over their bodies, and she saw Loom clearly for the first time in hours. He lay on his back with one arm strewn over the edge of the bed, the sheets bunched over one of his thighs.

  She settled back down beside him and traced her finger over the lines of his tattoos, where the ink ended and gave way to his chest.

  She traced the heart impaled at his throat. He would bear this tattoo even if all the Southern Isles crumbled into the sea, and every time he saw it he would be reminded: He was the king whether he had been crowned or not. He was the king whether his kingdom stood or fell, because it was on his skin and in his blood.

  His eyes moved behind their lids, and he shifted with a soft moan. When he opened his eyes, he smiled tiredly and tufted her hair between his fingers.

  “Hey,” he said.

  “Hey.” She swept the back of her hand across his forehead. “I didn’t mean to wake you.” This was a lie, she realized. She had been greedy for the way that he looked at her, and had been impatiently waiting to see his eyes again.

  “How far are we from Arrod?” he asked.

  “We should arrive within the hour,” Wil said. She had been staring through the porthole as Loom slept, watching her kingdom slowly dawn on the horizon.

  He turned his head to kiss her bicep. She felt lighter at his touch. Her legs moved against the sheets and she could have believed they were floating.

  Loom had never been so beautiful as he was now, all the pretense he put on for the world stripped away. This was who he was when he was alone.

  She loved him. She tested the words once again in her mind. She had expected that if she ever fell in love, it would be the way her father had loved his queen, or the way that Owen had loved Addney. But the love she shared with Loom was something entirely its own, and she wondered if love by its nature was always uncharted. It was certain, but not simple. Giving, but not selfless. A fluttering mast on a ship that often capsized.

  “I’m glad you’re cursed,” Wil said.

  “Really?” Loom mused, the soft hum of his voice meshing with the sound of the waves crashing. “Why’s that?”

  “The first time I saw you was in Brayshire,” she said. “In the midst of all that chaos, you swept me off the ground. I looked at you and I thought: He’s going to die. I’ve just killed him. Sometimes I imagine what it would have been like if I had. If you were just another thing I destroyed.” It made her muscles rigid, just thinking about it. Another beautiful thing she would have taken from this world.

  “Lucky me,” Loom mused as she rested her head on his outstretched arm. “The first time I saw you, I thought you were a thief smuggling gemstones.”

  “I wish,” Wil said. “And you’re not too far off. I did a fair bit of thievery and smuggling in Arrod.”

  “I also knew you were trouble.”

  Wil smirked at him. “Bit of an understatement.”

  “You hated me,” he said.

  She studied his face. Heavy eyelashes, strong jaw, and that sad sort of kindness that always seemed to haunt him.

  “I didn’t hate you,” she said. “In the days before and after we met, I was lost. The entire world felt like a stranger to me. I wasn’t capable of feeling much of anything for anyone.”

  “Everything shadowed over,” he guessed, and she nodded. Of course he would understand loss.

  They both felt it now. Things hadn’t gotten any better. No kingdoms had been saved. The dead were all still dead. And she was so worried about what she would find when she returned home. Unanswered questions swam in the sea all around them, but as vast as the world was, she wasn’t alone in it. He was here.

  Somehow, in the darkest time of her life, she happened upon the prince of an enemy kingdom and fell in love. “What are the chances that we ever would have found each other?”

  “Chance,” he echoed. “Chance and luck are meaningless. I only care about what is, and what will be.”

  “What do you suppose will be?” she asked.

  “I’ll be king.” He kissed one of her cheeks and then the other. “This war will end. Our kingdoms will come to an alliance. Your heart will stay in your chest, exactly where I like it.”

  She rolled her head back, breathing out a laugh as he kissed the scar over her heart. This was the first time she had ever shared her body with him, or with anyone, but it felt like the hundredth time. The thousandth. “Will that be a royal decree?”

  “Yes, it will,” he said. “Anyone who tries to take your heart loses theirs.”

  His sober tone made her wonder if he was kidding. “And what if I give my heart to someone else?” she said, just as soberly. “Or suppose I decide to keep it for myself.”

  He looked from her scar to her eyes and said, “As long as your heart is still beating in this world, I’ll be happy.”

  He pressed his palm over the expanse between her hips, in the place where she could still feel him. A fluttery moan escaped her, as though he had anticipated it.

  Soon, morning was going to break this spell under which they had fallen. Everything that existed yesterday was awaiting them beyond this room.

  “I’m so afraid,” she confessed. “That I’ll be alone when all this is over.”

  “No,” he said. Her gaze had flitted away, and Loom said, “Look at me, Wil.”

  Wil. The way he said her name was its own little song. It was a melody he had memorized and turned over in his head, admiring the way it sounded when she wasn’t with him.

  She raised her eyes to meet his. “You won’t ever be alone,” he said.

  When Wil took his face in her hands and kissed him, she knew that she was only stalling for time. And when his body eclipsed hers once again, she almost could believe that time would stand still.

  They lapsed into silence, as rich and comfortable as the bedsheets.

  The sea swayed their bodies, and Wil thought about all the places this water reached. She thought about what would await her when she went home, and she thought about her family.

  Her head rose and fell with Loom’s chest as he breathed. He had been dozing for a while, but now he stirred awake. He
kissed the crown of her head, and it set her ablaze. She closed her eyes, savoring it.

  “Is it too much to ask what you’re thinking?” he ventured. He would prefer silence rather than a lie, she knew.

  She wrapped an arm around his stomach, squeezing herself closer. “My family,” she said. “My mother.”

  He caught her hand and laced his fingers through hers.

  “I wouldn’t know how to describe my mother,” Wil said. “She’s this—mythical creature. I don’t know half the things she’s seen, but I can feel them anyway. Under her skin and even on it. When I was a little girl, she used to wrap me in her arms and it felt like the entire world was scooping me up. And the tighter she held me, the more I could taste that world. Smell it. Hear it.”

  “Like the ocean in a seashell,” Loom offered.

  “Yes,” she said. “My brother feels safest when he’s in his laboratory, at his cauldron and surrounded by things he can control. But I feel like everywhere is home. Everywhere and nowhere sometimes.” She exhaled hard. “Look what that’s done. I wasn’t there to protect them.”

  With that, the spell was broken. All her fear and guilt came rushing back; the air was pierced by it.

  Loom sensed it, and he brought their joined hands to his lips. His breath was hot against her fingers.

  “This isn’t your fault, Wil.”

  “But it is,” she said. “Anything that happens because of my curse, I caused. I’m the reason Arrod doesn’t have . . . an heir.” Her voice hitched. Owen. An heir. As though that was all he’d ever been. “I’m the reason this war has happened.”

  “I don’t understand you,” Loom said. “When you do marvelous, brilliant things, you don’t take the credit. But when anything goes wrong, you’re first to take the blame.” He put his hands under her arms, hoisting her so that she was lying on his chest and facing him. Her knees fitted around his hips. “I know quite a bit about wars, Your Royal Highness.” There was a bit of a smile when he said that. “And this war is not your fault. Its casualties are not on you. Sometimes you have the power to turn things to stone, and sometimes you are only human. In the face of this war, we are all only human.”

  She studied his face, looking for some sign that he was placating her. But he was in earnest. “You really think I’m human,” she said.

  “Of course I do.” He saw the tears fill her eyes. “Hey. Come here.”

  She rested her forehead to his and broke, with a sob. Human. It was a word she had taken for granted before her curse came about, and now it was a luxury to hear.

  His hands were on her skin. On her body, bare and exposed. There was nothing between them, not even pretense. She had shown him everything now. Every inch, more than anyone had ever seen, much less touched.

  With her eyes closed, she felt the weight of him beneath her. The bumps of muscles in his stomach, pressed to hers. His arms and all their stories. His lips, full and warm and dry with winter air. She had never touched anyone in this way; she couldn’t imagine being here with anyone else.

  If their love now was only a curse, she would never know what love was.

  As Northern Arrod drew closer, Wil thought she smelled smoke, though she couldn’t be sure how much of it was her imagination. She wondered if bodies had been incinerated by the fires. She wondered if those ashes were in the air and if she was breathing them into her lungs.

  None of these thoughts had been in her head just moments earlier. But now, standing on the ship’s deck, the world had once again found her.

  Loom brought her a mug of something hot and bitter. Some sort of tea that he claimed would help her stay awake, as though she needed any assistance with that.

  He smoothed a lock of hair behind her ear, and his fingertips lingered on her skin. “Are you doing all right?” he asked. She knew that he wasn’t asking her about Arrod.

  Last night, he had been so certain, so confident. But now suddenly he was softer, even concerned.

  She gave him a smile—something that seemed impossible in light of what they were about to face—and nodded. She forced herself to draw back from him. It felt like waking up too soon.

  “How did he do this?” she asked.

  Loom stood beside her and followed her gaze. “While we were securing the ship, Zay picked up some of the chatter in the port. They’re saying that it was a bomb, but I know that’s impossible. The Southern Isles don’t have the resources for something of that magnitude. Whatever he did, it was marvelry.”

  “Pahn?” Wil asked.

  “That’s what I’m thinking,” Loom said. He narrowed his eyes contemplatively, but said nothing more.

  “Masalee thinks your father is doing this to bait me,” Wil said, guessing at his thoughts.

  “My father thinks that people are so easily broken,” he said. “First me, then Espel, now you. But he can’t have any of us.”

  Wil feared that this wasn’t true. She was not like Masalee, who persevered no matter what she lost. If Wil’s family was gone, then all her attempts to save her kingdom would have been for nothing. Her grandfather would have won. The curse he cast upon the entire Heidle line would finally have destroyed them all.

  They aren’t dead, she tried to tell herself. They can’t be. I won’t allow it.

  Twenty-Four

  THE PORT CAPITAL WAS DESTROYED. Ships were sunken, or sinking. Wil could scarcely register the buildings, many with gaping holes as though some giant creature had come and shredded them with talons.

  “This is the work of marvelry,” Masalee said, her voice a strained whisper. “Pahn is here somewhere.” She was still laboring to conceal their ship as they coasted alongside the city, seeking a place to drop their anchor. Wil barely heard any of it. She was too busy scanning the debris for bodies. For life. For anything.

  The city was quiet and coated in ashes. Gas streetlamps flickered in the early morning light because no one had come to turn them off.

  Masalee’s step faltered, and Espel clung to her arm to keep her upright. “You may as well let go,” Espel told her. “It won’t matter if our ship is in view. There’s no one to see it.”

  “Pahn is here,” Masalee said again. “He’ll see it.”

  “Let him,” Espel said. “We aren’t here to cower and hide from him.”

  “We aren’t hiding,” Wil said. It was the first she had spoken since their arrival, and everyone turned to her. “Masalee, if you can conceal the ship, that would be for the best. We’ll need a safe place to retreat and regroup.”

  “I don’t think—” Espel began, and Wil cut her off.

  “Just hear me out.” Wil turned away from the Port Capital so that she could face Espel, who was standing between Masalee and Loom. “Most of Northern Arrod is wooded. We’ll be able to move through the trees undetected as we head for the castle. That’s where your father will expect us to go, right?” She looked to Masalee. “You’ll stay here and conceal the ship. Zay will go belowdecks at the helm in case we need to make a fast exit.”

  Wil didn’t linger to hear any objections. They could follow her plans or not. Either way, she couldn’t stay on this ship and waste a moment more. They were close enough to the port now that she was able to jump over the ship’s edge and land crouched on the cobblestones. Dust flew up around her from the impact. It coated her skin. None of it turned to crystal, because there was no life here. Nothing moving or breathing, save for the odd fortunate smattering of weeds.

  This was not home. The thought hit her with clarity that shone like a beacon over a sea of frenzied other thoughts. There was nothing to fill these streets or buildings, not even ghosts. And yet she knew that there were bodies—living and dead—hiding somewhere beneath all this rubble and lurking in alleys. Those with sense would stay hidden, Wil knew. If their homes were destroyed, many would retreat to the sewers or into the thick of the forest, in the uninhabited wilderness no enemy kingdom would see fit to bomb.

  Because the Port Capital and outlying cities were at sea level, mos
t buildings within a mile of the water wouldn’t have basements or bunkers. There was no protocol for this. Her father had planned and considered many attacks over the years, but he had never bothered to anticipate what would become of Arrod should it fall under attack. It had been an impossibility. Arrod had all the resources, all the wealth.

  Wil didn’t let herself succumb to the sickness that tried to weaken her knees. She didn’t let herself collapse or even cry. She walked forward, because that was the only useful thing to do.

  Loom caught up with her just as she reached the forest, and he touched her arm, gently staying her. “Hey,” he said. “Are you sure you want to march right up to the castle? You know there’s going to be a trap waiting.”

  “What do you suggest?” Wil asked. “If your father did this to bait me, then it worked. And if he did this to bait you, knowing you’d follow, then that worked.”

  “I’m not concerned with my father,” Loom said. “This is Pahn’s work.”

  Wil shrugged. “I know that.” She shrugged out of his grasp and began moving forward. She didn’t let herself feel anything in that moment. She knew that it would take only the slightest taste of fear or dread to stop her. If Loom was going to insist on reminding her of the risks, then she would leave him behind. It wouldn’t take much to lose him in these woods.

  “I don’t want him to kill you.” Loom kept pace beside her. “My father wants your curse, not you. He wants the power to turn things to stone.”

  “He can have it,” Wil said.

  “He would cut out your heart and have it sewn into his own chest—” Loom’s words were cut short when Wil threw his back against a tree. The collar of his coat was bunched in her fist.

  In response to her stony glare, he held his hands up in surrender.

  “Zay told me that you broke through a door when you heard her screaming,” Wil said, letting him go with a shove. “So I know you understand how this feels.”

  There were no words spoken after that. Espel never caught up with them; maybe she was planning to betray them, Wil thought. Maybe she was joining forces with her father and this had been part of the plan.