The Cursed Sea

by Lauren DeStefano

  “That seems fair.” He bowed his head to place a gentle, lingering kiss over her brow.

  Wil felt his body release the slightest tremor. That was it. That was all the grief he could afford. The rest of it had to be folded and tucked inside of him, because there was too much at stake for the two of them to fall apart now.

  He said the only thing left for him to say, as he buried his face in the curve of her neck and her arms coiled around him. “I love you. I need you to know this, Wil. I love you.”

  Twenty-Eight

  WIL COULD BARELY LOOK AT the alchemized corpse once Masalee had animated it. The thing’s eyelashes fluttered and Wil flinched. But it didn’t wake up because it didn’t truly have anything inside of it. It didn’t look at her.

  Loom drew a breath and released it slowly, and then he slid his arms under the thing’s shoulders and behind its knees, easing it into his arms as he stood. As though instinctively, the thing slumped against him. Its head canted back, mouth open, skin ashen.

  Loom looked as though he’d be sick. And then his gaze hardened and he moved forward.

  Zay was the only one to stay behind, unwilling to leave Ada alone or lead him into harm’s way.

  The plan was as simple as it was dangerous: Loom and Espel would present the alchemized offering to Pahn. Wil had done her best to alchemize a realistic heart, using the heart of a pig, which Gerdie had been storing in a jar for gods-only-know what purpose. Masalee and Wil would hide at a distance, watching from the trees.

  Halfway along the river, they stopped. Loom traded a glance with Wil. Just a look. Masalee and Espel did the same. No good-byes were spoken.

  Loom and Espel headed the charge after that, while Wil and Masalee diverted into the trees.

  For all the time Masalee had spent controlling Wil’s heart, Wil felt bonded to her now. She could feel her pain, her anxiousness, her longing.

  But Wil didn’t try to console her with platitudes. The most she could offer now was a bit of distraction, to ease the fear that rose over both of them like a wave.

  “Can you teach me how to control my own heart?” Wil asked her. “With marvelry, the way that you were able to do it?”

  “You aren’t a marveler,” Masalee said.

  “But it can be learned,” Wil said. “Can’t it?”

  “Marvelry is in you or it isn’t,” Masalee said. “The best vocalists in the world could teach you to sing, but if your voice is sour, there’s no lesson that can help you.”

  Wil trudged on in crestfallen silence. If she were truly a queen, she would put this kingdom above herself. And the only way to break the curse would be to stop the heart that held it.

  Masalee must have pitied her, because she said, “Perhaps there’s another way. Marvelry isn’t the only element of a curse. Your mother, for instance. She isn’t a marveler, is she?”

  “No,” Wil said. Her mother had such a powerful, deft presence, and she was so strong, even addled as she was by her compulsions. But she wasn’t a marveler; her magic was purely in her own spirit.

  “She’s not a marveler, and yet she gave birth to a daughter who was cursed by marvelry,” Masalee said, and she was trying to be reassuring. “So maybe there’s a solution somewhere.”

  Wil considered it. She knew that Masalee was showing her kindness with this small bit of possibility, but Masalee also wasn’t the sort to give empty platitudes. There was hope yet.

  Maybe Pahn’s bargain with Loom wasn’t as cruel as she wanted to believe. The ruler of a nation didn’t cower behind trees or try to save their own interest with smoke and mirrors and alchemy. The ruler of a nation would fall on their sword.

  But she was never meant to rule a nation. She would never deserve it; not the way that Owen had, and not the way his child would.

  Loom knew that Pahn was nearby. He could sense it. It was the same slight, inexplicable pull that had led him to Wil. He’d first seen her from a distance, her long hair blurring over her arm as she fought the marauder in the market square. She was all muscle and motion. He couldn’t see her face, couldn’t know who she was or what she could ever possibly mean to him. But still he had gone to her with anticipation, moths to flame, flowers to sun.

  This thing in his arms afforded him no such thoughts. He had made it this far into the trees without looking at it, but now as he stopped to catch his breath, he found himself staring down at its sleeping face.

  It looked like Wil. Too much, and even knowing it was all an illusion created for Pahn’s sake, he felt Wil dying in his arms. He felt certain that soon it would be her heart that he tore from her chest, and then she would be gone forever. And it wouldn’t matter if his kingdom survived or if it all collapsed into the sea and pulled him down with it, because her life was too high a price to pay.

  “Hold it together,” Espel said, and he realized that his breathing had become labored. “You aren’t just doing this for yourself,” she said. “I don’t care what happens to this bleeding kingdom. Truly, I don’t. But our home will be lost to us forever if you fail, and I won’t let that happen.”

  Espel. Tethered to their falling kingdom as surely as he was. What would become of them if they could never return home?

  He wouldn’t let anything happen to his sister, even if he couldn’t be sure she’d return the sentiment. Under their father’s command, Espel had not even been granted a childhood. For fifteen years she’d lived trapped in the mold their father created for her, and it was long past time for her to be set free. She was owed that much. Her freedom had been stolen from her moments after she was born, when she lay on their mother’s chest, her body rising and falling with the force of their mother’s final breath.

  “I know” was all he could say.

  He could no longer hear Wil and Masalee behind him, and he knew that Wil had the same idea to stay out of range. Everything would fall apart if Pahn saw her. The real, living her, heart still beating.

  She was safe, he reminded himself, despite the prodding sense that this body in his arms belonged to her. This hideously cruel likeness of the girl who one day earlier had been warm and alive and safe in his arms.

  The closer they walked to the waterfall, the more the feeling of dread churned in his stomach. He had done the one thing he’d vowed never to do. He had made a deal with a marveler. And he was going to betray that deal.

  The alchemized corpse shifted in his arms, and he flinched, nearly dropping it. Espel cut him a sharp glare. “If he sees either of us panic, this will fall apart,” she hissed.

  She was right. Though she hadn’t been victim to one of Pahn’s curses, she knew them every bit as well as Loom. She had seen what he was capable of.

  They reached the point in the river where the rapids turned violent. Water jumped and spat. There was a clearing here, which the moon filled with its white light, like an electric lantern’s glow.

  Loom laid the alchemized corpse on the dusting of snow. It was heavy, but it wasn’t the weight that had burdened him.

  Pahn, pristine and prim as ever, emerged from the darkness that surrounded the clearing. He was as elegant as he was conniving—tall and lean, dressed in a long blue robe with gold embroidery. His long beard and ponytail were fine and white, coming to a point at their ends.

  His eyes went to the alchemized corpse, and then quizzically back to Loom. Was that understanding on his face? Did he know what this was? Loom stood stoic, betraying nothing.

  If Pahn anticipated their plan, it was over. They would all be dead before this night ever saw its end. Loom hadn’t allowed himself to think about that—really think about it—until this moment. A wave of grief rose through him. Zay and Espel and Wil and even Masalee, blanketed by the sea, never waking as they drowned. All of them just fresh souls to haunt the Ancient Sea.

  With that came a small voice of reason. Maybe it came from Wil, too far behind him now for him to hear. This was one of Pahn’s tricks, the voice told him.

  He should have told Wil not to come, he though
t. He should have had her wait on the ship so that she at least could be spared if this all went wrong. But even as he thought it, he knew Wil wouldn’t have listened. It wouldn’t matter how he tried to convince her. She was too stubborn and she loved her kingdom too much.

  The energy became louder and it lanced through his head like an iron spike. He came upon a clearing filled with that strange light. The air was humid, heavy. Steam rose from the ground, swirling around Pahn’s feet as he moved closer.

  That noise—Loom’s head throbbed. He couldn’t think. Everything blurred and he felt as though he were floating outside himself. He looked to the thing on the ground and for a fleeting moment he saw two Wils, ashen and blinking and turning their heads. He blinked and his vision cleared.

  Beside him, Espel stood at attention, wearing the glazed, guarded expression that had frightened her instructors when she was a child. Espel was the master of her own features; she knew how to use her youth and her high, melodic voice to her benefit. And she knew how to be fierce and powerful and intimidating in a blink.

  Loom wondered if Espel had inherited this gift from their mother. He wondered if this was why their father favored her so much, or if Espel was so wholly unique, so mysteriously her own creature, that she had fascinated their father the way she fascinated all who encountered her.

  Pahn, for his part, was unfazed by the pair of them. “The prodigal progeny are working together,” he said. “I never thought I’d see the day.” He nodded toward the alchemized corpse. “And you’ve brought the girl. Still alive, I hope. I’ll need that heart beating.”

  “She’s alive,” Loom said. “I gave her a sleep serum. I didn’t want her to feel any pain.”

  “The pain wouldn’t last for very long,” Pahn said. He knelt beside the alchemized corpse and cupped its cheek in his hand. The thing recoiled from his touch. It must have had something of Wil’s in there after all, Loom thought. Some ghost of her instincts.

  “I’m glad you came to see reason on your own,” Pahn said.

  Loom felt as though he were dreaming now. He could barely hang on to the words being spoken, and still Pahn spoke, his voice loud and echoing in the small space. “Your father is no marveler, but he can be very prophetic,” Pahn said. “He knew on the day you were born that you would go on to betray him. He didn’t know how, but he could sense it.”

  Loom stared down at the thing. He stared at Wil’s face. At Wil’s body rising and falling with breaths that weren’t really breaths.

  He wished Pahn would stop speaking. There was something about his voice that made Loom feel ill and sleepy and strange. His blood felt thick. “I counseled him for years,” Pahn said. “Did you know that? I told him to raise you and your sister as enemies. I told him that if you grew to care for one another, you would conspire against him and be his undoing.”

  “You . . .” Loom’s voice came out as a whisper. He pressed his palm to his forehead, trying to block out that persistent shrill sound. “You what?”

  Through the haze of his mind, he saw Espel as a child, back when she was still helpless, when her eyes were wide and innocent and her cheeks were streaked with tears because their instructor had just hit her. She had looked at him for just a moment, and he’d seen the pleading on her face. He knew that he was supposed to protect her.

  But he couldn’t. At six years old, he knew there was no safety in coddling. There was safety only in one’s own strength.

  Espel learned this quickly. There were whole weeks in which they never saw each other at all, and came together only as rivals in combat. She grew up hard and she grew up invincible, cold, brilliant. And she was a stranger to him.

  He shook his head now, trying to fight the haze that was drowning him.

  It was Pahn’s fault. All these years. Pahn was the reason he and his sister were brought up as enemies.

  Pahn advanced, and Espel moved between them, shielding her brother. She said nothing. She didn’t draw a weapon. But her stance was rigid.

  “It seems destiny can’t be avoided,” Pahn said. “Both of you came together anyway. Your father was right.” Pahn took Loom’s chin, and his gentle grasp turned into a bruising vise. “You both betrayed him, one after the other. When Espel joined forces with you, he knew you would be back. I didn’t have to tell him that. He decided that if both of his children were traitors, neither of you should inherit the kingdom. He’d just as soon have it burn down to nothing.”

  “Our father is already burning the kingdom down to nothing,” Espel said. “We have never tried to steal our legacy. We’re trying to save it.” She was staring him down. “What do you get out of this?”

  Pahn laughed. “You know, that’s a question your brother never thought to ask. If it were my decision, you would still be the heir.” He went on, “I will stay here and rule all of Arrod. That’s my reward.”

  Loom felt his fingers tightening around something, and when he looked down, he was holding his own dagger with no memory of having unsheathed it.

  “Enough stalling. I’ll ask you once to be sure,” Pahn said. He looked into Loom’s eyes, and Loom saw just how dark they were, like the ocean at night. “Are you willing to stop this girl’s heart in exchange for your kingdom?”

  “Yes,” Loom said, and the word felt wrong, even though it was a lie. His own heart began to race. His body felt cold, slick with sweat. The thing laid out before him looked too real, too much like her.

  “Then it’s done,” Pahn said. “Give me her heart.”

  Espel turned to her brother. She put her hands on his shoulders and moved closer. “Are you sure that you want to do this?” Her brow was drawn in . . . something—concern? He couldn’t be sure whether she was being sincere or whether this was an act for Pahn’s sake. His vision swam for a moment. His head felt light, his body heavy and sluggish.

  “A deal’s a deal,” he said.

  He knelt beside the alchemized corpse. Gingerly, he undid the buttons of the tunic the thing was wearing, exposing its left breast, the ripples in its skin that looked like ribs.

  Here was where he could tell the thing apart from Wil. Though it had her cursed birthmark, that was where the similarities ended. This was not her body. He knew Wil. After their night together, he’d awakened jarred by some terrible dream only to find her sprawled on the mattress beside him. He’d watched her in the dim light of the lantern, enraptured by the way she stretched and sighed and breathed. He’d memorized the shape of her. He’d leaned over her and planted a soft, lingering kiss between her breasts. In her sleep she’d raked her fingers through his hair.

  And knowing that this thing was not Wil gave him a new strength.

  He plunged the knife into its skin.

  The thing shuddered, and its mouth opened as though to cry out.

  For a moment, Loom succumbed to the haze that surrounded his mind. Welcomed it, even. In what felt like a blink, he had reached into the thing’s chest, and now he held its heart, rich with blood. He felt it still beating. And though he tried not to, he found himself looking at the thing. At the gaping hole where its heart had once been. The torn, ruined skin, the blood already darkening to black. The eyes half open and staring back at him. How could you, the eyes were saying.

  It wasn’t Wil. It wasn’t her.

  The heart felt fleshy and soft and slick, and his stomach lurched. He wouldn’t get sick. He wouldn’t.

  He thrust the heart at Pahn in his cupped hands. “It’s done,” he said, through gritted teeth.

  “One heart for an entire kingdom,” Pahn said. “It’s more than a fair deal.”

  He took the heart into his hands, and he slowly turned it, admiring the thing. It was gruesomely convincing. Wil had touted her brother to be the genius when it came to alchemy, but she’d moved with skill and grace, even love. She had given life to the sodden heart of a long-dead thing, a heart that had been stored in a jar.

  Pahn held the heart, bleeding, in his hands. Loom tried to focus, but his vision was stabbed by
flashes of white; he couldn’t concentrate. Blood rushed in his ears. He staggered, and Espel caught him by the arm.

  “That girl of yours is quite the marveler,” Pahn told Espel. “I was tasked with training her, but her gift is one that can’t be taught. Truly profound. I hope she’ll return to the palace with you.”

  At the mention of Masalee, Espel’s jaw tightened. But she did not betray a drop of her murderous rage.

  “I almost didn’t find your ship, it was so well hidden,” Pahn continued. “Return to it now. You’ll find that it’s tethered to mine by an impenetrable energy. We set a course for Cannolay tonight.”

  From her vantage point, Wil watched Pahn hold the disembodied heart. A purple glowing energy surrounded it. The heart’s beating was more forceful, audible even from where she stood.

  “We have to get to the ship before we’re seen,” Masalee whispered.

  Wil hesitated. She had not allowed herself to think of what would come after Loom had deceived Pahn. It would take several days to return to Cannolay, and during that time, Arrod would be vulnerable, without a leader, without anyone to attempt to pick up the pieces. There were survivors hiding deep in the villages away from the Port Capital. What would become of them?

  Her hand was in her pocket, she realized, and she had been worrying the monocle against her palm.

  “I can’t,” she blurted, realizing it only as she said it. “My kingdom needs me.”

  Her kingdom. Somehow, Arrod was at the mercy of a cursed spare whose strength would soon dwindle like a snuffed flame the longer she went without turning life into stone.

  “You won’t be gone forever,” Masalee said.

  She shook her head. “I can’t.” Footsteps were drawing closer. Loom and Espel were making their way back to the ship. They had left the alchemized corpse at the water’s edge—the ruined remains of a short-lived queen.

  “Tell Loom I’m sorry,” Wil said. But she knew he would understand. They each had their own kingdoms to protect.