A Touch of Gold

by Annie Sullivan

  If he really is the one working with Captain Skulls, what Royce said holds true: Aris hadn’t wanted to go to the Island of Lost Souls because he knew he’d be recognized.

  When Royce insisted, he’d then told me we’d find help on that island. Yet, he’d been there before—hadn’t he admitted it himself when he told me Royce was the one working with Skulls? Aris would’ve known there was nothing but pirates and thieves there.

  My insides freeze at the thought.

  He’d tricked me into telling him the secret of my power under the guise of protecting me from his uncle, the one looking for money to raise an army against my father. The same one he easily could be working with.

  And after listening to Royce’s account, it’s also not that farfetched to believe that the supposed disdain between Aris and his uncle was part of one more performance, one more lie Aris fed me.

  My head shouts the answer, but my heart doesn’t want to hear it. There has to be something I’m missing. Some flaw in Royce’s explanation.

  I can’t find it.

  The boat taps against the ship, startling me.

  Royce scours the bottom of the boat for his coin, tucking it away in his pocket. He turns to look down at me.

  “I’m not sure if you believe me or not,” Royce says, interrupting my thoughts. “Aris has had years of practice lying to people. It’s taken me years to sort out the lies he’s fed me. So you can either believe me, and I’ll continue helping you get your father’s gold back as I promised I would, or I’ll let you have this longboat. I won’t keep you against your will. You can row back to the island to be with Aris if he’s still alive. But you won’t find anyone else to help you there.”

  Water gently laps against the boat while he waits for my decision. I stare up the ladder. Hettie is up there waiting and probably wondering why I haven’t climbed up yet.

  “Hettie is free to go too,” he adds as if he’s reading my thoughts, “if that’s what’s stalling your decision. I’ll send her down if you want, but you need to decide now. The men on the dock will have undoubtedly sent a few boats after us.”

  I swing around to stare into the darkness leading back toward the island as though I’ll be able to see other boats slicing through the water. But everything has gone calm.

  I don’t even know if Aris is still alive. I’m not sure I want him to be. Because the more I think about it, there’s no way the words I read could belong to him. There’s no way he could hide so much pain behind such a jovial smile. I wanted to believe it was possible because he gave me hope. But pain like that weighs down a soul. If it doesn’t poison you, it makes you stoic and hard.

  Like Royce.

  I look away from the island. Away from Aris.

  I stare at my tattered gloves. I feel just as ripped to pieces as they are. How had I been so easily fooled, so easily torn apart?

  I stare out over the black waves and blink back tears.

  I force myself to stand because, if I don’t keep moving somehow, I’ll cry enough tears to drown that whole cursed island and everyone on it. But even then, it wouldn’t be enough to wash away what Aris did to me.

  The boat rocks under the sudden movement.

  Royce doesn’t hesitate to reach out a hand to steady me. Even after he knows I can turn men to gold.

  “I believe you,” I say to Royce when our eyes meet. The words sound feeble in my mouth, but they’re the best I can muster under the circumstances.

  He doesn’t take his hand away until I’m safely in front of the ladder. “Trust me, I know what you’re feeling. Eventually, the hatred does go away.” He looks back toward the docks we left. “Sometimes you almost pity him.”

  I try to absorb his words as I slowly climb up the ladder, but I can’t. My hands shake on the rungs. I just want to collapse into bed and sleep for days. I don’t want to think ever again. I don’t want to feel anything for the rest of my life. Because as it turns out, the rumors are wrong—my heart isn’t made of gold. It’s very soft and very alive. And now it’s shattered.

  Hettie grabs me almost the instant I’m up the ladder. I let her drag me into a long hug. “They told me you were back, and then I saw them bring up that body, and I thought they lied to get me out of that horrible little cell . . .” She glances around us. “Where’s Duke Wystlinos?”

  “He’s not coming,” I mumble as sailors raise the anchor and secure the longboat.

  I pull away from her and head for the stairs to our room. Men move all around me getting the ship ready to sail. I feel like I’m moving at a crawl compared to them.

  I’ve only made it a few steps when Hettie asks again, “What do you mean he’s not coming?” She looks over the side of the ship as though he would be down there even though the longboat is no longer in the water.

  I hang my head, too tired to explain. The only thing that keeps me from bursting into tears all over again is the last shred of anger I have toward Aris. And that’s quickly being overtaken by exhaustion.

  “What happened?” Hettie prods. “I didn’t spend an entire evening locked in a cell so you could leave me out of this too.”

  Royce saves me from having to answer by coming to my side and blocking my view of Hettie.

  “I know you’re tired,” he says, “and I promise I’ll let you sleep. But I need you to check on the gold one more time. In case anything else has been separated.”

  I can tell Royce is trying to be gentle, considerate. I can read it in the concerned wrinkles of his forehead that he hates asking me.

  “There’s something you should know,” I say. “Captain Skulls took the gold.”

  His eyes go dark when I explain my earlier vision, but he takes it in stride. “I figured as much. He’s been leaving corpses up and down the coast. But if it’s too hard for you to face that again . . .”

  I shake my head. My father still needs me.

  I close my eyes and concentrate. I locate the coin first because of its proximity. I only intend to reach out a little, to find the aura of the others, but my sluggish mind doesn’t react as quickly as it should. As soon as I sense the aura, my mind races toward it before I can push it away.

  It’s not just my mind. I jolt forward and open my eyes. I’m not standing on the deck with Royce in front of me.

  I’m standing in the same ship cabin I’d seen in my earlier vision.

  Sitting in a chair directly across from me, guarding a table piled with my father’s gold, is Captain Skulls.

  He leans forward and picks up his sword from its resting place across his knees. “I thought you’d come back,” he says.

  Then he stabs his blade into my stomach.

  CHAPTER 19

  Captain Skulls plunges the sword deeper. He hovers so close I can smell alcohol on his breath. He smiles at my discomfort, revealing a mouth entirely filled with gold teeth.

  I try to cry out, but no sound passes my lips.

  “Nobody steals from me,” he says, giving the blade a twist. His skin is stretched so thin across his face that barely any wrinkles appear when he smiles.

  I stare down at the blade sticking out of my stomach. A silver skull forms the base of the hilt, the blade jutting out like a tongue. Although I can’t feel the pain yet, I know in a moment I’ll drop to my knees and bleed out on the dusty cabin floor. My fingers will fumble uselessly trying to close the wound. No one will even know where I’ve gone.

  I’m not even sure where I’ve gone, where I’m going to die. My connection with the gold is changing too rapidly for me to understand.

  Captain Skulls pulls the sword out and steps back. I look away, unable to watch my own blood drip from the tip of his blade, waiting for the moment my body gives out.

  Nothing happens.

  I grab my stomach. My fingers explore where a mark should’ve been. There’s nothing. Not even a tear in my dress.

  When I look up at Captain Skulls, his face burns with anger.

  I’m as confused as he is, but somehow, I’m no mor
e than an apparition here, a phantom version of myself, like the aura the cursed gold gives off. My real body must be back on the Swanflight, and all I want to do is get back there before I end up trapped in this nightmare.

  Captain Skulls takes a swipe at my neck, one that would’ve knocked my head clear off if I’d been there in the flesh. The blade passes harmlessly through me.

  He swings his sword once again toward me.

  I can’t stop myself from ducking out of the way even though I doubt his blade will have any effect this time.

  “How is this possible?” he mutters. He stares at me with renewed interest.

  I stumble backward. Something rattles above me on a shelf as Captain Skulls stomps closer, and my eyes dart about the room. Skulls line shelves meant for books. Some skulls have even been turned into candleholders and have hot red wax dripping out of eye sockets and down decaying teeth. There have to be dozens of them—dozens of men and women he’s killed and skinned. I cover my mouth with my hand, horrified.

  My reaction elicits a grin from him. “Beautiful, aren’t they?”

  “You’re insane,” I stammer.

  “I’m a collector,” he corrects.

  “Give me my father’s gold,” I say. My voice is far from steady. My hands shake as I clutch at my skirt. “I’ll find it no matter where you take it anyway.”

  “I know.” His face hardens. “I was warned about that little skill of yours.”

  By Aris. I’m sure of it.

  He leans in closer, his hot breath floating across me, and his gleaming teeth fill my vision. “But since it seems I can’t kill you for trying to steal my gold, what I’m interested in are your other skills.”

  I go rigid.

  “If the rumors are true,” he says, “we could be allies in all things gold.” His golden teeth pass so close to my skin. I have no idea what absorbing gold would do to me in this state. I don’t want to test the limits of my abilities. Not here.

  “Never.” I duck away and stumble to the far side of the room. “I’ve already gotten the piece from the Island of Lost Souls, and now I’m coming for the rest of my father’s gold.”

  “Did you now?” Disappointment stains his voice as he moves toward the pile of my father’s treasure. He runs his fingers absently over the various pieces. “I left someone on the island to collect your skull if they couldn’t take you alive.” His eyes flick back to mine. “Tell me, is it made of gold?”

  I straighten my shoulders as best I can. “You’ll never find out.”

  He picks up one of the coins, weighing it in his hand. “No, I suppose I won’t.” His eyes meet mine. The reflection of my skin in his eyes is the only light I’ve ever seen them hold. “For you see, your . . . ability to locate the gold forced me to part with another piece to ensure the treasure could never be reunited to uphold my end of the bargain, which quite upsets me since I really had planned on keeping it all.”

  My throat goes dry as I count the golden objects piled on the table. One of the chalices is missing. “What have you done with it?”

  I swallow. I can’t even imagine where someone this twisted and demented could’ve hidden the gold. But I can imagine who he made a bargain with and who told him to hide it out of my reach: Archduke Ralton. He’s the only one who would know enough and want my father to continue to fade away. Him and Aris.

  “You know, that chalice cost me another skull.” He drops the coin back into the pile. “My helmsman broke one of my precious prizes during that last storm and so knew he needed to volunteer to be the one to deliver the chalice. Sadly, he never made it back.” His eyes flick back up to me. “But why risk going after the gold and making that your fate? Since you so kindly came to me and since you might still have some powers I can use, I’d rather not let your skull and your abilities fall into the hands of those cursed women when it’s standing right in front of me.”

  I don’t know what he’s talking about, and I don’t have time to figure it out because gold clinks together as he digs out the knife my father turned.

  “My sword may not be able to touch you, but maybe something made of gold can pin you here until we figure out just what you can do.”

  I stagger away. Skulls clatter on shelves as he stumbles after me.

  My father’s gold winks invitingly as I scramble for a plan. There’s one door, and that will only lead me farther into his ship. I don’t know how I got here, so I’m not sure how I can get back.

  Wait. My father’s gold.

  Just as Captain Skulls rears up behind me, I clamp my eyes shut. I shove away the aura of my father’s gold sitting so close by as it tries to overwhelm my mind.

  There.

  But no, there are two blinking auras beckoning me. I don’t have time to search them out, to figure out which one’s the coin. I pick the closest one and focus all my energy on it.

  I leap forward. But I don’t find myself safe on the Swanflight.

  I splash into rough water. It’s so dark I can’t see anything except the white tips of the waves that threaten to pour over me.

  I whip around in the water and kick frantically.

  Then I see it. The glow I know no one else sees. The golden chalice rests about fifteen feet below the surface.

  Something swims in front of the cup, sending distorting ripples forward. My heart skips a beat.

  “Who dares to enter the lair of the Temptresses?” a female voice coos.

  My skin grows cold.

  He couldn’t. He wouldn’t.

  Not the Temptresses of Triton.

  From what I’ve read about them, they’re considered only slightly less mythical than Jipper. They used to be human women whom Triton, son of Poseidon, fell in love with. But once his interest in them waned, he refused to return them to land, instead turning them into creatures of the sea. Part human and part aquatic. They supposedly guard a watery treasure trove, which, along with their enchanted voices, they use to lure greedy sailors to their deaths.

  Something brushes past me in the water.

  Somewhere, a woman laughs.

  Before I can think, I cast out my mind once more and grab on to the golden aura of the coin.

  I struggle to open my eyes. I’m lying on the deck, and Royce’s face is pressed against mine, propelling oxygen into my lungs. He pulls away, his face a mix of torment and hope. I must’ve been away from my body too long. Darkness seeps in at the corners of my vision.

  Breathe, I tell myself.

  I cough, then gulp in air like I’ve never had any before.

  My eyes slide over Hettie and Rhat. They land on Royce. He fades in and out of focus.

  “Kora.” He shouts my name, searching my face for some sort of recognition.

  I try to hold on, but the fog is setting back in. “Temptresses, Triton, gold,” I whisper before my eyelids droop closed.

  CHAPTER 20

  I wake to find only a small candle lighting the room around me as I lie in bed, a bed I have to myself. Hettie is nowhere to be seen, and I wonder what time of day it is.

  My head aches along with most of my body. I reach to massage my back but my hand brushes against Royce’s journal. I slide it out and run my hands over the cracked leather and down the spine. I focus on the sections that have been ripped out. Whereas before, I guessed that signaled something Aris wanted to keep private, I can now only assume those pages included material that would have given away the journal’s true owner.

  I turn to the final pages.

  Maybe I’ll never find another person who understands what it’s like to have the curse always inside you. Someone who understands why I freeze when I hear coins clinking together.

  Maybe no one ever will.

  But I’ve stopped burying the pain. That only made the nightmares worse. No, the only way to move forward is to face it each time it rears its head. I can’t put off wearing gold on my coat. I can’t flee every time someone pulls out a pouch of coins in a marketplace or fear the stars turning into coins the way the
y do in my dreams.

  So each night, I’ll stand under those stars until that’s all that they are. I’ll keep coins in my pockets until the jingling no longer summons the darkness in my mind.

  Because I am not my father’s curse. I’ve been at sea long enough to know that now. It doesn’t keep the nightmares from coming back. But it keeps the hopelessness from surfacing.

  I couldn’t save him, but I can still save myself.

  How do I reconcile the Royce I know with the man I found in those pages? The man who is so similar to me. The one I know understands. Because I see now that all those moments when he seemed cold or distant, it wasn’t him plotting against me. It was him holding himself together, wondering if I was an enemy or an ally.

  How could I have let Aris blind me? How could I have believed him that easily? But I know the answers. I was so desperate for attention, I didn’t even think to question him. He seemed like everything I dreamed of. He offered me everything I wanted. He represented everything I wanted to be. Because he wasn’t afraid to touch my skin, I’d let him waltz into my heart too, with his tales of adventure. No, his lies.

  Aris deceived me, pretended to care about me. Worst of all, he used Royce’s past to get close to me. Every moment, every word was rehearsed to enter into my good graces. He probably didn’t believe in Jipper. He never wanted to take me sailing. It was all about the gold, about my power.

  And I let him kiss me. Worse, I wanted him to. He must’ve been desperate indeed if he was that committed to his masquerade.

  I blink back tears. I don’t want to cry over him; he doesn’t deserve it. But I can’t stop the tears from coming. They slide down my cheeks and fall into the sheets wrapped around me.

  I ball my hands into fists. If only I’d seen through him, the gold would still be safe back at the palace, Thipps would still be alive, and I wouldn’t feel like my heart would be better off if it was still made of gold.

  A gentle knock sounds at the door.

  I wipe at my tears with my tattered gloves and shove the journal back under my pillow just as Hettie steps inside the cabin.