Unlocked

by Casey L. Bond

  He smiled. “When we get back to Galder, I’ll have my work cut out for me.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Noblemen will be beating down the castle door to have a chance to charm you.”

  “I highly doubt that.”

  He shook his head and smiled. “You have no idea, do you?”

  “About what?”

  As the sun rose and the room lightened the next morning, I lay in the cot, staring at the beams stretching across the ceiling. Last night, Trevor managed to ease my mortification slightly, but with the dawn, it chased me out of fitful dreams.

  I’d drawn him so many times. There were sketches of him when he was deep in thought, when he grinned, when he was angry, or when he was giving Tross some love. I’d sketched him when I was sure he was thinking of Ella. He got the most intense look of longing in those moments.

  When he thought about getting off this island, his brow scrunched in determination and his eyes were darker. And then there were the sketches of his bare torso… It really wasn’t my fault. He was so interesting. So easy to draw. And he was always here, so I always had access to him.

  I sat up and stretched, wondering where he’d gone. It couldn’t have been far, but he was usually inside at this time of morning. On my blankets was a piece of parchment with a terrible stick figure drawing of a man, casting a net into the sea. I suppose he’d gone fishing.

  Below the image, he’d written, “If you want to add another pose, I can remove my shirt for you. Find me outside.”

  I dragged a hand down my face. He wasn’t going to let this go.

  TREVOR

  Every day for the past several weeks, Raya cut her hair into a different style. We took turns scaring one another and laughing about it. She didn’t realize she started a war she couldn’t possibly win, and I learned I was extremely adept at hiding. Tross came regularly for his kisses. Storms came and storms went. The sea fed us what the enchanted fruit and daily loaf of bread didn’t, and after the afternoon I looked at her drawings and then begged her forgiveness, Raya and I became closer.

  She told stories about her childhood, and I told her about how things were in Galder. I wanted her to get used to the idea of living there. I wanted her to know she would always have a place—a home— and that she wasn’t alone as long as I was with her.

  We sat on the sand together watching the sunset. It was getting warmer. Spring was coming. I could feel winter’s grasp slipping.

  “By now, my father has written to Roane. They should have had time to reply that our ship never arrived.”

  “So, he’ll dispatch ships soon?” she asked hopefully.

  “Yes.”

  The sea was still cold. The ice floes had melted, but I had to get to the closest wrecks soon to start salvaging what we could. The wood needed time to dry.

  “I know what you’re thinking,” Raya asserted, nudging me. She pulled the blanket around her shoulders tighter. “It’s going to be freezing, but we can start tomorrow at low tide.”

  I released a breath I didn’t know I’d been holding. That was exactly what I needed to hear. This was what we needed to do.

  Chapter nine

  TREVOR

  “We have to move fast. Get out there, get what we can, and get back upstairs to the fire,” I insisted.

  “Right,” she agreed. And then she started tugging her dress over her head.

  “What are you doing?”

  “I can’t swim in this thing,” she scoffed. “It’ll drag me down. I’ll go in my shift.”

  “But you’ll freeze!” I argued. The woman would freeze and drown, and I’d drown with my mouth hanging open from staring at her. I muttered a curse under my breath. She was going to be the death of me.

  “What was that?”

  “What was what?” I feigned innocence.

  “I thought you said something. Never mind. I’d suggest you lose the tunic and your boots... and pants.”

  I raised my brows at her. “Don’t look at me like that,” she snapped. “We have to hurry, and the currents are strong even though the tide is low.”

  She left her dress on the sand and walked toward the water, the first wave splashing her leg. The wind plastered her shift to her body and I tried not to stare, failing miserably. “Hurry up. I’m already cold.”

  She was shivering, but with a determination I was hell-bent on matching, she trudged into the waves until they swept over her thighs, then her stomach and chest, and then she started swimming. We were half way to the wreck when her teeth and mine started chattering. “Are you okay?” I asked, swimming as hard as I could to keep up with her.

  “I’m fine.” She doubled our pace.

  The wreck seemed just out of reach as wave after wave pushed us back toward shore. Raya never faltered. She never sank beneath the waves, just kept pushing forward and so did I. When we reached it, both of us went to work, fumbling with the boards, trying to use the weight of our bodies to break them. We were able to free several by working together, the wood snapping apart with a muffled pop.

  Raya’s skin was paler than I’d ever seen it, and her light hair was plastered to her skin. She’d cut it to mid-back that morning. “Your lips are blue. You should head back.”

  “Yours are dark purple,” she shot back. “The cold won’t hurt me anyway. I won’t get sick, remember? I can’t say the same thing about you.”

  We worked together to free a few more pieces before she glanced at the tower.

  “Let’s stop for now, and get what we can on the way back,” she suggested.

  I noticed some of the wood had floated into the water. As I tried to turn my body towards shore, my arms didn’t want to work. They’d become stiff, but worse than that, I’d lost coordination. My strokes were clumsy, and when I did reach a few of the boards, I had trouble holding on to them. Finally, I gathered them and used them like a raft, kicking my legs behind me. Raya beat me to the sand.

  “Go upstairs,” she yelled at me, leaning the wood against the building so the air could flow beneath it.

  “I’ll help you first,” I insisted, my teeth chattering together.

  She ran to me, her usually-graceful steps uncoordinated, and stumbled when she got close. I caught her in my arms. “Go inside.”

  “We have to drag them up there, or the sea might drag them away. I’m helping,” I argued.

  She shook her head, gathered her dress, and helped me with the wood I’d dragged in. We sat the planks up to dry, and when we both stepped inside the tower, we laughed, falling back against the door. Our laughter echoed around and up the inside of the lighthouse.

  It was one of the best things I’d ever heard; her happiness mixing with mine.

  “The fire is going to feel amazing,” she chattered, trembling from head to toe. Water dripped from her hair, tendrils of it clumped together. I was too afraid to reach out and feel them. Afraid that I had no feeling left in my fingertips, but more afraid that I did and would find her hair was frozen, like the wet, stiff shift she wore.

  We limped up the steps one at a time. It took us forever to reach the hatch, but we chuckled the whole climb. I knocked the hatch door down when we were inside, closing out the cold air. As Raya moved as quickly as she could to stand in front of the fire, I grabbed a blanket off her bed and wrapped it around her.

  “We can share if you want,” she offered.

  I paused beside her, courtly propriety battling with survival. We were barely clothed, but our body temperatures were dangerously low.

  Nodding, I stepped toward her and she rearranged the blanket to cover both of us. Her chest met my stomach. I wrapped my arms around her and held the ends of the blanket together, and hers found their way around my middle, gently quivering against my back. The two of us held onto one another, slowly thawing in front of the fire’s warmth.

  “You really think the ships will come?” she asked.

  “I do.”

  “And you think they’ll see the signal we light?�
��

  I prayed they did. “I do.”

  “What’s your father like?”

  “He’s stubborn and loyal, and truly cares about his kingdom and everyone in it. He is a just man. He tries to right wrongs.”

  “Like with Ella.”

  “That’s a perfect example. He wanted to restore her to her rightful place, and Aelawyn to its former glory.”

  “And he wanted her to honor the agreement he made for your betrothal to her,” she added.

  I cleared my throat. “Yeah.”

  It wasn’t easy to discuss Ella when I was holding Raya in my arms.

  “You don’t like to talk about her.”

  “What more is there to say?”

  She pursed her lips together. I could read her like a book. She thought there was a lot more I could say, but I wasn’t going down that road again. She pulled out of my embrace, staring up at me, the fire flickering in her eyes. “Can you turn away while I dress?” she requested.

  “I can go downstairs.”

  “It’s okay. I trust you. Just turn toward the fire.”

  I let go of her, feeling the damp silk of her shift slip between my fingers. I immediately missed her warmth against me.

  Whispers of fabric came from behind me as she dressed. “I haven’t seen Tross today.”

  I swallowed thickly. “I haven’t, either.”

  “Where do you think he goes?” she inquired. I could hear the cot groan as she sat down on it. “You can turn around.”

  She was dressed with the blanket from her cot wrapped tightly around her shoulders. “I’m not sure where he goes,” I answered. “He loves the ocean, but I wouldn’t think he could fly for hours. I wonder how far we are from Paruth.”

  “It’s not that far. Tross could fly that distance,” she declared. “He’s enormous.”

  “Could we swim it?” I asked.

  “We almost froze today, but even in the summer when the ocean warms, the distance would be too great.”

  “We could make a raft,” I suggested, only half-joking.

  “If the ships from Galder don’t come, we may have to.”

  Unless we wanted to stay on this island forever.

  Chapter ten

  RAYA

  Trevor’s plan was sound, I decided, and if nothing else, it would keep us busy and give us something to do other than sit here and wait… which had never worked well for me.

  So, we began plucking wood from the bones of sunken ships in earnest. Every day we swam out into the ocean when the tide was lowest, and worked fast to pluck what we could from the wrecks before bringing our bounties back to the shore. It was hard. The cold water didn’t bother me, but I could see the tension in Trevor’s entire body when he stepped into it. Intuitively, I understood it wasn’t the temperature; it was the memory of being helpless as he was tossed about, and the guilt of his sole survival that weighed him down.

  He’d come a long way, but the spiritual wound he received hadn’t fully healed.

  As the sea warmed, we found we could stay in the sea longer and longer and gather more with each trip. The number of planks we’d salvaged amazed me. They surrounded the bottom of the tower in varying stages of dryness.

  We had yet to see a ship, but he insisted it wouldn’t be long. Every morning, he told me our ship would appear on the horizon, ready to carry us home. And every evening, he was disappointed when it didn’t come.

  But still we prepared, just in case it actually happened, and because Trevor truly believed it would. He believed so hard, I began to wonder if he was right. Maybe a ship would come for him and rescue me, too.

  I needed to be prepared, so I started asking questions – incessantly – though he never once said I was bothering him with the constant barrage. I was nervous. If being rescued was really a possibility, I wanted to know all I could about Galder and what kind of life I might have there. I asked him about his life, how he passed his time, and what it felt like to be a prince of a Southern kingdom.

  He had no siblings. I knew that much. I knew a little about his father, but wasn’t sure I liked the man who might soon send ships to save me. He’d told me enough to know his father was opinionated and controlling. I told him as much one day and Trevor brushed it off, saying he wasn’t like that now, and that he hadn’t been since he came home. But he hadn’t been home very long…

  “Do you have cousins?”

  “A few distant ones, and they love to gossip. You’ll soon be new fuel for that fire, I’m sure. A rescued princess, from Paruth, no less. You’ll be the subject of rumors in the Kingdom for weeks, maybe even months.”

  I paused on the step behind him. He was right.

  At home, I’d eaten with my parents and returned to my room before the minstrels even began to play. Court was no place for children until they were older, Mother would say. But if we made it to Galder, I would be expected to attend dinners and balls. I wouldn’t be allowed to melt into the background. What else might the King expect?

  “You okay?”

  “Yeah.” I started moving up the steps again. “I’m fine.” I bit my fingernail and then blurted, “Do you think your father will like me?”

  “I have no doubt. Having a new, beautiful woman in the castle won’t be a hardship for anyone,” he teased.

  The southerners wouldn’t find me remotely attractive, let alone beautiful. I was the opposite of them, with pale skin and hair, and eyes the color of frost. I wouldn’t fit in with their suntanned skin, the hair of gold, and eyes that matched varying parts of the forest. I looked frigid and cold, while they looked bright and warm.

  More than likely, King Yurak would see me as a burden. Conflicting thoughts flew at me, none of them pleasant. Continuing to bite my thumbnail, I kept quiet. I was afraid of being rescued, as strange as it sounded; afraid of where the ship and my future path would take me. Would Trevor’s father really welcome me, or would he send me home to Paruth instead? And even though part of me wanted to go home and consider rebuilding what my parents left me, another part wanted to leave things as they were, even if it meant losing my claim to the throne. Because if Paruth and her people were dead, maybe it was meant to stay buried.

  I was on the platform beside the pile of wood, sitting so the setting sun warmed my body, but facing south. It was the direction where the ships would come from, according to Trevor. He knocked twice on the wooden hatch. I turned to let him know I’d seen him, and he sat next to me.

  “Do you care if I join you?” he asked softly.

  “Would you leave if I did?”

  He leaned back on his palms, making himself comfortable before answering, “Of course, I would. I’m a gentleman.”

  “And what are the gentlemen like in Galder?”

  “So many questions,” he groaned. He sat up again. His face pointed out toward the sea, but I could feel his eyes slide to me. “When we get there, I’ll be happy to introduce you to anyone who catches your eye.”

  “And what makes you think they will?”

  “Too good for Galderians, huh?” he joked.

  “Not at all,” I huffed, letting loose a breath. “I honestly don’t know how they’ll respond to me being there.”

  “You’ll be the new girl; a mystery in the middle of a sea of women they’ve grown to know. You’ll intrigue them.”

  “You sound very sure of that.”

  He grinned. “I am. You’ve intrigued me.”

  I elbowed him a little too hard. “And when will you continue your quest for a bride?”

  Trevor gave me a wink. “I’m in no hurry to travel north by ship again. When I decide to resume my search, I’ll travel by land.”

  “A wise decision, Sire.”

  “You’re a princess. You don’t have to address me so formally.”

  “Will your father agree? How we are here is not how we’ll be expected to behave out there,” I responded pointedly, looking out at the sea. “If we are rescued, everything will change.”

  “When
we are rescued, it might change a little, but I’ll see that it doesn’t change in the ways that matter.”

  That was silly. “You know we won’t be able to be close, much less friends. Your wife wouldn’t appreciate our friendship.”

  “Nor will your husband,” he bit back. I thought he meant to sound playful, but it came out as bitter as I felt when I envisioned him with a beautiful, exotic bride on his arm.

  “No, I imagine he wouldn’t.”

  Things were tense between us for days after that conversation. It was like he wasn’t only preparing for our rescue, but for us to go our separate ways. That hurt more than anything.

  After days of being gone, Tross finally came home, bringing something better than an olive branch. Upon arriving, he all but fell into the window and collapsed on the floor, spitting something dark from his mouth. His wide chest heaved until he calmed, then he closed his eyes and fell into a deep sleep. Now Tross was snoring. Loudly.

  I knew whatever it was must be important. He’d never brought anything but fish into my room, and those he gulped down in an instant. This was an offering. I crouched down to make sure he was okay, running my hands over his wings. His eyes opened, but fluttered closed again a few seconds later.

  The dark thing he spat out was a piece of purple fabric with something gold embroidered across it. I prayed he’d torn it from a ship—one close enough to come and get us.

  Trevor heard the commotion and ran upstairs to find me holding the fabric. He ran to me and tore it out of my hands, pulling me up from where I knelt. With a wild smile, he asked, “Do you have any idea what this is?”

  “No.”

  “It’s a piece of the Galderian flag!” he yelled, grabbing me into his arms and spinning me around. He whooped and hollered and ran to the platform to watch for them… where he’d been watching for several days now.

  There was no doubt in my mind that it was a piece of his kingdom’s flag, but what did Tross tear it from? He was so exhausted upon his return, he could have flown to and from Galder. Or it could have come from a ship. Trevor didn’t say as much, but I knew he thought that was the most likely possibility. So did I, until no ship had shown up.