Everything is behind me now. The pyramid and my family and the bargain I struck with Sakura. And in front of me: the world. Ready to be taken.
I clutch the parchment in my hand. The map of passageways hidden throughout the mighty Cloud Mountain, kept secret by the Págese royals. Ensuring safety when they make their way up the mountain to prove their worth to the people. I’ve bargained my future for it, and all I need now is the Págese necklace. Good thing I know just where to look.
I didn’t tell my family about my engagement. I’m saving that for after I get myself killed. Telling my crew was more than enough hassle, and if their mortifying jibes hadn’t been trouble enough, Madrid’s outrage that I would bargain myself away had been. Spending half her life being sold from ship to ship left her with an inflexible focus on freedom in every aspect.
The only comfort I could offer – and it seemed strange to be the one offering comfort in this kind of situation – is that I have no intention of going through with it. Not that I’m planning to go back on my word. I’m not that sort of a man, and Sakura is not the sort of woman who would take betrayal lightly. But there’s something that can be done. Some other deal to be struck that will give us both what we want. I just need to introduce another player to the game.
I stand on the quarterdeck and survey the Saad. The sun has disappeared, and the only light comes from the moon and the flickering lanterns aboard the ship. Belowdecks, most of my skeleton crew – an apt name for my volunteers – are asleep. Or swapping jokes and lewd stories in place of lullabies. The few that remain above deck are still and subdued in a way they rarely are.
We are sailing toward Eidýllio, one of the few stops we have to make before we reach Págos and the very key to my plan. Eidýllio holds the only replacement for my hand in marriage that Sakura will consider accepting.
On deck, Torik is playing cards with Madrid, who claims to be the best at any game my first mate can think of. The match is quiet and marked only by sharp intakes of breath whenever Torik takes another smoke of his cigar. By his feet is my assistant engineer, who disappears belowdecks every once in a while only to reappear, take a seat on the floor, and continue sewing the holes in his socks.
The night brings out something different in all of them. The Saad is home and they’re safe here, finally able to let their guards down for a few rare moments. To them, the sea is never the true danger. Even crawling with sirens and sharks and beasts that can devour them whole in seconds. The true danger is people. They are the unpredictable. The betrayers and the liars. And on the Saad, they are a world away.
“So this map will lead us to the crystal?” asks Kye.
I shrug. “Maybe just to our deaths.”
He places a hand on my shoulder. “Have some confidence,” he tells me. “You haven’t steered us wrong yet.”
“That just means nobody will be prepared when I do.”
Kye gives me a disparaging look. We’re the same age, but he has a funny way of making me feel younger. More like the boy I am than the captain I try to be.
“That’s the thing about risks,” Kye says. “It’s impossible to know which ones are worth it until it’s too late.”
“You’re getting really poetic in your old age,” I tell him. “Let’s just hope you’re right and the map is actually useful in helping us not freeze to death. I’m pretty attached to all my fingers and toes.”
“I still can’t believe you bargained away your future for a piece of parchment,” Kye says. His hand is on his knife, as though just talking about Sakura makes him think of battle.
“Weren’t you just telling me that risks can be worthwhile?”
“Not the kind that land you in unholy matrimony with a princess.” He says the last word like it’s dirty and the thought of my marrying another royal doesn’t bear thinking about.
“You make a good point,” I tell him. “But I’m going to offer Sakura a better prize than myself. As unlikely as that may sound. It’s the reason we’re going to Eidýllio in the first place, so don’t act so resigned to my fate just yet. I have a plan; the least you can do is have faith.”
“Except that your plans always end in scars.”
“The ladies love them.”
“Not when they’re shaped like bite marks.”
I grin. “I doubt the Queen of Eidýllio is going to cannibalize us.”
“There’s a lot of land between us and her,” says Kye. “Plenty of time for me to be eaten somewhere along the way.”
Despite his qualms, Kye doesn’t seem put out by my evasiveness. He never seems to mind elusive retorts and vague, almost flippant, answers. It’s like the thrill of the hunt might just be in the not knowing. Often, I’ve shared the sentiment. The less I knew, the more I had the chance to discover. But now I wish I knew more than what was written in a children’s book, tucked away in the desk of my cabin.
The text speaks of the very top of the Cloud Mountain, the farthest point from the sea, and the palace that was made from the last frozen breath of the sea goddess Keto. A holy place that only Págese royals are allowed to enter on their sacred pilgrimages. It’s there that they sit in prayer and worship the gods who carved them. It’s there they stay for sixteen days. And it’s there, in the center of this holy palace, that the crystal lies. Probably.
This whole quest is based on rumor and hearsay, and the only upside to any of it is that the missing necklace has prevented Sakura and her family from ever getting inside the locked dome. It’s not likely I’d be able to use the crystal if it was already in their possession. Just imagining the conversation with the Págese king makes me flinch. Would you kindly allow me and my pirate crew to borrow one of the world’s most powerful sources of magic for a few days? After I kill my immortal enemy, I promise I’ll bring it right back.
At least if I’m the one to find the crystal, it gives me the upper hand. But despite the small comfort that brings, Sakura’s talk of hidden domes and lost keys in the shape of necklaces makes things trickier. If I can’t find that necklace, then I’ve bargained everything for nothing. Then again, the fact that her family has been searching for generations without any luck doesn’t mean much. After all, none of them are me.
“You fancy a game?” Madrid looks up at me. “As it happens, Torik is a sore loser.”
“And you’re a mighty cheat,” says Torik. “She’s got cards up her sleeve.”
“The only thing I have up my sleeve is tricks and talent.”
“There!” Torik points. “You see. Tricks.”
From the floor, the assistant engineer looks up at them. “I didn’t see any cheating.” He threads a needle through a pair of patchwork socks.
“Ha.” Torik clips him around the ear halfheartedly. “You were too busy knittin’.”
“I’m sewing,” he disputes. “And if you don’t want me to, I’ll throw your lot overboard.”
Torik grunts. “Attitude,” he says. Then, to me, “All I get is attitude.”
“It’s all you give, too,” I tell him.
“I give my heart and soul,” Torik protests.
“My mistake,” I say. “I wasn’t aware you had either of those things.”
Beside me, Kye sniggers. “It’s why he always loses,” he says. “No heart and so no imagination.”
“You be careful I don’t imagine throwin’ you overboard,” Torik calls up to him. “What do you think, Cap? Do we really need another siren hunter on this quest?”
“Kye cooks, too,” Madrid says, sorting the deck back in order.
Torik shakes his head. “I reckon we can lay the nets and catch our own fish for supper. We’ll grill ’em up nice enough without your pretty boy.”
Madrid doesn’t bother to reply, and just as I’m about to come back in her place, something catches my eye in the distance. A strange shadow in the middle of the ocean. A figure on the water. I squint and pull the golden telescope from my belt loop.
To Kye, I say, “Northwest,” and my friend produces a s
mall pair of binoculars from his own belt. “Do you see it?” I ask.
“It’s a man.”
I shake my head. “Just the opposite.” I squint, black-rimmed eye pressed fiercely to the looking glass. “It’s a girl.”
“What’s a girl doin’ in the middle of the damn ocean?” Torik climbs the steps toward us.
On the main deck, Madrid slots the cards back into the packet. Dryly, she says, “Perhaps she’s catching her own fish for supper.”
Torik shoots her a look. “There are sharks out there.”
“Perfect with rice.”
I roll my eyes.
Thankfully, the girl is floating and not drowning. Strangely, she isn’t doing much else. She’s just there, in the ocean, with nothing and no one around her. I suck in a breath and, in the same instant, the girl turns toward the ship. It seems impossible, but in that moment I swear she looks straight at me. Through me.
“What’s she doing?”
I turn to Kye. “She’s isn’t doing anything,” I say. “She’s just there.”
But when I turn to look back, she isn’t. And in her place, there’s a deadly stillness.
“Kye!” I yell, rushing to the edge of the ship. “Full speed ahead. Circle around and prepare the buoy. Wake the rest of the crew and have them at the ready. It could be a trap.”
“Captain, don’t be reckless!” shouts Torik.
“It’s probably a trick,” Madrid agrees.
I ignore them and head forward, but Kye puts a gloved hand on my shoulder, holding me back. “Elian, stop. There could be sirens in the water.”
My jaw tightens. “I’m not letting anyone else die because of a damned siren.”
Kye squares his shoulders. “Then let me go instead.”
Madrid pauses for a moment and then, slower than usual, hoists her gun over her shoulder.
I place my hand on top of Kye’s. His gesture has nothing to do with heroism – because he wants to save the drowning girl – and everything to do with loyalty. Because what he really wants is to save me. But if there’s one thing in the world that I don’t need, it’s saving. I’ve risked my life enough times to know it’s charmed.
“Don’t let me drown,” I say.
And then I jump.
The water feels like nails. A terrific legion of stabbing iron pierces my flesh until my breath catches in my chest and gets stuck there. I can’t imagine what the Págese waters will feel like in comparison. I can’t imagine their country and their mountain and my fingers remaining on my hands as I climb it.
I swim deeper and let my head spin.
It’s dark enough beneath the water that the farther I swim, the more I doubt I’ll reach the surface again. But in the distance, even buried beneath the ocean, I can hear the rumble of the Saad. I can feel the water being pushed and sliced as my ship chases after me. And then I see her.
Sinking to the bottom of the ocean, her eyes closed and her arms spread out like wings. A naked girl with hair to her elbows.
I swim toward her for an eternity. Closer and deeper, until it seems like she might hit the shingle before I get to her. When my hands finally clamp around her waist, I find myself wincing at how cold she is. Colder than the ocean.
She’s heavier than I expect. A sinking stone. Dead weight. And no matter how roughly I haul her up, how my hands dig into her stomach and my arms crush around her ribs, she doesn’t stir. I worry that I’m too late, but I can’t bear the thought of leaving her to the sharks and monsters.
With an explosion of breath, I burst through the water’s surface.
The Saad is close and within seconds a buoy is tossed into the ocean beside me. I slide it over the girl, wrapping her limp wrist around the rope so the crew can pull her in first.
It’s an odd sight to see a lifeless body heaved onto the ship. Her skin is so pale against the dark wood of the Saad, one wrist tied to the buoy and the other hanging helplessly below. When my crew finally hauls me up, I don’t stop to catch my breath before rushing over. I spit salt water onto the deck and fall to my knees beside her, willing her to move. It’s too soon. Too early in our journey to have a body on our hands. And as much as I like to think that I’ve grown accustomed to death, I’ve also never seen a dead woman before. At least, not one who wasn’t half-monster.
I look at the unconscious girl and wonder where she came from. There are no ships in the distance and no land on the horizon. It’s as though she appeared from nowhere. Born from the ocean itself.
I unbutton my dripping shirt and slide it over the girl’s naked body like a blanket. The sudden movement seems to jolt her, and with a gasping breath, her eyes shoot open. They’re as blue as Sakura’s lips.
She rolls to her stomach and coughs up the ocean, heaving until there seems to be no more water left in her. When she turns to me, the first thing I notice are her freckles, shaped like stars. Constellations dotted across her face like the ones I name while the rest of my crew sleeps. Her hair sticks to her cheeks, a deep, dark red. Muted and so close to brown. She looks young – younger than me, maybe – and, inexplicably, when she reaches for me, I allow myself to be pulled into her.
She bites her lip, hard. It’s cracked and furiously pale, just like her skin. There’s something about the action and how wild it looks on her. Something about her ocean eyes and the way she strokes my collar softly. Something familiar and hypnotic. She whispers something, a single guttural word that sounds harsh against her lips. I can’t make sense of it, but whatever it is, it makes me dizzy. I lean in closer and place a hand on her wrist.
“I don’t understand.”
She sits up, swaying, and grips my collar more tightly. Then, louder, she says it again. Gouroúni. She spits it like a weapon and her face twists. A sudden change from the innocent girl to something far crueler. Almost murderous. I recoil, but for once I’m not quick enough. The girl raises a shaking hand and brings it down across my cheek. Hard.
I fall back.
“Cap!” Torik reaches for me.
I dismiss his hand and stare at the girl. She’s smirking. A ghost of satisfaction painted on her pale, pale lips before her eyes flutter closed and her head hits the deck.
I rub the edge of my jaw. “Kye.” I don’t take my eyes off the ocean girl. “Get the rope.”
15
Lira
WHEN I WAKE, I’M bound to a railing.
Golden rope is looped around one of my wrists, lassoing it to the wooden barrier that overlooks the ship’s deck. I taste bile that keeps on burning, and I’m cold, which is the most unnatural feeling in the world, because I’ve spent a lifetime marveling in ice. Now, the cold makes me numb and tinges my skin blue. I ache for warmth, and the faint glow of the sun on my face feels like ecstasy.
I bite my lip, feeling newly blunt teeth against my skin. With a shuddering breath, I look down and see legs. Sickly pale things that are crossed awkwardly beneath me, dotted by bruises. Some in big patches, others like tiny fingerprints. And feet, too, with toes pink from the cold.
My fins are gone. My mother has damned me. I want to die.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
I drag my head from the railing to see a man staring down at me. A man who is also a prince, whose heart I once had within reach. He’s watching me with curious eyes, black hair still wet on the ends, dripping onto perfectly dry clothes.
Beside him is a man larger than any I’ve seen, with skin almost as black as the ship itself. He stands beside the prince, hand on the hilt of a long sword that hangs from a ribbon on his waistcoat. And two more: a brown-skinned girl with tattoos spread up her arms and on the sides of her cheeks, wearing large gold earrings and a suspicious glance. Standing defensively beside her is a sharp-jawed boy who taps his finger against a knife in his belt.
On the deck below, so many more glare up at me.
I saw their faces. Moments before the world went dark. Did the prince save me from drowning? The thought makes me furious. I open my mouth to tell hi
m that he had no right to touch me, or that he should have let me drown in the ocean I call home just to spite my mother. Just because she deserved it. Let my death be a lesson to her.
Instead I say,“You’re a good swimmer,” in my best Midasan.
“You’re not,” he retorts.
He looks amused and not at all frightened by the deadly creature before him. Which means that he’s either an idiot or he doesn’t know who I am. Possibly both, though I don’t think the prince would waste time binding me to a railing if he planned to kill me. I wonder how different my mother’s spell has made me appear for him not to recognize me.
I look at the others. They watch the prince expectantly. Waiting for his orders and his verdict. They want to know what he plans to do with me, and I can sense how anxious they are as my identity remains a mystery. They like strangers even less than I do, and staring into each of their grimy faces, I know they’ll toss me overboard if their prince commands it.
I look to the prince and try to find the right words in Midasan. What little I’ve spoken of the language tastes odd on my tongue, its vowels twisting together all too slowly. It tastes as it sounds, like warmth and gold. My voice isn’t my own when I speak it. My accent is far too sharp to loop the words, and so my tongue hisses on the strange letters.
Carefully, I say, “Do you always tie women to your ship?”
“Only the pretty ones.”
The tattooed girl rolls her eyes. “Prince Charming,” she says.
The prince laughs, and the sound of it makes me lick my lips. My mother wants him dead, but she wants me to do it as a human to prove my worth as future ruler of the sea. If I can just get close enough.
“Untie me,” I command.
“You should thank me before barking orders,” says the prince. “After all, I saved you and clothed you.”
I look down and realize that it’s true. A large black shirt scratches my legs, the damp fabric sticking to my new body.
“Where did you come from?” the prince asks.
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