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 him 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.