I realize that I’m warm. It’s a new sensation, far from the tickle of ice I loved as a siren and the sharp frost I felt in my human toes aboard the Saad. I’ve shed Elian’s damp shirt, which clung and dried against me like a second skin. Now I have a ragged white dress, pinched at the waist by a belt as thick as either of my legs, and large black boots that threaten to swallow my new feet whole.
Madrid takes a step beside me. “Freedom’s in your grasp,” she says.
I throw her a disparaging look. “Freedom?”
“The cap planned to cut you loose once we arrived here, didn’t he?
No burn, no breach.”
I recognize the saying. It is a Kléftesis phrase from the kingdom of thieves – no harm, no problem – used by pirates who pillage passing ships and any land they dock on. If nobody is killed, the Kléftesis don’t believe a crime has been committed. Their pirates are true to their nature and pay no mind to noble missions and declarations of peace. They sail for gold and pleasure and the pain they cause when taking it. If Madrid is from Kléftes, then Elian chose his crew well. The worst of the worst to be his best.
“How trusting you are of your prince,” I say.
“He’s not my prince,” Madrid says. “He’s not any sort of prince on this ship.”
“That I can believe,” I tell her. “He wasn’t even civil when I offered help.”
“Let’s be straight,” Madrid says. “You’re only looking to help yourself.”
“Is there anyone alive who isn’t?”
“The captain.” Her voice holds a spark of admiration. “He wants to help the world.”
I laugh. The prince wants to help a doomed world. As long as my mother’s alive, war is all we will ever know. The best thing Elian can do for his safety is kill me and anyone else he can’t afford to trust. Instead he kept me prisoner. Suspicious enough to lock me away, but not brutal enough to take my life. He showed mercy, and whether it’s weakness or strength, it’s jarring all the same.
I watch Elian descending the ship, paying no mind to the shipwrecked girl he could easily abandon. He takes off in a run and jumps the last of the way, so that when his feet touch the tufts of grass, small droplets explode into the air like rainfall. He pulls his hat off and takes a sweeping bow at the land. Then he reaches up a tanned hand, ruffles the wisps of his raven hair, and slips the hat back onto his head in a flourish. He takes a moment, surveying the canvas, his hands hitched on his hips.
I can hear the exhale of his breath even from high on the deck of the Saad. His joy is like a gust of unfamiliar wind sweeping up to us. The crew smiles as they watch him stare into an ocean of grass and juniper and, in the distance, a wall made of light. A castle peeks out from the city lines like a mirage.
“He always does this,” Kolton Torik says.
His presence casts a shadow beside me, but for all the foreboding Elian’s first mate could bring, he’s nothing of the dire pirate he could be. His face is gentle and relaxed, hands shoved into the pockets of frayed shorts. When he speaks, his voice is deep but soft, like the echo after an explosion.
“Eidyllio is one of his favorites,” Torik explains.
I find it hard to believe the prince is a romantic. He seems as though he might find the notion as ridiculous as I do. I would know in an instant that Midas isn’t his favorite kingdom; men don’t make homes if they have them already. But my guess would have been ágrios, a nation of fearlessness. Or the warrior kingdom of Polemistés that I chose for my origin. Lands for soldiers on the precipice of war. Fighters and killers who see no use in pretending to be anything else.
I would not have guessed that the infamous siren hunter had humanity in him.
“It’s one of my favorites too,” Madrid says, inhaling the air. “They have streets of bakeries, with chocolate hearts oozing toffee on every corner. Even their cards smell sweet.”
“Why is it his favorite?” I point to Elian.
Kye arches an eyebrow. “Take a wild guess.”
“What else do you need in life when you have love?” Madrid asks.
Kye snorts. “Is that what the kids are calling it nowadays?”
Madrid swipes at him and when Kye sidesteps her blow, she narrows her eyes. “This is supposed to be the land of romance,” she tells him.
“Romance is for royals,” Kye says just as Torik throws an empty bag in the middle of their makeshift circle.
He has shed his shirt, and I see that his bare arms are covered in tattoo mosaics, not a single piece of skin spared from the patchwork quilt of color. On his shoulder a snake stares down. Yellow, teeth bared, hissing as his biceps flex.