Elian stirs and lets out a low groan. His head lolls and his eyes flicker open. He blinks in his surroundings, and it only takes a few moments before he notices the restraints binding his hands. He tugs, a halfhearted attempt at escape, and then cranes his head toward me. From across the room, I see his elegant jaw sharpen.
“Lira?” His voice is as coarse as sand. He must see blood somewhere – it seems to be everywhere – because the next thing he asks is, “Where are you hurt?”
Again, I lick the crack in my lip where Tallis struck me.
The blood is warm and bitter.
“I’m not.” I angle my face away so he doesn’t see otherwise. “You bled all over me.”
Elian’s laugh is more of a scoff. “Charming as ever,” he says.
He takes in a long breath and closes his eyes for a moment. The pain in his head must be getting the best of him, but he tries to swallow it and appear the brave warrior. As though it would be an offense for me to see him as anything else.
“I’ll kill him for this,” Elian says.
“You should make sure he doesn’t kill us first.”
Elian tugs at the rope again, twisting his arm in the most bizarre angles in an attempt to slip the restraints. He moves like an eel, slippery and too quick for me to see what he’s doing from where I’m sitting.
“Enough,” I say, when I see the rope begin to redden his skin. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m trying,” Elian tells me. “Feel free to yank your own thumb out of its socket anytime now. Or better yet, how about you use that Psáriin to call some sirens here and let them kill us before Rycroft has a chance?”
I flick my chin up. “We wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t insisted on such a ridiculous plan.”
“I think getting my head smashed in may have affected my hearing.” Elian’s voice loses its usual musicality. “What did you just say?”
“You didn’t even realize he was tricking you,” I say. “And you walked right into his hands.”
Elian’s shoulders twitch. “He has the necklace, so whether I knew about his ambush or not, I still would have come. I’ve sacrificed too much to fall at the last hurdle.”
“As though you’ve ever had to sacrifice anything,” I shoot back, thinking of the kingdom I have hanging on the line. “You’re the prince of a kingdom that’s full of brightness and warmth.”
“And that kingdom is exactly what I’ve sacrificed!”
“What does that mean?”
Elian sighs. “It means that my deal with the princess was about more than just a map and a necklace.” His voice is rueful. “I promised she could rule alongside me if she gave me her help.”
My lips part as the weight of his words sink through the air. While I’m trying everything I can to steal my throne from my mother, Elian is busy bargaining his away for treasure.
Just like a pirate.
“Are you stupid?” The disbelief shoots like a bullet from my mouth.
“Finding the crystal could save lives,” Elian says. “And marrying a Págese princess wouldn’t exactly be bad for my country. If anything, it’ll be more than my father ever dreamed of me achieving. I’ll be a better king than he could have hoped for.”
Though the words should be overcome with pride, they are rough and bitter. Tinged in as much sadness as they are resentment.
I think about how much time I spent trying to make my mother proud. Enough that I forgot what it was like to feel content or anything I wasn’t ordered to feel. I let her gift me to a merman like I was nothing but flesh he could devour, all the while reasoning that it was something I had to do for my kingdom. And Elian has thrust that own perdition onto himself. To fulfill the burden of the world and the duty of his title, he’s willing to lose the parts of himself he treasures the most. The freedom and the adventure and the joy. Parts I barely remember having.
I look away, discomforted by how much of myself I see in his eyes.
Either way, you have to take his heart, I think to myself. What other choice is there?
“If the necklace is that precious,” I say,“we should have just killed Tallis to get it.”
“You can’t just kill everyone you don’t like.”
“I know that. Otherwise you’d be dead already.”
But it’s not true. It almost surprises me how untrue it is. Because I could have killed him – or at least tried – and fulfilled my mother’s orders a dozen times over.