Chapter 34
Grit fills my throat, my tongue a lead weight in my mouth. I curl my aching hands into fists, and fabric squeezes around my fingers, pinching my palm.
I blink my eyes open and hold a hand out in front of my face.
The rhodium gloves. A thick haze clouds my vision, but it clears enough to make out the narrow mattress beneath me.
The wooden walls of the captain’s quarter surround me, and bruised evening light filters through a gap in the drawn curtains.
“I told you not to do anything reckless.”
Kressa sits in the armchair in the corner of the room, her chin propped on her hand. Her legs are sprawled out in front of her, as if she’s relaxed. At ease. But I catch the deep-set purple rimming her eyes. The lack of sleep.
A chill runs down my spine. The last thing I remember is Inez hitting the deck, tumbling onto the wood—limp. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My throat is too raw, too hoarse—the lining like sandpaper.
“If you’re wondering how long you’ve been out, it’s been three days. If you’re going to ask if Inez is okay, she’s perfectly fine. The women from the safe house are helping her and Nicole recover belowdeck.”
I sigh out a breath. When I dove into my power, I knew I may not come back up. But Inez is okay, and that’s all that matters.
Kressa stands and strides across the room, like she’s traced that path dozens of times over the last three days. There’s a heaviness to her, as if there’s an invisible weight strung across her shoulders. One that didn’t exist when my hands were free from the rhodium.
Shifting, I slip off a glove. If my voice won’t cooperate, my thoughts will.
The moment the fabric falls from my right hand, I taste her on my tongue.
Are you hurt? I say into her mind.
She sucks in her bottom lip. Nothing quite so visible.
An ache spreads across my chest as she pauses in her steps and turns toward me. In three, easy strides, she closes the space between us.
I study her. If you’re in pain, we can fix it. I can help you.
She stops at the side of the mattress and lowers to her knees.
Lifting the glove from the quilt, she slides it back onto my hand.
“The only thing you need to worry about is regaining your strength. We’re about to dock on the outskirts of Ignata, and there’s no telling what we’ll return to.
” Her gaze falls to the edge of the bed.
“Inez said she has no idea where the emerald is.”
I stiffen. After the attack, there’s no telling if the emerald has remained lodged in the crevice I shoved it into. Before we dock, I have to find it.
She lifts her gaze back to me, but I can’t meet it. After everything, I still can’t give it to her. Regardless of how she’ll try to spare my life, Isolde’s warning haunts my thoughts. I have to search for my compass before I can consider trusting Kressa again.
“I’m going to speak to my father the moment we return to the castle,” she whispers.
There’s a dullness to her eyes—the honeyed gold not nearly as vibrant as it usually is.
“He won’t be happy with me coming back empty-handed, but I’ll do everything in my power.
And, well...” Her voice trails off, and she lifts a hand, brushing my hair off my temple.
“What you did last night—the way you used your power against those Sky Court ships. That was unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed.
I spent so many years hating the idea of you, or being overcome with jealousy at how people talked of your strength and bravery. But now I understand.”
I study her eyes and the way they seem to regain color the closer she is to me. A warmth radiates in my chest, and the tether around my sternum urges me toward her. Something within me begs to mend the rift between us—recover the trust we’ve lost. To make myself a home in her.
But there’s too much at stake. Too many people who will get hurt if I make the wrong decision.
I drag my finger across her cheekbone, giving in to one selfish act.
She wraps her palm over mine and leans into my touch. “Briar.” Her gaze meets mine, flecks of honey brown swimming in her irises. “I can’t bear a life without you.”
I stop breathing.
Despite the betrayal—despite the hurt and anger and pain we’ve put each other through in the last few weeks, I scrounge up my energy and whisper, “It’s a life I don’t want to imagine.”
She holds my gaze, her face only an inch away from mine. I may not know her true nature, or if her intentions are genuine, but there’s an undeniable feeling in my chest that I’ve known her in every lifetime.
Like we were cut from the same star. We met the day the sea first kissed the land.
But perhaps that’s the problem. Maybe we’re each other’s ruin—over and over and over again.
A knock sounds at the door, and she rises to her feet as it cracks open. Thea peers in, and she sighs, entering the room with a plate of food.
“Thank goodness you’re awake. I brought some food, but do you need anything else? Water?”
“We’ll be docking within the hour,” Kressa says, stepping aside as she shoves her hands into her pockets. She turns her back to me and strides toward the chair she was occupying when I woke up.
My gaze darts to Thea, and I lift my hands, signing, “I need to get to my room before we leave the ship.”
Her eyes widen. “Why?”
“I’ll tell you once we’re there.”
“We’ll have to get you back in the cuffs,” Kressa says. “Once we get off the ship.”
My heart lurches in my throat, and Thea drops her hands as Kressa faces us. I press a mask over my face and pull in a deep breath, calming my pulse.
Thea nods, her face stone as she tilts her chin at me. “The women from the safe house have been asking about you. Do you want to come see them?” She holds out a hand.
I swing my legs over the edge of the bed and accept her hand. “After what happened to Rita, it’s the least I could do.” A rasp still coats my voice, but with every moment that goes by, it becomes more bearable.
Kressa steps closer. “Absolutely not. She’s still recovering. If she falls down those stairs or faints on the deck, it’ll take her even more time to recover.”
I flash her a bright smile. “Care about my wellbeing now, do you?”
She presses her tongue into her cheek and shakes her head. “Fine, but no transporting. And take it slow.”
I catch a slight dusting of pink spreading over Kressa’s cheekbones, but she waves us off and turns to the desk—studying the map hanging on the wall.
Thea leads me out of the quarters, and I shield my eyes against the setting sun. The sails bend with a soft breeze, and Elayne and Celia tilt their chins to me as we stride toward the stairs.
“Between you and me,” Thea says, leaning closer, “Kressa never would have made it anywhere relying on Julian and Nicole to sail the ship. Thank the fates you brought the three of us along, or you’d be sitting somewhere in the middle of the ocean.”
I smirk, trying to hide the way every sound that enters my ears is like a blade to the skull. After digging into the dregs of my power, I’m lucky I’m still standing.
We lower onto the first step, and the overhang shields us from the sun—a small respite to the warmth.
Thea leans closer. “Why do you need to go into your room? There’s nothing in there but debris from the wyvern attack.”
Voices sound from farther down the hall, and we bank left at the bottom of the stairs.
My chest tightens. At the far end, sunlight spears through a round hole in the wall.
Large enough to do damage, but small enough not to sink the ship.
I turn, following the path the cannonball took, and find a twin hole on the opposite side.
Where it killed Rita.
I swallow, pressing it out of my mind for now. I spent last night recovering in Kressa’s bed, but come the day I’m on my own ship, I’ll sleep on the deck just for Rita.
“I’m worried about telling you,” I say, forcing myself down the hall to my room. The door hangs open, and I step over the splintered and charred wood.
Thea follows me in. “Why?”
I kneel beneath the hammock and drag my fingertips over the gaps in the planks, searching for the crevice I shoved it into. “Because if you know what I have, and Elias gets a glimpse into your mind, we’ll all be killed.”
She freezes in the center of the room. My hand passes over the hiding spot, and my breath catches. I force my fingers into an open knot in the wood, and they wrap around the small bundle of rhodium.
Without pulling it free, I glance over my shoulder at Thea. “Do you still want to know?”
Light falls through the hole in the ceiling, and clouds pass by far overhead. A pit opens in my stomach—one that makes me doubt the decision to tell her anything. But I have to give her a choice.
“What kind of question is that?” Her eyes harden. “Of course I want to know.”
Smirking, I pull the emerald from the gap and fold it into my palm. Maneuvering myself out from under the hammock, I rise to my full height and hold out my closed fist.
“Isolde gave this to me.” I unfurl my hand, and the fabric falls open, revealing the emerald.
Thea gasps and lurches closer—the green reflecting in her eyes as she studies it. She furrows her brow. “Why aren’t you giving it to Kressa? Say you can return the emerald if she releases us all?”
“I considered it.” I rewrap the emerald and shove it deep into my pocket.
“But Isolde said she took it because Kressa had too much power. Between wielding fire and earth, and having my compass in her possession, I—I don’t know what her true intentions are.
Isolde seems to think she’s power hungry and plans to take all the courts for herself. ”
“You don’t have to convince me.” She eyes my pocket. “I have hope that’s not what Kressa is planning, but I don’t trust her. I trust you, and I trust the crew.”
“Likewise.”
“I’ll make sure to keep rhodium on my hands one way or another. Elias won’t get anywhere near my mind, and the secret is safe with me. The less of us who know, the better.”
I nod. “And I’ll find the compass before Isolde arrives.” My heart expands in my chest, beating steadily for what feels like the first time in years. “Then we can leave and find The Twelfth Night.”
Thea’s eyes brighten, and she weaves her arm around mine. “And in the meantime, let’s get you some food. One of the women from the safe house is a phenomenal cook, and we have some time before the anchor drops.”
She leads me out of the room, toward the kitchen, and I study her out of my periphery. The sea glass beads that punctuate her braids. The pinprick scar I gave her when we were children. The way her very expressions mirror my own.
The connection we have is nothing like the one I share with Kressa, nor the one she shares with Celia. But in every way, in every lifetime, we’ve been together, too.