2. Maren
2
Maren
I n the damp, barren coastline of Rivea, I studied the arrow in Kye’s shoulder.
I could’ve curled up and gone back to sleep on the hard rock. But I knew he’d been up for three days now. He needed sleep, even if he said he didn’t. The curve of his brow, swollen from Burian’s blows, had begun to shrink, but his eyes remained puffy with fatigue. I cringed, wondering what I must look like, and quickly stuffed the thought away.
“What do we have?” I asked, pointing to the leather pack Kye had stolen from the berth before our escape. He’d already upended it in the hours I’d slept, and a small trove of seaman’s treasures lay in a pile near the fire.
“Not much.” Kye let his back fall heavily against the rock as he watched me. Most of the items were clothes, dirty and ragged. I wrinkled my nose at the scent of them. But a few other precious goods had found their way to shore with us. A rolled-up fishing line and hook. A dented piece of flint. A corked bottle, almost empty. And a larger assortment of knives than I’d have guessed.
“All of this was in the pack?”
“I found some of it on the floor of the dinghy. That’s—”
I coughed, having uncorked the bottle for a drink and finding choking fumes instead of water.
“Fire-in-a-bottle.” The corner of Kye’s mouth lifted, amusement dancing in his gaze. “The pirates threw them at us as I rowed away.”
“Fire-in-a-bottle,” I repeated, glancing back at the glass structure in my hand. A swatch of fabric floated inside.
“They insert a cloth rope for a wick and light the end before they toss it. The alcohol inside explodes on impact. You don’t want to drink it.”
I don’t think I could have even if I did. “What have you been drinking for three days, then?”
“I don’t—” He licked his lips. “I haven’t been.”
I glanced sharply at him. Mihauna , no wonder he seemed so tired.
His small smile flickered. “I didn’t want to leave you to find any. Besides, I have nothing to boil water. And the sea isn’t safe to drink.”
I nodded slowly, eyes drifting out over the rocks to the cliff line below. I wondered if I might find a pot or pan abandoned under the waves.
“How far are we from the pirates’ sunken ship?”
He sighed through his nose. “Two hours, maybe. But what that amounts to in distance, I’m not sure.”
“Did they see where we landed?” I asked, sending my vision over the distant water.
“The pirates?” Kye nodded towards the corner of our little hide-out, indicating the direction he’d come from, his long legs already taking strides.
I hurried to follow. “Yes. Did they?”
“I don’t think so. They fought in their dinghy as I rowed away.”
“They fought?”
“Argued amongst each other. I imagine they were split between following us onto the cliffs and finding a place to wait and ambush us.”
My thoughts slowed. Waking up here, I’d thought we’d lost the pirates. The idea that they might be waiting somewhere for us sent a small chill down my spine. “Where’s our dinghy now?”
“I sank it.”
I nodded, my exhale soft. I hadn’t wanted to keep it, of course. If he’d insisted on using it, I’d have refused. I didn’t want to set foot on another boat again, no matter how small.
I corked the glass bottle. “You should sleep. When the sun is up and I have light, I’ll get that arrow out.”
Kye’s jaw hovered open, a thought lingering on his tongue. But he closed his mouth instead, settling his weight into the flattest part of the rock where I’d slept. “Wake me if you hear anything.” He closed his eyes. “Anything at all.”
A minute later, soft snores met my ears.
Arms around my knees, I studied him. There was little else to do, with the world so black around me. He lay on his side, knees lazily bent, his head resting in the nook of his own elbow, the arrow hanging from his back. The sea had washed away any blood, but his face remained bruised, a cut under his eye likely to scar. Torn skin covered the knuckles of his right hand, rough and raw.
We’d escaped. We’d made it to land. To Rivea, the kingdom promising Calder a war. But we were alive. Hardly able to believe it, I let the thought harden into a lump in my throat. After two weeks of believing I’d be sold to some unknown bidder, hope trickled through me, foreign and startling. Soothing—but almost too soothing. Wispy.
It didn’t embed into my skin the way worry had gnawed at me the past fortnight. Instead, hope was light and fleeting. Like trying to catch a breeze with only my fingertips. Flighty and thin, barely there. And like wind, fickle enough to blow away, leaving me surrounded by only hollow air.
Hope wasn’t strong enough to count on. I’d always leaned on other assurances for that. Things like resentment. Spite.
Anger.
Pulling my legs closer, I glanced back at the water. Waves met the rock below, climbing the cliffs and falling away. It would’ve been too easy to dive in and search, though I’m not sure how long it would take, or if I’d even find the sunken ship at all. The question of finding sunken tools didn’t matter anyway. Not while Kye was asleep.
He hadn’t left me, even to care for himself. I wouldn’t leave him.
The narrow corners of the ship’s cabin where we'd been chained suddenly blazed into my imagination, sweeping a rash of unexpected heat over my skin, a tightness in my lungs. I froze. And hushed the sudden fervor of my heart. Jagged rock cut into the pads of my fingers. A gust of sea spray unfurled on my tongue. I struggled to catch my breath, leaning into the rock.
Wooden walls rose around me, locking me in. My eyes found the door, but my arms remained fixed to the wall. Shackles held my arms in place. Feet dragged over the floor above me, so slow I was sure I’d begun to suffocate. I tracked the sound as it descended the stairs. Thump. Thump. Thump.
They stopped outside the wooden door, and the little window slid open, but only darkness peered through the hole at me.
Then the floor began to lift, the ceiling began to lower. The walls leaned in. My breath left my body as the room shrank with me still inside it, just as the door cracked open. Its hinges squealed as it swung its arc inch by inch, and I twisted myself to the side, trying to escape.
Chains rattled. Metal groaned. Walls closed in. The door hovered open, pitch black on the other side, shadows stretching across the floor, reaching for my feet. I tried to scream. Opened my mouth and—
“Leihani?”
Flecks of sea mist coated the clammy skin of my forehead, wind licking it cool. Metal and wood clattered together in my head, sending a shudder through my bones. Across from me, Kye watched in quiet thought, and I wondered if I’d made a noise that woke him.
I shook the echo of rattling chains and snapping boards from my mind. “I’m fine. Sleep.”