5. Maren
5
Maren
K ye watched as I measured the sky and landscape with the curve of my open hand, leading east then south. I called to the moisture in the air, following an invisible tug to freshwater. Pond, lake, stream—it didn’t matter. Anything brackish and active, without the salty tinge of the ocean at our sides.
Even as the view of the shoreline dwindled, we halted whenever a cloud passed overhead and cast us in shadow. As though we both expected to find a tall ship looming behind our backs, blotting out the sun. Sometimes, the sight of the sea peeled Kye’s lips from his teeth, the sharp metallic scent of a forge drifting in the wind.
I watched, coaxing the worry that flickered inside me whenever he gazed at the open water, looking for ships we both knew he wouldn’t find. I recognized the slow burn of loathing—the creeping venom that festered deep in my own veins. Studying him, I wondered if it was possible he hated Kriska as much as he hated Thaan. As much as I hated them.
Kye boiled water in a single tin cup we’d found. Building our fire, foraging for driftwood, breaking down camp the following morning. I waited for him to become thoroughly distracted, then slipped into the ponds and creeks to hunt for fish, hiding my transition in the corners of dark alcoves.
The moon came and went, a little thicker each time. Five days slid by.
“What are you doing?” he asked curiously, watching as I buried fish bones into the soil of a cave we’d slept in. A habit from my youth.
“Hiding our presence here,” I responded, though it was only half true.
There was too much of the old Maren in me, brought out by wilderness and the lack of castle walls, to not play Steward to the Land.
To create life. To preserve it. And, when it had ended, to give it back to the soil.
Fraught with restlessness, Kye sank to one knee, sweeping damp gravel back over the piscine grave with the back of his hand. His knuckles brushed mine, sending a tingling warmth into my veins. The ghost of a smile drifted over his mouth. Then he pushed to his feet, heading out of the cave to meet the sun.
A thought occurred to me as I followed him.
“We don’t have money for horses.”
“I have some fraggs in my pocket. And these.” He lifted his hand, wiggling his fingers lazily at me.
My brows rose at the rings he wore. “I’m surprised the pirates never took them from you. You weren’t wearing any the day you came to Cynthus to meet us.”
I recognized all three of them. Two usually graced his right hand. A gold band around his narrow thumb and a masculine silver-wrought circlet on his middle finger, inlaid with a heavy sapphire.
The third was his wedding ring. A larger version of what mine had been before Burian had taken it. My heart gave a small twist as I realized I might’ve been able to steal it back from his body, had I been thinking.
But I’d sent it to the bottom of the sea instead.
Kye inspected the rings. “I stored them in my pocket before we went to the beach. Except for my wedding ring. I kept that on until they dragged me onto the ship, then I managed to sneak it into my pocket as well. This one I don’t care if I have to sell,” he said, pointing to the golden band, “but the sapphire belonged to my mother.”
He didn’t mention his wedding band, though it was the one we both stared at.
“You weren’t wearing them in Leihani,” I finally said.
“No. I didn’t think I’d make it back from Leihani.”
My eyes flicked to his. “You didn’t?”
His mouth parted slightly, surprise blooming in his eyes at his own words.
I frowned. “What do you mean, you didn’t think you’d make it back?”
He muttered a curse to Aalto and pocketed the rings, leaving me standing alone on the rocks.
“Kye.”
He didn’t answer. Feet carving long strides over the cliff line, I watched the light bounce off his shoulders as he stalked away.
I hurried to catch up. Had he planned to stay on the island?
No—that didn’t make sense. If he’d left home with the intention of living in Leihani, why wouldn’t he have taken his rings with him? They were obviously important to him.
Besides, he’d made attempts to sail home while on the island. He’d approached ship captains, and when they refused him passage without payment, he’d taken to fishing on the boats to afford passage. He’d written a letter, knowing the Navy would come for him.
Unwittingly, my mind flashed to the day we’d met. He’d fallen into the water a mere arm’s reach from the beach and let himself sink into the drop off.
I’d assumed he’d been tired. Too exhausted to swim.
How did you row from Calder to here?
Where is here?
Leihani.
The fishing islands?
I reached for him, halting his progress with a hand around his arm. My eyes scored into his, asking a question I couldn’t even begin to form into spoken words, my heart thick in my throat. Kye reluctantly met my gaze before darting his own away, as though it burned to look at me.
“Why, then?” I asked softly. “Why did you come to Leihani?”
I’d asked him numerous times while we’d still been on the island. He’d always skillfully evaded the question.
“Drop it,” he said, his voice lost against the wind.
I swallowed, reeling. Hand over my stomach, I blinked at him, unable to close my moon-forsaken mouth.
Are you alright?
Am I dead?
No. You're alive.
Is this the afterworld?
You’re alive—
My mother—
Do you think you can sit higher?
I saw my mother in the water.
Can you stand?
My mother—
His sobs echoed from the corners of my mind. Cold air burned my throat, and I drank it into my lungs as icy wind cut the moisture from my eyes, leaving me to blink the dryness away. At least that’s what I told myself as I waited for a response.
Kye sighed through his nose, gently peeling my hand from his arm, though he didn’t immediately release me. He frowned as though mystified by my reaction, his eyes finding tracks to follow in the lines of my face. His mouth opened, and I waited, absorbed in whatever explanation followed. Hopeful that it wasn’t what I thought it was.
“We’re losing daylight,” he said, tucking an errant strand of hair behind my ear. Then he began walking again.
I closed my eyes, a ghost in the hillside breeze.
He’d seen his mother in the water. She’d come to guide him to Perpetuum. And I’d pulled him out of her grasp, back to the land of the living.