Chapter 20 Malia
CHAPTER TWENTY
MALIA
“Sereth,” I pleaded quietly. “Please… We can end this peacefully.”
“Peacefully? Our lives were only ever anything but peaceful.” Sereth laughed, her flowery scent filling the air. “Once you’re dead, my guards will take care of the rest.”
“Sereth, let her go,” Elias commanded, his hand firm on his sword, but my stepsister laughed like a madwoman.
“My dear husband, when have I ever listened to you? You are as much a coward as she is!”
“You’ve lied about everything,” Alaric said and stepped forward. As if warning him to stop, Sereth pressed the dagger deeper into my neck. I cried and he looked like he was going to go crazy because he could not help me.
“Since you’re all here, you might as well know the truth before she dies,” Sereth said. And she leaned her temple against mine so our faces were side by side. “Don’t you ever wonder why mother couldn’t stand you?”
“Because I couldn’t see,” I said feebly.
Sereth grinned. “Oh that wasn’t the only reason, sister dear. She couldn’t stand you because you weren’t actually her daughter.”
My head reeled. What was she talking about?
“You were an orphan dropped at her doorstep, the daughter of a vile whaler and probably some woman on the streets. The queen couldn’t have her own children so she took you in as her own. But when you had problems with your sight, she loathed you even more.”
A lump formed in my throat.
“How?”
“I read her journal after she died, and the royal family records confirmed that you were, indeed, an orphan.”
I gaped, speechless.
“She didn’t care for you Malia, and it helped when you decided to disappear. She didn’t even mourn the full month for you. The black flags flew for four days, and then everyone forgot about you.” Her words cut into me as she said, “You’re a nobody, Malia. Always will be.”
Elias looked confused, while Alaric’s eyes never left me, his knuckles white on the hilt of his borrowed dagger.
A nobody.
I blinked and more tears fell. Sereth was right. Who had ever cared for me? Who had ever seen any worth in me? I looked at the sea, the sunlight sparkling on the water, like glitter dancing on the waves.
“Malia.” Alaric’s voice was firm, in control, like he always was, but when I looked at him again, I only saw tenderness, as if he were begging me, pleading with me to be able to hear some unspoken words he said.
I love you.
You are the most important person in the world to me.
To Sereth, I was a nobody, which was why she found me easy to bully, to push around.
I was a nobody to my mother because I was never hers, and she probably despised me even more for it.
And, perhaps, to others I’d met in my flight from home, I was a nobody, a reclusive witch with scars and a dark past.
But I mattered to Alaric.
And I mattered to Akua.
I returned my gaze to the sea, feeling a swell of compassion and light in my soul.
I have worth, I thought. Akua saved me for a reason, and maybe that reason was to meet Alaric and finally discover that worth.
As if in response, something moved towards the ship.
It was so silent and sudden, when it breached the surface between the ships, Sereth screamed.
Water from the whale’s massive body sprayed the area, but it was nothing compared to the giant splash that poured onto the deck, and the rocking of the boat.
It was enough for Sereth to lose her grip on me, and I took the opportunity to distance myself from her. As everyone tried to get their bearings, Alaric was already at the helm. But he didn’t stop to help me. He grabbed Sereth and put his knife to her throat.
And just like that, the tides turned.
“Put down your weapons or she dies!” Elias exclaimed and her guards and sailors immediately dropped their weapons.
“I should just kill you,” I heard Alaric say. He was seething, but I spoke up.
“Alaric, no!” When he met my eyes, it was almost as if we were going back in time, to the night the assassin came to my cottage. The whaler looked from Sereth to me, a brief second of hesitation, a chance to choose cruelty or compassion.
For a beat, I stopped breathing. I knew he had changed… he had become gentler, kinder.
And then his expression softened when he met my gaze. I let out a breath as he eagerly gave the wicked queen to the prince’s guards.
As soon as Elias’s guards took Sereth, Alaric was at my side, undoing the chains quickly, his breaths heavy and his fingers trembling.
“Malia.” When the chains dropped, I wrapped my arms around him. His hands found me, clasping my sides and then we were kissing. Hard. Desperate. Sure. He was soaking wet, and he tasted like the sea.
I couldn’t believe we’d survived. We held each other for, what felt like, not long enough. It would never be long enough.
“Look!” Lilo’s voice sounded and everyone moved to the edge of the ship. The whale had circled around before moving back out to sea. As Alaric and I looked overboard, the whale turned its body so its eye gazed up at us.
My whole body stilled as peace enveloped me, like I was being hugged by something even greater than the whale. I smiled and nodded to it.
The moment was so surreal, so peaceful. I’d never seen a whale this close and it looked like it had the wisdom and kindness of a hundred years in its eye.
The whale turned its body and headed back towards sea, the white tail the last we saw of it.
“That one saved me,” Alaric said reverently.
“It saved us all.” I smiled and felt his hand wrap around my waist, pulling me closer to him.
“You came for me,” I whispered. Alaric kissed my temple.
“There’s only one person I’m ever hunting for the rest of my life.” My cheeks warmed as he rubbed my arm gently.
“Maybe you don’t need to hunt her, because she already belongs to you.”
Alaric smiled, relaxing for the first time since I’d seen him. He kissed my temple again, then my cheek, then my jaw. I smiled with relief. “You’re right,” he said. “You are mine.”