Chapter 6
My feet pound against the hard ground, but my racing heart moves faster, causing me to stumble over fallen branches and overgrown thorny bushes. My knees hit the earth in a thud that rattles through my bones. The force of the fall and the weight of my circumstances crash into me at once.
There is nowhere to go, nowhere to run.
“It’s just a coincidence,” I lie to myself over and over as I try to catch my breath.
Maybe if I say it ten times, a hundred times, it will be true. But coincidence is just the gods’ way of remaining anonymous. Their handprints cover everything.
I’ve scoured text after text, questioned priest after priest. There are no stories of the sea beast, no fables or tales written or spoken of the creature that haunts my sleeping hours.
No sketches or drawings that depict the menacing jaws or razor-sharp scales that are so perfectly hewn onto the captain’s chest.
No, if Murphy knows about the sea serpent, it’s because he’s seen it too. And if he knows about that, what other knowledge does he have? As if on command, my magic streaks a burning path down my spine, the very place the beast touched me all those years ago.
What have I done to be so egregiously cursed? It’s not enough for the gods to simply force this magic upon me. No, they have to send me omens. Dark signs of certain death that are incredibly clear now in the light of this revelation.
In light of my connection to him.
Crazed, half-maniacal laughter echoes through the trees and it takes me several seconds to realize that it’s coming from me. My magic knew he was important before my mind could piece together the puzzle that seems idiotically obvious.
I see it all clearly now, the images from my nightmares replaying in a loop.
Water dripping from tendrils of onyx hair.
The Amethyst Throne burning.
A loud hoot startles me and I turn to find a large horned owl, the symbol of the King of the Gods himself, resting on a tree branch directly overhead.
“So it’s decided then?” I yell at the bird. “I’m just supposed to follow him to my death? Is that all I was made for?” My voice trails off as hot tears break loose from my eyes. “Did I ever have a choice?”
I openly weep into the forest floor, mourning the loss of a future I had only dared to dream of.
There is no question in my mind that the Dark God of Death waits for me in Amale. And the Captain of Corinth, a man whose shadow is rumored to be a reflection of the soul reaper himself, is his harbinger.
“Fine. Have it your way,” I boldly declare to the sigil of Nobus, wiping the tears from my cheeks, “but if I’m going to die, I’m going to take them all down with me.”
Captain Murphy looks up from the small fire he’s built in our makeshift camp. My eyes have to be red and puffy, but if he notices he doesn’t mention it. I have no doubt that he probably heard my wailing, but he doesn’t draw attention to my moment of weakness.
We wordlessly stare at each other across the fire until the loud hoot of an owl breaks the tension. It’s only then that I notice that Murphy still hasn’t found all of his clothes.
“Did something happen to your shirt, Captain?” I ask, unceremoniously dropping the few measly twigs I collected so that I didn’t return empty-handed.
“I didn’t want it to snag on the firewood I had to collect or to get wet while I caught dinner.” He motions to a large bass lying dead on the log beside him.
“If you think you’re going to sit there while I cook it for you,” I start.
“I don’t,” he interrupts. “I know how to cook, but you’re going to help me.”
“Help you?”
“Yes, princess. Help me.” Placing two large hands on his knees, the captain stands and starts towards me. “I saw you earlier. The problem is, I can’t tell if you were staring because you wanted to put a knife through me or if you wanted to—”
“Yes,” I quickly interject before he gets the wrong idea. “Fond of sharp things, remember?” I tap the dagger sheathed at my side for added effect.
“In that case…” He places the handle of his own dagger in my hand.
I examine the sharp point and look up to find him staring at me, eyes ablaze. “I’m hoping you’ll gut the fish instead, but it’s your choice.”
“You’re under the assumption that I want to stab you, and yet you willingly hand me a blade?” I ask incredulously.
“I’d have you on the ground faster than you could raise that blade. But like I said,” he says, palms raised, “I’m hoping you’ll gut the fish instead.”
“Awfully trusting of someone you barely know.” I sit down beside the flat rock that will be my cutting board. “Bring me the fish.”
Captain Murphy’s eyes take on that storm-cloud quality again, flashing briefly like lightning as he smirks. I’m hyper aware of his movements—every stride of his powerful legs, every flexed muscle across his obsidian tattoo, every still-wet strand of onyx hair.
He drops the fish atop the rock before moving to kneel behind me.
“What are you doing?” I ask a little breathlessly.
“Helping, princess. Unless you’re intimately familiar with gutting fish.”
His breath is hot against the column of my neck as he nearly whispers the words. The world around me spins and I nearly lose my balance in his orbit.
My throat is thick as I force out my reply. “Not …” I clear my throat, “intimately.”
“Hold it just above the throat.”
His scent envelopes me and I can hardly focus this close to him. Murphy smells like a mixture of salinity and worn leather. Like the old tomes in the small seaside cottage of my youth. My hand slides against the fish’s slippery skin as I try to follow his instructions.
“Take the tip of your knife and insert it here.” He grabs my wrist, directing the blade to the underside of the fish’s gill. At the slightest touch of his hand, my magic jumps. It skitters, erratic and frantic, echoing my thundering heartbeat.
Captain Murphy leans in closer, bracketing my body with his. His tattoo sears into my back like a brand, his exposed skin scorching the ink-covered scar across my spine.
I’ve never been able to put into words what it felt like when the sea beast touched me all those years ago, the electricity that sparked in my chest and lit up my bones. I’ve never felt anything close to it again … until now.
Wild magic courses through me. I’m wholly consumed by its allure, a deadly siren song tempting me to forget.
Forget that my magic must stay hidden.
Forget the foretelling of our deaths.
Murphy’s nose scrapes the shell of my ear, his body tense behind me. Every fiber of my being yearns to lean in closer to him and I’m close to giving in when I hear it.
Another distinctive hoot of an owl snaps me back into reality and forces me to remember.
Remember who I am.
Remember who he is.
Remember what this isn’t.
I jerk away from him, forgetting completely about the sharp blade still in my grasp that nicks my palm. Bright red blood bubbles up from the wound.
The captain is up and digging through his saddlebag before I can yell the curse currently on my lips.
What in the gods’ names possessed me just now? What was that feeling … and can I get more of it? It’s a traitorous thought and I banish it the moment it crosses my mind.
“Give me your hand,” he commands, dropping a small medical kit on the rock.
Before I can protest, he takes my bleeding hand in his and uncorks the canteen with his teeth.
Clear, cool water pours from the spout and my body drinks it up as if it can quench some unknown thirst rooted in the depths of my soul.
Invisible sparks fly from his every move, like flint striking against stone, and my power burns through me, bubbling up eagerly in response to his touch.
The bleeding stops almost as suddenly as it began, seeming to retreat inside my skin. Murphy slowly wipes what remains away and begins to wrap my hand with a clean cloth.
As he bandages, I study him with curiosity.
This feels like nothing and no one I have ever encountered before.
My eyes trace the lines of his tattoo, following the open maw of the beast from his neck and across the span of his chest. My eyes cut to his retracting pupils, gray once again coloring his gaze.
Alarm bells peal within me and I know for certain that I’m not the only person in this clearing with magic.
Murphy’s deft fingers tie off the edges of the bandage, but he doesn’t drop my hand. His eyes linger on the crescent-shaped birthmark at the base of my wrist before his thumb lightly, purposefully traces it. Unknown magic shoots up my arm, stealing my breath as I struggle to contain it.
The last light of day fades into twilight with the sunset. He lifts his face towards mine and time itself pauses. Black flashes briefly in his eyes again before my racing heart begins to slow, the frenzied blood in my veins calming.
“Can I tell you a story, princess?” Murphy’s voice is low and soothing. The way one speaks to a spooked animal.
My head involuntarily moves in a single nod urging him to continue.
“When I was a young boy, I used to have terrible nightmares. My mother would tell me a story to soothe me. A tale about a people, the aevus, who could wield magic.”
Every muscle in my body pulls taut, like a rope seconds before it snaps. I should act surprised, terrified of something that should not exist in this world— something that should not exist in me. But the look in his eyes tells me that he would see through the lie.
“The magic was elemental in nature,” he continues. “The aevus could control the earth, the air, the water, and even fire. Some say they were descended from the gods; others said they were gods walking amongst the mortals. Either way, the aevus were said to have a mark.”
Murphy watches me intently, the veins in his neck bulging slightly as if he too is struggling to maintain control in this precarious moment.
His eyes never leave mine as his thumb trails over my birthmark again. The tiny crescent shape on the inside of my wrist.
The same shape my mother had sketched in the worn leather journal I found on my bed when we returned from the shore without her. The book, filled with cryptic information scrawled in her handwriting, gave a name to the foreign power that had invaded my veins and led to more questions than answers.
Murphy’s face gives no clues to his thoughts. No indication that he’s planning to verbalize our shared secret. Every part of me is silently screaming at him, demanding a confession.
A flash of lightning illuminates the now darkened clearing. The hairs on my arms raise in response to the electric tingle that races across my skin.
Still, Captain Murphy holds my hand in his. The moment is thick and palpable, balanced on a knife’s edge. He opens his mouth to speak, his lips moving slightly at the same moment that thunder booms through the clearing and drowns out his words.
The sky opens up, the deluge of rain, sudden and drowning, washing away his certain admission. The timing of the gods is truly unmatched.
There are so many things that I want to say.
So many questions I want to ask and yet can’t bring myself to voice them now.
The gray of his eyes mimics the nimbus clouds rolling overhead and I fight to stay out of their tornadic pull.
One more moment in his hold and I will be pulled under, like prey for the beast inked across his chest.
I can’t let that happen. I have two weeks to convince Murphy to show me the man behind the persona. The aevus behind the captain, the weakness I can exploit. And I need to keep my wits about me if I have any hope of surviving that long.
So, instead, I slip back into the indifferent character of the poisonous heir, yanking my hand out of his before marching into the tent and away from the storm that brews beyond its canvas flaps.