22. Chapter Twenty-Two #2
Rat falls over the side and disappears without a sound. No struggle. No resistance. The splash follows a moment later as his body is swallowed by the dark waters below.
Only then does something inside me tear loose, the song stuttering and breaking apart as the world rushes back in all at once.
The feeling vanishes so abruptly that my body jerks forward, lungs collapsing in on themselves as if I’ve been struck in the chest. Air tears back into me in a sharp, broken gasp that burns all the way up. My knees give out.
The sudden silence crashes in, my ears ringing.
My chest spasms, breath coming too fast, too shallow, each inhale dry and rough.
I try to swallow and can’t. With slippery hands and knees on cold wood, I crawl toward the railing and pull myself up to lean over.
I search the surface for movement. All I find is the familiar roll of the sea, split by the wake of the Noctis.
Rat is gone.
The thought lands hard and hits me in the gut. Dizzying nausea washes over me, threatening vomit. My throat locks, tight and aching, as if the song still sits within it, desperate to be unleashed again. What follows is a bitter taste on my tongue. Wood and salt and remorse.
Someone is shouting my name. I recognize it only because the sound keeps repeating itself. Hands grab at the railing beside me and footsteps thunder across the deck.
This wasn’t meant to happen.
This wasn’t—
A sick heat floods my chest, rising fast, stealing more air from my lungs. I bend forward with a strangled sound, gagging, but nothing comes up. Power. Raw and undeniable power. It rises within me and floods my system until it settles into me with a terrible unease.
“No,” I whisper. The world around me barely exists. “No, no, no.”
He’s dead.
The sea kept his soul in sacrifice and gave me power in return.
The thought makes my stomach twist. I shouldn’t have let it come this far.
I could’ve screamed for help, could’ve used my canines.
Anything. Anything would be better than this.
I press my forehead against the rails, breathing hard and trying to ground myself, to anchor to anything that isn’t this feeling.
Oh, by the seas, I have made a mistake. One I cannot take back. Cannot come back from.
The siren inside me, however, is completely, utterly satisfied.
“Everyone back to your bloody cabins!” The roar in Sable’s voice cuts through me like a blunt blade.
The crew around me shuffles and murmurs, some arguing loudly.
What they are talking about, I do not hear.
But I don’t need to in order to know. He is dead.
Heavy footsteps draw near before a steady hand meets my shoulder.
“Risa,” he whispers, his voice distant, muffled, as though I am underwater. “Look at me.”
“Risa,” he repeats, and this time it is enough to wrench me back into my body. Into myself.
His grip on my shoulder tightens, but instead of restraining me, it grounds me. Tension runs through him, similar to mine. His gaze flicks past me, over my shoulder, tracking the last of the crew as they retreat below deck.
“All of you,” he says, not to me, but to them. “You too, Lark.”
There’s more shuffling. The hatch slams shut somewhere behind us, and finally, silence.
I cannot get myself to look at him. I look at his boots instead— his black, worn leather boots.
For a moment, I wish the deck would open beneath my feet and release me into the sea. I deserve it for what I have done.
“Look at me,” he says again, quieter this time.
I try, but my eyes won’t focus. The boards tilt beneath my feet, the aftermath of the song still echoing in my bones.
“I didn’t—” The words tangle and break apart again.
“I know,” he cuts in and crouches in front of me. “Breathe.”
Nodding, I try to breathe. I drag in air that tastes of salt and iron. As I glance down, there are red stains on my gown. Panic rises in me once again. I don’t remember hurting him before I made him toss himself over. And I am empty of wounds.
“It’s your nose.” He pulls out a piece of fabric from his coat and gently presses it under my nostrils, then holds it out for me to see. “Your blood. No one else’s.”
I swallow hard and nod slowly. Sable shifts closer, putting himself between the open deck and me. Finally, I draw a slow breath through my nose and look up at him. His eyes meet mine, darker than the water below us. He draws a slow breath through his nose. Lets it out just as carefully.
“I’ll handle this,” he says as his thumb gently presses into my shoulder. “But not here. Not now.”
I nod because speaking still feels impossible with the lump that has formed in my throat. He doesn’t wait for anything more. His hand slips from my shoulder and settles on the small of my back, and gently guides me away from the railing.
But my body is so weak.
My legs give out once again without warning. I barely have time to register that I’m falling.
Sable catches me.
His arm hooks around my back, the other sliding under my knees in one smooth motion.
I suck in a breath as the ground drops away, my weight shifting fully into his arms. The warmth of his skin against mine is comforting and confusing all at once.
I curl my fingers into the fabric at his shoulders, gripping as though in fear of being let go.
Beneath the quarterdeck, the air is much warmer.
He carries me down the corridor, past the holding cell.
When he opens the door to a cabin, light spills into the corridor before us.
Lanterns sway gently with the movement of the ship, their glow leaving no corner untouched.
He steps inside and nudges the door shut behind us with his foot, then carries me to the bed and lowers me onto it.
I know this room. It’s his cabin. His bed.
His hands linger on me for a little while longer before finally letting go, as if making sure I’m steady before he straightens.
For a moment, I just lie there, staring up at the low ceiling, my breath shallow and uneven.
I still feel as though I’m outside my own body, watching this unfold through someone else’s eyes.
The truth presses in from all sides, insistent.
I know I won’t be able to keep it out forever, that sooner or later I will have to lower my guard and face what I’ve done. But not here. Not now.
Sable sits on a stool at the side of the bed, watching me.
There’s a deep frown between his eyes. As I stare into them, relief settles low in my ribs, replacing the pressure that was there moments ago.
He looks worried, but his body is no longer tense.
When he reaches for a cloth beside the bed and lifts it toward my face, I flinch before I can stop myself.
He stills immediately.
“It’s alright,” he says in a low voice. “Let me get you cleaned up.”
I nod and let my eyes drift shut as the cool dampness of the cloth brushes my cheek, my nose.
His touch is gentle, as though he is cleaning a porcelain doll that will break if he isn’t careful enough.
I try to focus on that. On the simple fact that he’s here, despite what I’ve done.
That he didn’t make me into something I am not.
That he understands. When I open my eyes again, he’s still seated beside me, pressing the cloth against my blood-soaked skin with the utmost care.
“How do you feel?” he whispers and studies me with a quiet softness that I haven’t seen since we talked on that little beach.
I want to answer him honestly, but how do you tell someone that you feel like you’re drowning, even though you’re above water? The truth feels too tangled to put into words…too complicated.
“Like I lost,” I mumble eventually, a tear slipping from my eye. “Like I lost to the monster.”
Sable lowers the cloth, his brows drawing together slightly.
“I’ve never heard of a monster,” he begins quietly, “who cares about its actions the way you do, Risa. You show empathy, constantly, to people who treat you poorly. That’s a strength, not a weakness.
I would’ve thrown him overboard myself if I had the chance.
I would do it in the blink of an eye, if I saw him lay a hand on you. ”
I stare at him, trying to understand why his words affect me the way they do.
I know what I have done, and that I could do it again if I lost control.
That has always been enough to define me.
But the way he speaks of it forces me to look at myself from a different angle.
Until now, I have only measured myself by the harm I could cause, by the danger I carry beneath my skin.
And by what I am not. By the absence of my tail that has followed me my entire life.
But he speaks of me as if none of this is the whole truth.
As if the moments where I choose not to use what I am, where I hold back when it would be easier not to, matter just as much.
“I didn’t want to drown him,” I admit, squeezing my eyes tight as though to rid myself of the memory. “I just wanted him to stop.”
He pauses.
“I believe you.”
His words make my throat tighten, and more tears stream down my cheek. He lowers the cloth back into the bucket before cupping the side of my face with his hand.
“You are,” he says, brushing away the tears with his thumb, “not a monster. You’re a siren. A siren with song and teeth, who defended herself against a man who actually became what you’re so afraid of. A monster.”
My gaze drifts across his face, following the line of his brow down to his eyes. I expect him to look away, to break the tension. He doesn’t. Instead, he looks at me with an intensity that disarms me. The longer his eyes hold mine, the more the tightness in my chest begins to loosen.
“Thank you,” I whisper.
When his gaze drops to my mouth, my breath catches. He leans forward, just slightly. The shift is small, but I feel it like the pull of the current in calm water. He is so close that I can see the rise and fall of his breathing, feel the warmth of his body against mine.
I do not move toward him. But I do nothing to stop him either.
His thumb, still resting against my cheek, drifts lower until it brushes my bottom lip, and I fight the urge to open it for him. The warmth of his touch sends a shiver rippling over my body, and for a heartbeat, I think he might close the distance entirely.
Then he stops. Realization flickers through his eyes at the same time as it reaches mine. With something close to reluctance he lowers his hand.
“You should rest,” he says quietly.
I expect him to leave. But he doesn‘t.
Instead, his fingers wrap around mine, and he remains seated beside me. I look down at our hands, surprised by how natural it feels. His presence somehow anchors me, and slowly, my body settles back into itself, the tension draining until all that’s left is a heavy, bone-deep exhaustion.
I am so tired.
So deeply tired that the fear, the shame, the angst become distant. I shift on the mattress, my fingers tightening around his.
Through half-closed eyes, I catch the shape of his face in the lantern glow one last time. Storm-grey eyes are the last thing I see before falling into a dreamless sleep.