32. Chapter Thirty-Two #2
“Why can you not return?” I ask softly, and the question hangs heavy between us the moment it leaves my mouth.
Silence follows. For a long time, he doesn’t answer at all, his pinky retreating, the subtle touch gone.
“It feels like dying,” he eventually says, his voice fragile and broken.
“Returning doesn’t feel like coming home, it feels like death.
It wasn’t painful in the beginning, but it has become almost unbearable now.
That’s the way of the sea to enforce its curse.
So I stay away longer. Not even the light forces me back these days. ”
Seeing him like this makes my heart ache. I find no words that could comprehend the pain. I can’t ask him to return to Sable’s body now, cause him to suffer like that.
“Come. I’ll show you something.”
He‘s suddenly above me, his hand reaching out for me to take. I place my hand in his without hesitation and let his light fingers wrap around mine. Tiny shadows curl like smoke around them and spiral lower until it reaches my elbow, leaving behind a sensation on my skin that feels like a breeze.
Sable’s shadow pulls me up and retreats his hand from mine, then places it at the small of my back. The same gentle gesture that he always does.
“I should’ve known it was you,” I sigh.
“Aye,” he replies, a smile tugging at his lips. “You should’ve.”
He walks me to the forward ladder leading into the orlop, then towards the back of the ship. At the end of it, we use the ladder to get into the galley, then slip past the wooden table and climb the narrow ladder tucked against the back wall, emerging into the hallway in the quarterdeck.
“Where are we going?” I ask him in a low voice as I follow him down the empty corridor.
“My cabin,” he replies as he reaches the door and turns the knob, then keeps the door open for me to pass through.
Once inside, he walks towards the working desk in long strides and takes one of the leather-wrapped notebooks. I knit my brows together as I close the door behind me carefully, not wanting to alert anyone to our being here, and follow him to the desk.
“Here,” He holds the notebook out for me to grab. “I know you can’t read, but you’ll be able to understand anyway. You’re pretty smart.”
I meet his eyes for a brief moment and then take it from his hands.
The leather string comes loose easily beneath my fingers, and when I open the cover, the pages inside reveal lines of careful black ink.
The handwriting is neat at first, but as I reach the end, it turns messy and looks rushed, as if the person who wrote them was running out of time.
“They’re my journals,” he explains.
I turn the pages slowly, even though the words themselves mean nothing to me.
Yet I can tell that he wrote a lot, and I can also tell that he wrote about me.
I recognize the letters of my name, as my mother taught me to write it in the sand when I was little.
As I flip to the next page, Sable’s shadow leans closer.
“A girl boarded the ship tonight,” Sable reads. “She was escaping hunters.”
My breath catches. This was from the night I boarded the ship. Even though I can’t remember how I ended up on the ship, I remember him telling me he saw me do it. The shadow’s finger traces further down the page.
“She claims she is not a siren, but I know she is lying.”
A smile tugs at my lips at the memory. He knew what I was from the very first meeting.
“Siren.”
A row of question marks trails after it. The next page is completely messy, with many words being stretched out, and notes added between the lines.
“Shadow gone.”
“What did I fucking do to her in the hold?”
He told me he can’t really remember what he does when his shadow is gone.
But the way he writes about it now makes my chest tighten.
In the crow’s nest, a few days after the incident in the hold, he told me that he wasn’t himself that day, and I remember it sounding like a confession. It all makes sense now.
“My shadow gifted her a dress. At least I do not remember giving her one. It gets worse.”
“She looks beautiful in it. She is beautiful.”
At the compliment, I lift my gaze from the journal to his face. Our eyes meet, and I find myself smiling at him, something warm and quiet settling in my chest. I can’t believe he has thought this way about me all this time, that he never truly saw me as a threat or someone he despises.
Sable’s shadow lowers his head again, his attention returning to the journal.
“Remember: She helped us through the intermaria,” he continues to read for me.
“I will hold the tribunal when the sun is the highest. Hopefully the shadows of the crew will be there.”
By the seas. Even that decision was made to protect me. He knew the crew would be less likely to vote against me if their shadows were there.
“My shadow jumped after her before I could.”
At the memory of almost drowning, a shiver runs down my spine. I remember how he looked at me right before he jumped, how his eyes darkened, and how an invisible force pushed me upward, toward the surface, toward Sable. My breath catches. It was him. Always him.
The shadow turns another page, continuing to read out loud.
“We arrived back home. Cailia seems to like Eryse. She said we have to sail to the Sea of the First Song.”
I almost laugh at that. It didn’t feel like she liked me from the very start, always calling me Siren instead of my actual name, but she began to loosen up when the sea told her that Sable’s fate and mine are somehow intertwined.
“Beginning or the end. I hope she’s my beginning.”
Sable’s shadow takes a deep breath, and my heart pumps blood so fast that it rushes in my ear. Before I can say something, he continues.
“We spoke on the beach. She told me about her father, who was executed for piracy. Even in such a heavy moment, I really wanted to kiss her. To show her my affection.”
He wanted to kiss me? Heat rises within me at the thought. But then I ruined it by asking about the curse. I regretted it then, and I regret it even more now.
The ink gets darker, as if he applied a lot of pressure to get the words down.
“The Glim returned. I have no memory of last night. After she asked about the curse, everything is a blur. I hope I didn’t hurt her.”
Oh, Sable. You didn’t hurt me. Tears begin to well in my eyes, and I swallow hard, trying to hold them back.
“Remember: She has my hat.”
I giggle. I still have that hat.
“We are sailing toward the Sea of Shadows. I am sure my shadow will not stay with me. Will try to keep my distance.”
Another page. The ink is smeared here, as if written in haste. By the time I reach the final pages, the writing has become frantic. Lines repeat, and then the same sentence appears again and again, filling entire pages.
“What does it say?”
The shadow presses one finger to the paper, following the line as he reads aloud.
“My name is Sable Crowe,” he says in a low voice. “I am the captain of the Noctis.”
I gasp as tears finally blur my vision. He told me he doesn’t remember his name on the balcony, but somehow, I haven’t second-guessed it.
I thought what he said didn’t have any meaning because his shadow was gone.
But him writing his name in his journal confirms it. Devastated, my whole body tenses.
“You forget?” I whisper, the notebook almost slipping from my fingers. “When your shadow is gone, you forget who you are?”
“Aye,” Sable nods. “I forget, and it becomes worse the more and the longer I am away. I write it in there to remind myself, though my shadowless self rarely checks the diaries. The farther I am away, the less my physical form is aware of himself and what he is doing. After the incident with Ash, I was fighting for dear life, trying to hold onto myself. It worked, but when we sailed through the Sea of Shadows, it was helpless. I told you to stay away, to not search for me. We both know how that ended.”
“But you know what will happen?” A single tear escapes from my eye, wetting my cheek. “That he will die, I mean, you will die if you do not break the curse.”
He straightens and folds his arms behind his back. “I am aware.”
“Then why?” I toss the notebook back onto the desk. “Why are you still not seeing any hope for yourself? What happened to I am willing to fight?”
My chest is heaving now, as I glare at him with my feet planted to the ground, tears now streaming down my face.
“Because I know that by the way Lark’s shadow drained you, you won't be able to return mine. When you told me about the salt recharging your powers today, I realized that it won’t be enough.
Not if you must sing back the shadows of all crew members.
It costs you every time you use your song, haven’t you realized? ”
I look away. Of course I have realized. The blood dripping from my nose, how sleep claims me for longer than usual, the headaches.
“I can do it,” I whisper, my voice raspy. “I can do it right now.”
“I know you can do it.” He takes my head in his hands and gently wipes away my tears. It feels so wrong and at the same time, the most natural thing in the world, as if my soul recognizes his.
“I fear for your life,” he finally whispers, and I let my tears fall in silence. “I never told you about my mother. She was a sea witch, like my sister. When my father was murdered…”
His voice breaks, and he draws in a steadying breath before continuing.
“She tried to bring him back. She used more power than she could hold, and it killed her in the end. I can feel that I’m too far gone, and if you try to sing my shadow back, you might end up like her. I won’t let that happen.”
“I can gain more power, I can—”
“Kill more cruel men?” he interrupts me. “I saw what it did to you when you drowned Ash. You were terrified. I won't let you go through this again just for the sake of a better chance of saving me when I am already lost.”
He takes a deep breath, his shadows softly caressing my cheek. “But you can save my crew. Because the curse hasn’t taken hold of them the way it has of me.”