34. Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Four
I lose count of the days that I spend submerged.
At first, I try to count them by the rise and fall of the light above the deck, by how often the sky shifts from pale gold to deep blue and back again.
But time in the Sea of Dreams does not seem to move in the usual way, and soon that becomes unreliable.
So I stop counting altogether, and climb into the shallow tub on the main deck that Sable has ordered to be filled and refilled with seawater over and over again.
With the lack of sleep, all I know and have become is salt.
Salt in my hair, stiffening until the strands cling together. Salt drying on my skin, crusting along my shoulders and collarbones where the scales aren’t there to protect it, collecting in the hollow of my throat and at the curve of my ribs.
I soak in it for hours, sometimes multiple times a day, then close my eyes to sleep for a few hours.
We sleep in shifts. Someone is always on watch when others are sleeping, and that same person makes sure you wake up again when it is time to.
We can’t risk sleeping at the same time, not while we are still in the Sea of Dreams. But even when exhaustion pulls at me, my thoughts circle like a restless bird gliding through the air and do not settle.
I lie awake in my hammock at night, staring at the beams overhead, listening to the hull cut through the current we found.
Together with the wind, the ship moves faster than it should be capable of.
It feels like we’re running out of time.
That only means I will stay longer the next day, until the humming behind my ribs becomes stronger, more potent. It feels different from how it did with Rat. When I drowned him, the power came rushing in on me like a flood. Here, it gathers and trickles in through a faint, steady stream.
Each day, the salt draws more power out of me and pours even more back in. But it also hurts. My joints ache and tighten with each passing day, as if my body is a vessel too small to contain so much power.
Sable always makes sure that a clean, dry towel awaits me every time I get out of the tub, laying it neatly folded on one of the barrels nearby, as carefully placed as the emerald gown his shadow gifted me what feels like a lifetime ago.
Only today, Sable brings the towel himself.
He watches me get out of the tub, the saltwater dripping down my body, my hair, into a small pool at my feet. He spreads the towel, steps closer, and carefully lays it around my shoulders, then wraps it around me.
“Nightglass has spotted something,” He says as he rubs the towel against my shoulders in a slow, gentle motion.
I swallow down my confusion, my focus placed entirely on his hands. Despite the comfort his touch gives me, it feels like he is preparing me for something.
“What is it?” I ask.
“We don’t know yet.” He sighs. “It looks like a giant wall.”
I glance over his shoulder toward the open sea. In the distance, a white stripe meets the horizon. Even from afar, it looks like it stretches endlessly toward the sky before disappearing into the clouds. At least it’s not a giant waterfall.
“It’s better than the abyss,” I whisper.
A smile tugs at his lips. “Aye.”
He studies me for a moment, his eyes softening, the faintest hint of a smile touching his lips. Without wanting to, I glance at his feet. His shadow is barely there, flickering and faint.
“You’re not fighting the urge to throw me overboard?” I ask him, my voice nothing more than a whisper as I keep my eyes fixed on the dark shape at his feet. I expect him to brush it off with a dry remark, to deflect.
“No,” he says quietly. “And I hope you know that under normal circumstances I’d never—”
“I know.”
I cut him off, looking up at him. I don’t want him to apologize for something he can’t control.
My thoughts leave me as I step towards him and take his hand in mine, venturing to give him comfort.
It feels rough against my sensitive, salt-coated skin.
The tingling sensation it leaves behind feels new and familiar at the same time.
He has held me before, as has his shadow, and I cannot help but crave the feeling of his hand around my waist.
First, he tenses. His shoulders draw together tightly, and he stands there like a statue, seemingly caught off guard. As I brush my thumb over his palm gently, his shoulders slacken, and his muscles loosen.
“I‘m glad,” he begins, breathing through his nose. “I’m glad you know I’ve never wanted to hurt you, little fish.”
I squeeze his hand, then drop it, a smile tugging at my lips as I cross my arms in front of my chest, wrapping the towel tighter around my shivering body.
“But insulting me never has been a problem for you?”
He shrugs, smirking slightly. “Not really. Stay close. Try to rest. We should reach the wall by nightfall.”
“Captain!” A crew member shouts behind him.
He turns before I can respond, calling out a sharp order as he strides back toward the helm.
The crew moves with new purpose, adjusting the sails or pulling ropes, but the tension in the air only tightens.
As I walk across the deck, the cold air tearing at my hair, the shape at the horizon ahead grows more defined.
The wall rises higher with every passing minute.
It stretches from water to sky, its surface pale and uneven, catching the light in ways that make it hard to tell where it ends and where it dips into the clouds. The longer I look at it, the more my skin prickles with nervous sweat, the hum behind my ribs deepening in response.
It feels old. Not untended or abandoned, but as though it was shaped by the sea itself, like it has been hidden here, unintended for the eyes of those not formed by the sea.
The pirates shift uneasily around me, tension vibrating through the deck, but it does not unsettle me the way it does them.
Instead, something quieter settles in my chest. Recognition. Relief.
The sensation wraps around me in a slow, almost gentle shifting, until it feels inescapable. Whatever waits beyond this place knows me. I feel it in my gut, in my bones, in the salt that clings to my skin.
The Glim burns brighter than it has before, its silver thread stretching forward, pulled tight toward the wall.
As we drift closer, something else becomes visible.
An opening.
And we’re sailing straight for it.
I stand on the forecastle of the ship, right behind the helm, the wind tearing at my frame.
I welcome the spray of the sea as it needles my face, the cold that came with the setting of the sun.
I don’t feel any of it, not really. What I feel, there under my skin, is the stirring of anticipation.
Pure, sweet excitement that makes every vein in my body feel electric, like little bolts of lightning shooting through me.
I curl my fingers around the railing as the wall rises ahead of us.
I crane my neck to look up at it, but the pale formation seems never to end.
It is curved and smoothed in some places, uneven in others, like the inside of a shell.
It gleams softly, almost iridescent, as if it were alive beneath the surface.
I follow it with my gaze until it disappears into the clouds.
We are close enough now that I can see the opening more clearly. It is wide, wider than the Noctis by far, a dark mouth carved into the wall where the water parts in two.
The deck is crowded. Even though they are still hard at work, each pirate cannot help but gawk up at the tear in the sky before us.
Grim moves along the starboard side, calling out adjustments as the current shifts.
He glances at the wall with open concern, his jaw set tight.
The other pirates haul on the lines, follow his orders.
Lark is near the rail, knuckles white where he grips it, eyes wide and unblinking.
When the Noctis shudders slightly beneath us, he swallows and straightens, forcing himself to be brave. To stand taller.
At the helm, Sable’s gaze stays fixed ahead.
His hands are on the wheel, shoulder squared, coat and hair pulled back by the wind. I know that absolutely nothing would now be able to stop this ship, not even the sea itself. Not if he has anything to say about it.
But there is something other than determination flashing across his face too.
Fear.
I see it in the way his jaw ticks, from the way his index finger taps against the wood of the wheel, and in the way he shifts his weight from foot to foot, nervous.
This is his last chance – his last hope – to save the crew and break their curse.
If what lies beyond this opening isn’t the Sea of the First Song, if it doesn’t help me with the power of my song, then this whole journey becomes just another tragedy in his life.
It is only now that I realize my tail is no longer my priority.
He is.
As I reach him, I carefully place a hand on his shoulder, though I know he has noticed me before already. I am wearing the emerald gown that his shadow has gifted me.
“You’re wearing the dress,” he says quietly, keeping his gaze fixed ahead at the giant mouth about to swallow us whole.
“Yes,” I say and glance down at the bodice, then brush my fingers along the jewels. “I wanted to wear it for today.”
He clears his throat, his lashes flashing as he glances at me for a moment. “It looks good on you.”
A smile tugs at my lips, as though this is the first compliment he has ever given me.
I already know he thinks I look beautiful in it.
And yet, heat rushes into my cheeks. How ridiculous.
We are about to sail into an unknown place, most likely falling right into the clutches of death.
And here I am blushing over the words of a man.
The Captain of the Noctis’ words no less.
“Thank you,” I say sincerely and come to stand next to him, close enough that I can feel the warmth of his body, close enough for our shoulders to brush.