37. Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Seven
T he power answers in an eager rush, like a barrel overflowing with water after something heavy is dropped into it. It slides through me like a current finding its path, filling spaces in my body that feel entirely too small to hold it. My hands go cold when it presses against my sea-formed bones.
Now.
I have to sing now, give it an outlet, like I did when I sang for Sable.
I open my mouth and let the first note slip free. It vibrates through ribs and spine, through the soles of my feet and into the ship, as if it was trying to find its way back into the water.
The cave returns the sound in a soft echo. It doubles, triples, then repeats itself all over again, like the voice of Sable’s shadow often did. This is not a coincidence, I find. This place is made for the song of a siren.
Match’s eyes widen when his shadow surges forward, detaching from his frame completely. It reaches for me without hesitation, as if he knows what I am trying to make him do. His dark hands claw at my arm, like a man slashing for the surface when he’s drowning and desperate to live.
It feels like dying.
I remember the words of Sable’s shadow and pull at another string of my power. My voice is steady as I focus on Match now, on his physical, shaking body. Return home. I try to command it, but it pushes against my song’s pull, writhing and twisting in the hold of my magic.
Match grits his teeth as his shadow finally lets go of me and surges toward him instead.
A sound escapes him, a strangled groan that proves his pain.
Sable’s voice cuts through. “Hold.”
Match's eyes flick toward the captain, then back to me, and he nods again, telling me to continue.
At the next note, my throat tightens. The power presses upward, demanding me to give it a way out, but I have to hold it back, and I'll have to hold it back for a while longer.
Match’s shadow buckles, then goes thin, crumping over. Its hands lash across the boards like hungry flames, reaching for the other shadows in desperation.
Then it snaps back toward him, like a rope yanked and dragged by force.
The young pirate jerks as if struck in the gut and lets out a wheezing gasp. The shadow slams into his feet, pours up his legs, and finally, sinks back into him. His eyes roll back for a second, as dark as black pearls, then snap forward again.
Some of the other pirates gasp at the sudden calm of him, and I force my voice back into a hum. Match looks up at me, eyes shining, then nods timidly, before stumbling out of the line.
A soft touch at my elbow makes me flinch.
“You did it,” he whispers into my ear.
I can’t look at him, because if I do, my siren might decide that he’s next. I have to keep my promise, and the only way to do that is through control.
I swallow through the throbbing ache in my throat and focus on the line ahead.
The next man steps forward.
He’s older than Match, thicker in the shoulders. His shadow stands beside him already, not surging or trying to escape. Instead, he looks steady and immovable, as if he has grown roots into the planks.
This might be more difficult.
I draw in another breath. The power is still there, coiled behind my sternum, but it doesn’t feel untouched or infinite. The salt-fed weight inside me shifts, and suddenly I become well aware of the edges of it, the limit I don’t want to reach.
His shadow is trying to anchor itself against my pull, so I just pull harder and take another string. My voice threads through his will, and finally, the shadow shudders.
It returns to its owner in a slow, reluctant sweep. He backs away without a word, and the next man steps forward.
One by one.
I find a rhythm in my song.
Call. Resist. Pull. Return.
Each time I use my song, the ache in my throat deepens. The power doesn’t feel like strings anymore. Instead, it feels like a heavy rope that I have to drag through a narrow space, scraping at my insides in the process.
After the seventh shadow, a dull throb blooms behind my eyes. I blink against it and try to focus on the men in front of me, and on their shadows that roam the deck.
After the tenth, my voice roughens at the edges.
Sable remains behind me, silent except when he gives an order. His steadiness is both a comfort and a pressure. I can feel his gaze on the back of my head, like he knows that I am already pushing against my limits.
“Drink,” he says, and presses a waterskin into my hand. I gulp down the water, closing my eyes as the cold liquid numbs my throat, and then hand it back without looking at him.
The shadows become more and more resistant, and there are still so, so many. Grim is still near the end of the line, with his arms crossed and his face set in stone. Behind him is Nightglass, who keeps watch on Lark, who stands quietly off to the side.
I curl my hands into fists at my sides, so hard that I am sure my nails dig into flesh, but I have lost all sensation in my skin. Hot liquid trickles out of my nose and coats my lips. I recognize the taste of iron immediately. Blood.
He told me to save his crew first. But I will not follow his order anymore. I will not save those who voted for my death before the ones who were kind to me.
“Nightglass,” I say, my voice steady again. “You’re next.”
Sable doesn’t protest, and the rest of the crew doesn’t either. He’s Lark’s father, after all.
Nightglass looks confused for a heartbeat, but after another glance at his son, he steps forward.
I give him a short smile, then wipe away the blood with the back of my hand.
“Don’t cross a line for me, lass,” Nightglass says. “My shadow is far gone.”
“Don’t worry,” I tell him. “I will find it.”
When I start my song again, the cave holds all of it and more. For him, and for Lark, I drag the heavy ropes through me once more. Nightglass’s shadow comes into my view after a while, and I focus on it, then on Lark, to remind him what he’s fighting for.
Nightglass goes rigid, his face twisting in agony, as the shadow gravitates toward him.
I hold the note, push the command through it until the deck sways beneath my feet. The edges of his shadow are sharp, and I can feel it searching for a break in my control.
The shadow fights, but eventually it gives. It snaps back into him so fast he chokes on a sound, hands flying to his chest. Lark rushes to him immediately, throwing his arms around his father.
Sable’s hand appears on my waist, his fingers firm and warm against my body.
“You’re shaking,” he says with a hushed voice, his words meant for me alone.
“I’m okay,” I manage, but the words scrape at my vocal cords.
His grip tightens a fraction.
“You need a break.”
“No,” I say through gritted teeth, and keep my gaze fixed ahead, on the line that is still way too long. “I need more salt.”
Moments later, buckets of ice-cold water are poured over me. My head, my chest, my arms, and back. The salt sinks into my skin instantly, fueling my power.
Grim stands in front of me now, with his head slightly lowered, in anticipation of the pain. He looks worse up close, drawn, even. His shadow barely touches his heels anymore, stretched thin and restless.
I take a deep breath as I steady myself. The cold sharpens my vision as my song scrapes its way out, vibrating through my chest before it reaches the air.
Grim’s shadow recoils.
It fights harder than the rest did, scraping fingers across the deck, slamming into the planks. When my knees are about to give in, Sable steadies me with his hands on my hips.
He is so warm, so steady against my back, anchoring me more than the salt ever could.
“You have to stop,” he says into my ear and tightens his grip on me once again.
I ignore him.
When Grim's shadow snaps back into him, a burning sensation rips through me, so painful that it almost knocks me blind. Darkness creeps upon me now, but it's not a shadow. It’s my body giving in.
I sway, the world fading.
Then the darkness fractures.
A resounding crack breaks through the air. Wood explodes near the rail, splinters biting into my calf as a lantern shatters right next to me. Another shot follows, this time even closer.
“Down!” someone shouts.
The man in front of me jerks, the spot where Grim stood a second before, his body snapping backward as if yanked by an invisible hand. He collapses in a heap, blood already slicking the planks beneath him.
Gunfire.
The world tilts as Sable tackles me to the ground. I land on the planks with a heavy thud, his body covering mine. Something whistles above us and embeds itself in the main mast with a bang.
The power I’ve been holding wavers, my voice breaking off mid-tone as splinters of wood rain down on us.
“You stay here,” he snaps, not unkind, but demanding. “Do not move. Do not sing.”
“But the shadows—”
“Risa!” he barks, shoving me behind one of the intact masts, before pulling his long cutlass. “You will do as I say.”
The world narrows to him. To the way his hands shake, despite the steel in his voice. To the fear he isn’t trying to hide anymore. My vision blurs, pain pulsing, where exhaustion has already hollowed me out. It’s all too much.
I nod.
Sable exhales in relief, then presses his forehead against mine.
“Don’t move,” he murmurs, lower now. “I will come back for you.”
Then he’s gone.
Steel flashes as he steps away from me, shouting orders that cut through the chaos. When I peer behind the mast, he’s already engaged in a fight with one of the intruders.
They boarded the ship with planks and hawks. By the seas, how did we not notice them? They must’ve crept up on us, using the dark as protection. I never thought that someone would follow us here, into the womb of the sea. That the sea would even let them through.
I curl in on myself behind the mast, hands clamped over my mouth as the sound of battle swells around me. Out on the deck, the shadows have disappeared. Once my magic stopped fully, they were all gone.
Right next to me, a body slams against the boards. Blood splashes warm against my wrist, and then, a grunt that cuts off halfway through.
I don’t want to look, but do so anyway, right in the moment when a blade is pulled out of his chest with the sound of wet, tearing flesh. It’s Saint.
Blood pours across the planks, seeping into the grooves, trickling towards my knee. My breath catches as if the blade had been dragged through me instead.
No.
Only days ago, he fixed the starboard rail. He laughed when the mast rope snapped and bruised his shoulder, calling it a love tap from the Noctis herself.
Now he doesn’t move at all.
I suddenly feel so helpless at the sight of his body. I want to scream and end this nightmare, like I did the last time we were under attack. Only this time, I know for certain that this is real and that there is no escaping.
He is dead.
The attacker turns toward me, his eyes flicking over my frame.
That’s when I realize that he’s not a stranger at all.
Up close, he looks worse than I remember, broad and heavy in his grimy, cracked leather coat.
His unkempt hair clings to his temples, and his skin carries a greyish tone, like something left too long beneath the sea.
A faint shimmer clings to his throat, pale flecks that glint with an iridescent sheen.
Ground scales. That’s how they were able to pass.
He’s one of the hunters who have been haunting me my whole life, come to take what is most valuable to them—my scales, my blood, my power.