Chapter 74
As soon as I realized my mistake, weight gathered in my head, heavy stone inside my skull.
I scrambled out of Kye’s grasp, doubling over in the nearest corner to force the fluid from my belly. He followed, face pale as he gathered my hair, crouching low beside me.
My stomach emptied, watery and clear. I heaved it all out—then probed internally for more until I was sure the water was gone.
The ship plunged into a wave, and I gripped the wall behind me, a sheen of sweat covering my brow.
Somehow, I’d made it worse.
A grogginess invaded my muscles. The sounds above echoed in my still-ringing ears. I stood listening to the quiet cadence of Kye’s breathing.
How long had he said I’d taken to fall asleep last time I’d drank the valeriany?
Ten minutes?
We needed to move. Now.
I met his eyes, and all the measured control he’d exercised the moment before melted into a desperate need for action.
“Come on,” he said, grabbing my hand.
I flung myself out of his grasp. “I’m not leaving you on this ship,” I snarled.
He glanced at the ceiling, then reached for me again, face suddenly hard as stone. “We don’t have time for this.”
“Then don’t ask me to jump without you. I won’t jump without you.”
“I can’t jump with you. I need to get a dinghy. How will we make it to shore without a boat?”
I paused. Glaring was difficult with eyelids that wanted to close, but I tried my best.
I was a Naiad. If I wasn’t worried I’d fall asleep underwater, I could’ve swum us both to shore. But sleep threatened to take hold. It drifted on the horizon of my consciousness like a storm over distant water, steadily drifting toward me.
Kye leaned in, tucking a lock of hair behind my ear. “You’re not leaving me. I’m just getting the dinghy.”
I shook my head. “You’re planning to fight.”
“I won’t fight.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Well. I might fight.” I swung away from him, and he wrapped a hand behind my neck, bringing me back and kissing me again—rough and fast. Then leaned his forehead against mine, eyes shut. “I won’t fight. I’ll come for you. I made a vow to protect you, Leihani. I’m not going to break it today. I promise—I’ll come for you.”
My heart pounded. My breath guttered. My fists balled themselves tight.
I’ll come for you.
I released a shaky gust of air. “Okay.”
He gave me a stiff nod and pulled me to the stairs. “Straight up and over the stern. Don’t look back. Go.”
I turned, my feet bounding to the upper deck.
The pirate oarsmen came into view first, intent on rowing. They heaved in unison, muscles bulging in their arms. At the steering board, Captain Kriska faced oncoming land, his back to his rowers. “Ho! Ho!” he shouted, leading their strides.
My eyes locked onto the stern, ten feet in front of me.
Kye’s boots pounded toward the nearest dinghy, tethered on its side.
Heads lifted in my direction—but I was already at the railing. I swung a leg over, finding a lip to hold my weight on the other side, and looked back.
I hadn’t even meant to look. I hadn’t even thought about it.
But I did.
Kye swung his sword against a rope, freeing one side of the dinghy. It swung free, a savage pendulum banging and scraping against the celerite in wrought fury. He turned to run for the opposite rope—raising his sword in time to deflect a blow from a nearby blade.
A hand grabbed my arm.
I jolted, eyes shooting to Demyan. His fingers burrowed into my flesh as he yanked me away from the edge.
I didn’t give him time to pull me back. The sea was already alive with the promise of a storm, and I had just enough within me to send it over the edge. Air crackled around me as I lifted my free arm over my head, the droplets in the air exploding into bursts of steam and vapor.
Demyan shot away and crouched, shielding himself with his arms as scalding air struck from above.
I clenched my teeth as heat waves danced around me.
Air hissed. Someone screamed.
The world shifted.
I lost my hold as my knees shook, weariness pressing in on me from all sides.
My ankles folded. My eyes blurred.
Sleep whispered in my ear, and I dropped to the deck floor.
Legs swung over benches. Bodies rammed into each other as men stood, swaying against the tilt of the sea. At the prow of the celerite, one pirate cut through the others, shoving them aside in his wake, mouth curling to reveal a row of black teeth.
But I threw my gaze to the starboard side as Kye’s sword lanced off a man’s cutlass, causing the pirate to stumble. Kye grabbed him by the neck and threw him overboard, swinging to meet the blade of another.
I reached for the railing as benches groaned, men clambering to reach me. They closed in on me from all sides, constricting like the laces of my corset.
Captain Kriska threw himself across the deck, his boots thundering over wood.
The bodies multiplied, so thick I could no longer see past them.
A heavy splash signaled a small boat hitting the water. My heart fluttered in relief—until I realized the metallic sound of blades hadn’t stopped.
Kye vaulted onto the starboard railing, running along the edge like a balance beam.
I dug my toes into the plankboards, the wood grain rough under my knees.
Fingers wrapped around my arms, wrenching me sideways. Someone yanked my hands behind my back.
Kye twirled and spun, deflecting blows as he fought his way to me.
A wave struck the ship.
I slammed my shoulder into a man, forcing him off his feet. Someone grabbed my hair, throwing me backwards. I fell groggily onto the deck, tailbone grinding hard wood.
Kye slashed at a man, leaning heavily to the side as he hung from the shrouds. Body slanted, he hovered over the side of the deck, swishing, stabbing, slicing—
Kriska pulled up to a stop just ahead of me, eyes burning. His body convulsed in anger; he bared his black teeth. “Someone bring the boy down, you worthless bilge-guzzlers. And take her back below. Make sure her chains are so tight, she can’t move her arms. Where”s Aleksei?”
The bright sun flickered. My vision blurred.
Kye thrust his weight into his sword, forcing a man off, buying himself time to run. He straightened out of the shrouds, fingers releasing the heavy cables as he drew upright—
An arrow whistled through the air.
Hitting Kye in the back.
I screamed as he scrambled to regain his footing. As his arm reached for shrouds that hung past his fingertips, toes sliding off the slippery edge of the rail.
He vanished from sight.
Demyan’s face came into view, hauling me to my feet. He turned me around, striking for the stairs.
I drove my heels into the wood as the sea tossed the ship onto its toes.
Then rocked in the opposite direction as the sea sent us down a swell. I called to the water as it lashed the celerite—hard and strong—and it came with a rage that snapped and boiled as I pulled it up over the deck like a blanket yanked over a body.
The ship folded into the tide, a wave of dazzling gray devouring us into watery shadow.
Then it cracked somewhere below. The wood under our feet vibrated as water squeezed the ship into submission.
Joists popped. Trusses cracked. The masts broke in two.
The distant words of my father floated through my ears as I tumbled under heavy bodies and off the starboard edge—it would damage the ship’s structure to rent a hole through the framing of the hold.
But rent a hole I had, under the weight of the sea.
Cold water snapped my head back. Bubbles burst around my eyes and ears, a violent cloud of white. Arms and legs careened into view and out again, desperately pumping for the surface. But none of them knew where the surface was. Some swam up, some swam down.
Some simply let themselves roll through the turbulent chaos of a crew tossed to the sea like toys in a bath.
Head whirling, I transitioned. My powerful tail unfurled from my legs, hard and fast as a viper striking its prey.
Unlike the tangle of pirates around me, I didn’t need to wait for the bubbles to disperse before knowing which way was up. One call to the water, and I whipped myself around to face the sky, striking for air and wind.
Darkness”s Hourglasslay on its side.
It groaned, a wooden scream that split my ears like a lightning crack over my head. The keel fractured as waves beat its broken body, inviting the cold water inside.
The sea was slowly tearing it in two.
Men found the surface around me, gasping for air.
Where was Kye?
Fingers encircled my wrist.
I turned to find Kriska on my arm.
Fury distorted his mouth and eyes. His lips shrank from his black teeth, his eyebrows slanted unearthly low over his thunderous stare, and madness seemed to explode from him as he clenched onto me, fingers digging hard enough to break my skin.
He unsheathed a dagger from his belt, yanking me forward in one fluid motion. I watched a decision crackle behind his eyes.
Revenge was worth the loss of whatever he’d been promised for delivering me. And he planned to exact it with the edge of cold steel. Here and now. In the water.
“That was my father’s ship, you little whore,” he ground out.
His body tensed. The hand holding my arm clenched, the muscles in his limbs tightened.
I knew the feeling of a body as it prepared for an attack with a blade.
I’d felt it before—in the swampy crop lines of Leihani.
Kriska drove the dagger forward. Water sloshed over his shoulders. I grunted at the impact—a sudden block of ice, cold and jarring against my ribcage.
The captain raised his brows in confusion, and I struck out, grabbing his jacket.
“I warned you I’d sink your ship,” I rasped. “And I”m not a whore. I”m the witch of Leihani.”
Then I coiled myself around his waist and tugged him under the waves.
His scream carried into the water. Light danced from the surface, glittering over the pale-gold scales of my tail as I pulled him down. He fought me, kicking and twisting, screaming as we sank, the water drawing us in and driving us down.
The heavy weight in my skull nudged the sides of my head.
I’d been imagining his death for days.
But I didn’t have time to kill him.
Relief trickled in as I chose to spare his life, surprising me. But I didn”t have time to contemplate that either.
I snaked my hand into his pocket, fingers closing on a soggy, folded paper.
Then I darted away, leaving him suspended in the sea.
Where was Kye?
Where, where, where—
Surfacing, I tucked Kriska’s letter into my bralette.
Barrels and crates littered the surface of the water. The ship bobbed ahead, slowly fracturing apart. Men floated all around me, but I swerved between them, climbing the broken hull on my forearms and tail, squinting my eyes against the shining waves.
I froze.
Someone was shouting my name.
There—on the other side of the ship. A small rowboat holding a single man, desperately searching the water.
I dove, clean and deep, arcing wide under the ship and debris. The keel of Kye’s dinghy called me forward and up, a round belly protruding from the shifting surface.
“Kye,” I called as my face met the cold wind. His eyes snapped to meet mine. Under the waves, I forced my tail to recede.
Nothing about the transition felt smooth. My tail separated into legs, floppy and ungainly. I bent my knees to tread water, but they didn’t respond. Try as I might, the use of my feet seemed lost.
He dropped his oars, reaching for me, pulling me up with a single hand. As if I were nothing more than a leaf floating on a puddle.
Eyes half closed, I glanced back at the destroyed ship as Kye grasped his oars, throwing his weight into each press of his chest.
In the distance, a second dinghy emerged, the pirates on board watching us. Their faces shriveled into hateful sneers, though they’d turned in the opposite direction. Just beyond their prow, Captain Kriska swam toward them.
Sleep burned the edges of my mind. The world dimmed. Somewhere deep inside, I was awake enough to feel panic flicker.
My head nodded, and I banged it on the side of the boat as my body lost the will to keep me upright.
“Lay down,” Kye commanded, groaning in pain as he lit into his stroke.
I obeyed, only because I couldn’t stay upright, and realized the shaft of an arrow protruded from over his shoulder blade.
In the distance, the pirate dinghy turned toward us.
My chin fell into my chest.
At my feet, Kye hissed as he pressed forward.
The sky flickered. I forced my eyes open.
Across the churning waves, the joined voices of pirates punctuated their oars as they turned to follow.
A cloud of sudden heat grazed my skin, fire gusting along the side of our boat.
“Don’t fall asleep. We’re almost to land. We’re almost there. We need to run. Be ready to run.”
Words echoed in my head, desperate and fierce. But they softened into lullabies as they reverberated, bouncing off the inside of my skull.
The boat rocked. The ocean sang. The world turned dark.
A familiar voice swore under his breath.
Sleep dragged me under like the feral waves of the ocean.
The dry shores of consciousness slid between my fingers.
Darkness swept me out to sea.