Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
ABBY
W ith Quinn and Erwyn gone and the air of the room much calmer, I survey the damage with a heavy sigh. Their fight only lasted a few minutes and hadn’t strayed too far from one half of the room, but if their goal was to destroy this place, they certainly accomplished it.
I lean forward and grab one end of the toppled table, meaning to right it, but find it’s significantly heavier than it looks. I’ve gained a lot of muscle since I first fled Lunae—training with Quinn will do that—but I can’t help the flush of embarrassment that warms my cheeks when it’s evidently not enough. Quinn made it look so easy when he flipped this. I’m not even sure it’s worth it, considering the splinted spear-hole in the dead center of it. It’s more than likely the sirens will dispose of this.
I glance around and notice more than one pair of eyes watching me with disapproval. I have to remind myself that the looks are more likely because of who I am and not the struggles I’m currently experiencing.
Great first impressions, though.
“Hey,” I call over to the closest one; a young man, probably in his mid-twenties. I wonder for a moment how he escaped being rounded up and taken to Lunae with the other children, as he’s about the right age. He’s shirtless, and I can’t help being reminded of the Marked. If it weren’t for his lack of scars, he could easily pass for one of them. He’s scrawny, and despite the small rippling of muscles down his arms, he doesn’t appear to have much substance elsewhere. He’s beyond thin, his stomach curving inward and the shadows of his ribs prominent against the golden tone of his flesh. “Can you give me a hand?”
The man hesitates, his studious eyes never leaving mine. There’s a distrust there, and I can’t blame him. I’m a Daughter of Lunae. The eldest princess of the kingdom that massacred his people and stole his friends and possibly siblings away, forcing them into a life of servitude. I can’t even say he looks as if he’s had it much better. He certainly appears just as hungry.
After a tense moment of debate, he closes the distance between us and grips the other end of the table. Without a single word of warning to me, he lifts his end and I hurry to match his speed with mine.
“Thank you,” I huff as soon as the table is righted.
His response is in a language I don’t recognize. All sirens have an accent, but this is the first time I’ve heard one of them use a word that wasn’t in the common tongue; and judging by his tone and the glare he gives me, it wasn’t friendly.
“Something tells me that doesn’t mean ‘you’re welcome.’” As soon as the words leave my lips, I realize I should have just let it go. The man storms towards me, one hand clenched at his side and the other pointed accusingly.
“Do not speak to me,” he hisses, finger just inches from my face now. “My sister is dead because of you.”
“Your sister?” I can barely get the words out.
“She fought and died while I cowered within these walls with the others who could not stand against the witch you led here.”
Imelda. Only those who couldn’t be influenced by her fought, and twenty-nine were lost. This man’s sister included.
“I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”
“Her soul did not even make it to the veil before the wraiths devoured her. I will never see her again. In this life or the next—thanks to you.”
“I’m sorry.” What else can I say?
“Sorry? Sorry ?” He takes a step closer and I brace myself for an impact that never comes. Two other sirens appear behind him, each gripping one of his arms and pulling him away from me.
“Tak, stop,” one of them says. “She is not worth it.”
The man who’d spoken pulls Tak away while the other shakes his head. “No one wants you here. Go home.”
“I’ve never had a home,” I mutter as they leave me. And that’s the truth. I was born in Lunae—the rightful heir to the throne, some would argue—but that place has never felt like home. Homes are meant to be warm and welcoming. A place where you find unconditional love. Rosewood came close, but even that didn’t feel like my place. I thought maybe Marein was the missing piece of the puzzle, but I feel just as lost here as I did in Lunae.
At least Teagan seems to have found a place here. She’d swam out of sight just as Petra darted from the room, and as much as I’d like to reunite with my friend, she’ll need some time alone with her mate. The thought has me wishing Quinn was here. We’ve only been separated for a short time, but even the minuscule distance is tugging on our newly formed bond.
I distract myself from the thought by moving deeper into the room, meaning to clean up more of the mess. Broken plates and bits of sea-glass litter the floor in a multi-coloured obstacle course. I scan my surroundings for any sign of a broom but instead spot a young child crouching low to the ground, gathering something. Without thinking, I hurry forward.
“Hey, be careful!”
His head whips around and there’s fear in his eyes. Genuine fear of me. When he backs away, there’s no glass in his hand like I’d expected. Instead, he has small pieces of fish and bone that must have clattered to the floor along with the shattered plates.
A woman with a baby held protectively against her chest puts herself between us. “Leave us be. Please.” Her voice wavers and becomes clear that she’s afraid of me, too.
“I just didn’t want him to cut himself.” I glance around her to the child who can’t be older than ten. “You can’t eat that. If there’s glass—”
“This is not the palace of Lunae. We cannot afford to waste food.”
“I know as well as you do what it’s like not to have enough to eat. Just…wait a minute.”
I feel their eyes on me as I move to the centre of the room where the man—what did Aurelia say his name was? Byrn? No, where Brin is already slicing open the fish given to him by Erwyn as if no fight had just taken place here. I grab one of the unbroken plates of a table and stop when I’m directly in front of him.
He ignores me, because of course he does, so I clear my throat. When his eyes finally flick upward, there’s no effort to hide the annoyance. “You have been here a day and already you are trouble.”
“I don’t recall starting any fights.” The one with Erwyn, Imelda, or any of the confrontations I’ve had with these people.
His only response is a huff, and still my plate remains empty.
“Can I get some of that?”
“We can hardly feed our own.” It seems that wasn’t a refusal because he cuts of sliver of the greyish meat and balances it on the side of his sizeable knife before plopping it onto the plate between us.
I don’t bother to thank him because I know he doesn’t want to hear it. Instead, I cross the room again to where the child is now standing with his mother and hold the plate out to him. “I’ll trade you. My fish for yours.”
The kid seems to know he’s getting the better end of the deal because he happily takes the plate from me and dumps the cold, soggy bits of fish he’d picked up off the floor into my other outstretched hand.
Lovely.
I take a seat at the nearest table and examine the morsels as best I can. There doesn’t appear to be any shards of glass, but if there were, I wonder if anyone here would rush to my aid. Aside from the dragons, of course, but even with them, I wonder. Rhett is still on bed rest. Merrick seems more cold than hot despite his assistance with the sword, and the others seem indifferent to me; if not altogether angry about the decision I’d made to keep Jade alive. They may be the closest thing he has to family, but we could all see that letting him go was the merciful thing.
Only I had been selfish.
I force that thought away by shoving a piece of the mushy grey meat in my mouth. There are times when things taste a lot better than they look, but this is not one of them.
The meat looks, tastes, and smells equally unpleasant, but my stomach grumbles all the same, welcoming any form of sustenance I can provide. I don’t even know how long it’s been since I’ve last eaten and considering the level of rationing happening here, it’s unlikely I’ll eat again until tomorrow. Quinn will no doubt want to share his portion, but I have no plans to tell him about this. He needs a full meal just as much as I do.
Perhaps he can hunt—once he’s recovered enough, of course. Surely the dragons can join him and together they can kill enough game from the forest to feed these people. I have nothing close to a good guess of how many people live beneath the ruins of Marein, but it’s less than Lunae. Of that, I’m certain.
The sound of a plate skidding across the table catches my attention. On it is a fresh serving of fish. Brin takes a seat across from me and gestures to the plate as if confirming that it is, in fact, for me, and he’s not taunting me with a meal of his own.
“I thought it was one plate per person,” I say, bracing myself for the less-than-appetizing texture as I bring the fish to my lips. He could have poisoned it, but something tells me that isn’t his style. He’s more likely to hope that I choke on a missed bone. Giving me another portion would increase my chances.
“I believe kindness should be rewarded.”
“I’ve never known kindness to fill a belly.” In Lunae, all kindness ever got me was a minimum of ten lashes.
“We are all hungry. I would tell you to get used to it, but something tells me you already are.”
“Nothing grows in Lunae.” I don’t bother to tell him why. “Each month during the full moon, there’s a hunt and hundreds of animals are driven to where dead earth meets forest. Whatever we killed is all the food we had until the next hunt. We lost many to starvation.”
His eyes soften a moment but then crinkle in confusion, making him look at least ten years older. “You are Terranous’ Chosen, are you not? Could you not feed your people?”
“It’s complicated,” I say after swallowing the last mouthful of fish. “I only recently discovered what I am and I’m still learning what I can do. Which is apparently nothing down here.”
The anxiety that comes with being powerless creeps up on me like snakes slithering out of shadow, only to be hidden by the darkness of night. I can’t see them, but I know they’re there. I feel them running smooth bodies over me, curling around my legs, climbing me as if I were just another tree.
“You do not belong beneath the waves.”
“Beneath the waves or in Marein?”
He stands, taking my plate with him. “That is something only you can answer.”
After a few minutes of sitting alone—well, as alone as I can be in a room filled with people who keep looking my way—I decide its time to leave. Not Marein entirely, at least not yet. I wander the halls, not even bothering to learn the layout. Brin was right. I don’t belong down here, so what’s the point?
We should leave. Quinn and I should return to Rosewood. We’ve done what we came to do and even if there was more we could do, these people have made it very clear that they don’t want our help.
“You may go in.”
The voice startles me into awareness, and I realize only then that I’ve stopped walking. Somehow, I’ve found myself not only in the healer’s quadrant, but outside the very door where Jade sleeps. I turn towards the young healer and something about my appearance must puzzle her.
“Your friend is inside. The other dragon.” She means Rhett, no doubt. “You do not have to wait for him to leave.”
I shake my head and open my mouth to object, but no words come out. I didn’t mean to come here, and I certainly don’t want to go inside that room. I can’t.
“Are you ill?” she asks me, taking a step closer. I match her step with a backward one of my own and put my hands up in front of me.
“I shouldn’t be here,” I say, and the words have never felt truer. Yet, at the same time, I know I can’t leave. Not until Jade is awake and I know for certain what kind of future I’ve forced upon him.