The Tide Reversed One kiss could free him—or drown them all. #5
Finn looked away.
The room tightened.
Callum’s hand flexed on Finn’s neck. Not cruelly. Fraternally. Like he wanted to shake him and hold him upright at the same time.
Finn’s smile thinned. “Morwenna’s things are circling closer. I heard them scraping the lower stones. Thought I might invite myself out before they invited themselves in.”
“You thought to surrender,” Callum said.
“I thought to negotiate.”
“You cannot negotiate without a sealskin.”
“Then it would have been a brief meeting.”
Maren stared at him. Anger rose in her so sudden and hot it burned away the cold.
“You do not get to make that choice for everyone,” she snapped.
Finn’s gaze cut to hers.
Something raw moved through his face before the charm covered it.
“No?” he said. “You are the only one allowed impossible choices now?”
The words hit.
Maren sat back on her heels.
Finn’s mouth twisted as if he regretted them. Then, softer, “Forgive me.”
She did not know whether he meant the words or the softness.
That was the problem with Finnian Lark. Every truth came dressed as a lie until she could not tell which part was meant to distract her from the wound.
Callum helped him sit back against the wall. Elias murmured something in their language and checked his pulse. Ronan added wood to the fire with the intensity of a man trying to murder kindling.
Maren stood because kneeling near Finn made her want to touch him again, and touching any of them had become its own kind of danger.
The night pressed in.
The storm worsened.
By midnight, waves climbed halfway up the cliff.
By the hour after, they struck the lower windows.
There should not have been lower windows to strike. The lighthouse stood high above the sea, carved into Blackwake’s tallest rock. But water slapped glass in the storeroom. Water gurgled in the chimney. Water whispered beneath the sealed door.
Come down, little keeper.
Maren stood in the stairwell with a lantern in one hand and a knife in the other, listening.
Warm breath brushed her ear.
“Not wise to stand alone in the dark.”
She did not turn.
“Not wise to sneak up on women holding knives.”
Finn leaned one shoulder against the wall beside her. He looked worse in lantern light. Too pale, lips still tinged blue, borrowed shirt open at the throat because buttons apparently offended him.
“You would not stab me,” he said.
“I might.”
His laugh brushed her ear like silk. “There she is again.”
Maren looked at him despite herself.
He was beautiful in the careless, dangerous way of things made to be admired and regretted. But there were shadows under his eyes, and his smile did not hide the tremor in his hands.
“You should be near the fire,” she said.
“You say the sweetest things.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.” His gaze moved over her face. “That is the trouble.”
The air changed.
The stairwell was too narrow. Rain dripped from the iron rail above them, each drop ringing softly as it struck the steps. The lantern light caught on the damp curve of Finn’s mouth. Maren became aware of every inch between them. Every warning. Every rule.
Do not let any of us kiss you.
Finn’s voice dropped. “Do you know why Callum wants you to choose him?”
“Because he is the eldest.”
“Because he thinks the rest of us still have something worth saving.”
“And you?”
Finn smiled without humor. “I think he is an arrogant ass with a martyr complex.”
“That does not answer my question.”
“No.” His eyes held hers. “It does not.”
Maren should have moved away.
Instead, she said, “What would you do if I chose you?”
His expression cracked.
Only for a moment. Only enough to show the fear beneath.
“Forget you, apparently.”
The honesty hurt more than flirtation would have.
Maren’s hand tightened around the knife until the bandages pulled against her raw palms.
Finn looked down.
Before she could step back, he reached for her hand.
Slowly. Deliberately. Giving her every chance to refuse.
She did not.
He took her injured hand between both of his. His palms were cold, but his touch was careful, almost reverent. He turned her hand over and studied the rope burns beneath the linen.
“You did this for us,” he said.
“I did it because you were drowning.”
“That explanation may comfort you. It does not impress me.”
“Few things seem to.”
“On the contrary.” His thumb brushed the edge of her bandage. “I am very easily impressed by women who fight the sea and win.”
“I did not win.”
“No.” His gaze lifted to hers. “You stole.”
The pendant heated.
Maren’s breath caught.
Finn bent his head.
Not to her mouth.
To her knuckles.
It happened so softly she could have pretended it did not matter. His lips touched the linen over her bruised hand, warm despite the cold, gentle despite everything sharp and reckless about him. A courtier’s gesture. A joke, almost. A flirtation dressed in gratitude.
But his eyes closed when he did it.
And Maren felt the kiss everywhere.
The lighthouse lantern erupted blue.
Above them, glass screamed.
Maren jerked back.
Every window in the lighthouse exploded inward at once.
Rain and sea wind blasted through the tower.
The pressure hit like a body, knocking Maren into the stair rail.
Finn caught her around the waist before she fell, and the pendant flared so hot she cried out.
Below, Callum shouted. Ronan roared. Elias’s voice cut through the chaos, speaking words that made the air tremble.
The sea answered.
Not with waves.
With a scream.
It rose from beneath the cliff, vast and female and furious, shaking the lighthouse from foundation to lantern room. The blue beacon guttered. Saltwater poured through shattered windows, crawling across the floor in reaching fingers.
Finn’s face had gone bloodless.
“It did not count,” he said.
Maren stared at him, heart hammering.
“What?”
“The curse.” Elias appeared at the bottom of the stairs, one hand braced against the wall, green eyes fixed on them. “It did not count the kiss.”
Outside, something struck the lighthouse.
Once.
Twice.
A third time.
The sealed door bowed inward.
Callum dragged a table in front of it while Ronan seized the iron poker from the hearth, black eyes burning with old war. Finn’s arm tightened around Maren’s waist before he seemed to realize he still held her.
Slowly, he let go.
The sea screamed again.
This time, words formed inside it.
Not yet, keeper.
The door buckled.
Finn looked down at Maren’s hand, then at her mouth, and his smile returned in pieces—terrified, beautiful, doomed.
“Good news,” he whispered.
Maren could barely hear him over the storm.
“What?”
His blue eyes flashed toward the windows as something slick and faceless climbed into the broken glass.
“Something beneath the waves is jealous.”
The Court Beneath the Breakers
The thing climbing through the broken window had no face.
It wore a sealskin like a stolen shadow, slick black pelt stretched over limbs too long to belong to anything born cleanly. Rain streamed from it in silver ropes. Its head turned toward Maren with a wet, boneless motion, and though it had no eyes, she felt it looking straight at her mouth.
The sea outside screamed again.
Callum moved first.
Even weakened, even fevered, he crossed the room like violence given a body. He seized the shattered window frame with one hand and drove Maren’s iron poker through the creature’s shoulder with the other. The thing shrieked—not in pain, but in offense. The sound turned the rain to needles.
Ronan was already at the next window.
Another skin-wrapped creature dragged itself through, fingers bending backward around the sill.
Ronan caught it by the throat. His scars flared white.
For one terrifying second, Maren saw something ancient move beneath his skin, a darkness edged in storm-blue fire.
He slammed the creature against the stone wall hard enough to crack plaster.
Finn grabbed Maren by the wrist and pulled her away from the stairs as water poured down them in sheets.
“Do you keep weapons in this charming death tower,” he shouted, “or only moral complications?”
“Pantry,” Maren snapped.
“Of course. Death by preserves.”
Elias caught her other hand before she could answer.
His fingers were cold, ink-stained, and shaking.
“Not the pantry,” he said. “Below.”
“There is no below.”
His eyes cut to hers. “There is.”
The lighthouse shook as something huge struck its base.
The hearth fire went blue.
Maren looked from Elias to the sealed door, where salt crust split and re-formed in frantic, crawling veins.
Behind her, Callum ripped the poker free and drove the creature back through the window into the storm.
Ronan’s opponent dissolved into a spill of black seawater and empty pelt, but the skin did not die.
It slithered toward the door like a living shadow.
Elias tightened his grip on Maren’s hand.
“Your ancestors hid more than light in this tower.”
A cold memory rose.
Her father on winter nights, kneeling before the hearth after he thought she had gone to sleep. His hand reaching beneath the left stone. A sound like grinding bone. Her mother whispering, Some doors are not for daughters until the sea comes knocking.
Maren looked at the hearth.
“No,” she whispered.
“Yes,” Elias said.
The tower groaned.
Finn turned toward them, blood dripping from a cut at his temple. “Now would be a fine time to discover a family secret, love.”
Maren shoved past him, dropped to her knees at the hearth, and thrust both hands into the ash beneath the grate.
“Maren,” Callum barked.
“I know!”
Hot cinders bit through her bandages. She ignored them, fingers searching over soot-black stone until she found the groove she remembered. A ring, hidden beneath ash and old salt.
She pulled.
Nothing happened.
The lighthouse shuddered again. A crack split the wall from window to floor.
Ronan staggered, one hand going to his ribs.
Callum caught him by the shoulder.
“Again,” Elias said.
Maren set both hands to the iron ring and pulled with everything she had.
The hearthstone opened.
Cold air breathed up from beneath the lighthouse.