Chapter Twenty-Eight
ELARA
Elara walked tentatively over the deck, smiling and nodding at the crew she passed as she searched for Enzo. She’d seen him exchange words with Adrian before the captain had led him below deck.
The friction between her and Enzo was worrying her. The distance.
The open sea stretched on, providing a moment’s peace, at least, from the feeling of being hunted.
As she began to descend the wooden stairs below deck, she bumped into Adrian.
‘Off to find His Highness?’ he asked, a tight note in his voice.
‘Yes, I was looking for him,’ she replied.
‘I’ll walk you,’ Adrian said. ‘It’s best you familiarize yourself with the ship anyway.’
He set off at a brisk walk, and Elara followed.
‘Thank you,’ she said earnestly, ‘for letting us aboard. It’s one small relief to not be constantly looking over my shoulder.’
‘It’s no bother,’ Adrian said, veering left in what seemed to be a maze of shut doors.
Elara’s eyes latched on to a few signs as they passed.
‘We were set for the same place anyway.’ His eyes flicked to hers now, seemingly casual, but Elara didn’t miss the shrewdness in the blue.
‘What is it you’re searching for in Altalune? ’
Elara paused, turning over whether she should reveal anything to the pirate at all. But too many lies were piling upon her chest. ‘I’m not well,’ she replied.
‘Ah,’ he said, nodding. ‘Is this something to do with what I saw in the pits?’
Shame crawled over her. ‘Yes,’ she replied quietly. ‘My shadows. I fear that I have the madness. I have no control over them any more.’
Adrian frowned as he stopped them before a door with a porthole in it.
‘Seems a lot of folk are running into trouble with their magick these days.’ He raised a bejewelled forefinger above his head.
‘And I think it’s an awful coincidence that the mess has all been occurring since that fire ball in the sky, and its night counterpart, that moon, appeared. ’
Elara swallowed her reply. He was right.
Her shadows had only begun to grow out of control since she’d become the Moon.
Was that the reason why? Was this murderess who killed with no mercy who she really was?
If the healers of Altalune found no malady within her to cure, perhaps this was her true self, having shed its mortal bonds. The thought made her nauseous.
Adrian pushed open the door before them, and the scent of herbs and frying onions greeted her.
‘This is the galley,’ he said, giving a grand sweep of his arm around a beautifully kept space.
Herbs were hung in neat bundles, along with onions, garlic and certain roots.
She could see an ice box, clearly enchanted by Svetan magick to remain cold, stocked with meats.
A giant hob at the back was partly hidden by an old man, back crooked with age, who was dicing carrots upon a wooden tray.
‘And that’s our cook, Old Pieter. Pieter,’ he shouted, a little louder, ‘this is our guest, Elara.’
‘Eh?’ the man said, turning around. His silver hair was long, tied in a neat plait. Earrings lined his ears, and deep-blue ink littered his skin, making up vast pieces of art—mermaids wrapped around waves, seashells and squid, dolphins and all other manner of sea creatures.
‘I said this is our guest, Elara. She and her friends are sailing with us to Altalune. So a few extra seats for dinner tonight.’
‘Right you are, cap’n,’ he said, saluting. ‘Pleased to meet you, Your Majesty.’
His eyes twinkled as he held out a bronzed, weathered hand. Elara took it. ‘You…you know who I am?’
Pieter chuckled. ‘Course I do. Seems you’re desired by a lot of people these days, aren’t you? But don’t you worry. Pirates we may be, but we live by a code of honour. And one of those rules is that when you’re aboard our ship, you’re one of us.’
Elara didn’t know whether to trust him or not, but when she looked to Adrian, he was smiling. ‘Couldn’t have said it better myself,’ he said, clapping the cook on his back. ‘My crew knows the price that’s paid for ratting each other out. A cut tongue and an early meeting with the abyss.’
She blinked. The pirate’s tone had been cheery, but his words held a threat.
He reminded her of the depths of the ocean, the trenches her parents had warned her about when she was growing up, a darkness hidden beneath the light.
One wash of the current, and you could sink into it, never to be seen again.
‘Anyway,’ Adrian said brightly. ‘Whatever you’re cooking smells delicious, Old Piet. We’ll see you at dinner.’
The old man waved them off with a knife.
‘I think…I think I’d like to go back there after,’ Elara said as they left the galley. ‘To help. I’m a good cook, and the kitchens always soothed me back in Helios.’
‘It would be our pleasure.’ Adrian beamed. ‘Pieter could do with another pair of hands.’
They continued walking through the ship as Adrian showed her some truly miraculous places.
There was a crystallary filled with salt and crystals from the Altalunian healing lakes.
A map room filled with old and new maps of Celestia, the land and oceans they depicted miraculously shifting within—some had even tracked the footprints of whoever had owned them previously.
Another room was filled with treasure, and Elara gawped at the sight of gold and jewels in every form imaginable heaped within the space, like a dragun’s trove she’d read about in The Mythas of Celestia.
They finally slowed next to a door simply labelled ‘Annabel’.
‘The grand bedrooms are named after my sisters,’ Adrian admitted, looking at the name.
‘I didn’t know you had sisters,’ Elara said. Something within her warmed to Adrian.
‘Seven,’ he replied, nodding. ‘Annabel is the youngest. And, well…she’s the reason that I’m travelling to Altalune. She was struck down by an illness a few weeks ago. After the moon rose.’
Elara’s stomach turned.
‘She claims there was something in the water,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘No good can come of these risen objects. And so I’m searching for a cure.
What you said about your shadows…My parents said she began to cough up black water, to disappear within herself, as though she couldn’t see, was no longer there. Do you think it’s the same malady?’
‘I hope for both your and Annabel’s sake that it’s not,’ she replied gently.
Adrian nodded. ‘Well, I’d better leave you to it. Your soulmate is waiting in there.’ Elara didn’t miss the derision that dripped from his voice.
‘I can’t stay with Enzo,’ she said in alarm, and hated that she was speaking of this weakness between them. There was something about the pirate she couldn’t describe, an ease with him that she’d rarely felt with strangers. That made her want to tell him her secrets.
‘That’s why I’ve put you in adjoining rooms,’ he said, taking her arm and leading her to the next nearest door, rapping on it with the other hand. Elara jolted at the touch. She wasn’t used to it. ‘A door between you,’ he said. ‘Enzo mentioned something about that.’
She wasn’t sure whether to be relieved or hurt that Enzo had already suggested it. Which was ridiculous. He couldn’t stay in a bed with her when she didn’t know if her magick would strike out once more.
The door swung open, Enzo looking out expectantly, warming when he saw Elara before scowling as he laid eyes on the pirate next to her.
When his gaze fell on Adrian’s hand, still upon Elara’s arm, she felt a wave of heat from him wash over her.
‘Are you used to touching what isn’t yours? ’ he bit out.
Adrian crossed his arms. ‘As a pirate, yes. I must admit I do it rather frequently. I’d keep an eye on your treasure if I were you.’ Then he grinned, winking at Elara before slipping off down the corridor.
‘The sooner we’re off this ship, the better,’ Enzo muttered, letting her in and shutting the door.
She hovered, unsure where to sit, before she decided on the edge of the bed. The room was beautiful, made up of washes of blue, maritime decorations adorning the walls and drawers.
‘I was just drawing a bath,’ he said, which accounted for the sound of running water. ‘Come through,’ he added softly.
She looked heavenwards as he padded into a bathing chamber beyond her vision.
Why were the skies constantly trying to test her?
She sighed before following, very aware of her dress and how it still wore the scent of Castor, hair that she knew was likely knotted now, a face that hadn’t been scrubbed of dried, salty tears yet.
When she entered the bathing chamber, she truly cursed the Stars. Enzo was sitting in a large tub made of oyster shell—pearlescent and gleaming in the candlelight. His head was tipped back, arms hanging off either side of the bath.
As she made her way towards him and saw the hard lines of his stomach, his chest, the naked form of him, her mouth dried, but not before that monster, incessantly prowling within her, tried to drive her forwards, towards him. She hissed through her teeth as he tipped his head to her.
‘Don’t think I don’t feel it too,’ he said, eyes simmering as they dragged down her dress. ‘There’s a beast within me trying to force my body to move, to pull you into this bath with me.’
‘Then I think it’s wise I stay here,’ she said, kneeling next to the tub.
Enzo made a small sound of amusement as his eyes stayed on her.
‘Are you real, Elara?’ he finally asked after staring at her for what felt like an eternity.
‘Of course I’m real,’ she replied, frowning.
‘I’m scared it’s all still just a dream,’ he said hoarsely. ‘Now that I can’t touch you. What if I’m still trapped there, El, my body wasting away?’
‘I watched you rise in the sky,’ Elara said gently, gripping the edge of the bath and wishing it was his hand. ‘I…I nearly gave my life for yours, Enzo.’ You did, her mind corrected her. And you gave it to the most evil of Stars.