Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty-Nine
The rocking and lurching of the ship quickly reminded Alvara that she had never been out on the ocean before.
It didn’t take long before she hung over the railing, breathing the salty air through tight lips to slow the churning storm in her stomach.
Shivers ran down her arms, and she pushed down the food threatening to make a quick exit.
“I would recommend finding a fixed point on the horizon.” Boden slipped a small, soft object into her hand. “And chewing on this. It used to help me.”
Alvara would shave her own head if it meant banishing the nausea, so she dumped whatever he had given her into her mouth and chewed. The spicy liquid that coated her tongue tasted of the biscuits her mother used to make around Jolval.
Wait. “You’ve sailed before?” Her own scratchy voice grated on her ears, like rubbing gravel in a wound.
“Only a few times here and there when we’ve needed to visit other human settlements.”
The bobbing of the ship caught Alvara’s eye, and her insides sloshed. Maybe talking would distract her. “Have you ever met your father’s family? Your human father.”
“No. My mother doesn’t speak much of him. I think it’s too painful for her.”
Alvara swallowed the last of the spiced root and chanced a look at Boden instead of the horizon. “Do you want to?”
He placed his forearms on the railing and relaxed his body as he gazed out onto the water. “I’m…not sure.”
A sleek, silver animal brushed the surface of the sea, and she bit back a gasp. If that was a selkie, this voyage might become much more complicated. In all the stories her father had told, one fact remained true: The ocean was their domain—Selahem, a realm of water and drowned corpses.
She shook her head to clear away the foreboding tales that rattled there. “I think you should consider it, if it’s important to you. They’re as much a part of you as your elven family.”
“They likely have no interest in meeting me. Many humans resent elves for refusing to intervene in the troubles they’ve endured in the past.” He pushed out a lengthy exhale. “I doubt they would feel any different about me.”
Absolute nonsense. Boden was incredibly different from the elves she had known throughout her young years and had already left an undeniable imprint on her soul. “If they have no interest in meeting you, then they’re idiots who don’t know what they’re missing.”
“That almost sounded like a compliment. Are you saying you would have missed me if I wasn’t here?”
“I need more of that root. Your words are making me nauseous.” Alvara held out her hand, and he dropped more into her palm with a chuckle.
Yes, she would have missed him.
Another crunch of spice shredded that thought into oblivion.
The nausea had abated enough the next day for Alvara to assist with sailing, not that they would let her or that she knew anything about it, but she would have liked to be useful.
Instead, she watched the waves rush by and winced each time the freezing water sprayed her, raising bumps on her shivering skin.
Eloisa would have loved to paint the wisps of the clouds, the sun reflecting on the sea.
Maybe she had even been on a ship like this before—Alvara would have been none the wiser.
Boden somehow managed to flip through the pages of a book, despite the frequent rocking and tumbling of the floor beneath them.
“What are you reading?” she asked as she took shaky steps toward him.
“Dwarvish.”
“How did you even come to learn it?”
He laid the book face down on his lap and stroked a finger across the worn cover.
“What little free time I had in the palace I spent reading, studying other languages in case we ever needed the help of the other races against the king. My grasp of anything other than the human tongue is rudimentary at best, but it’s better than nothing. ”
Alvara slid onto the damp wood next to him. “Admit it. You’re itching to use your Dwarvish. Didn’t you do anything fun? Drink with friends?”
“It’s difficult to have friends in that kind of place, except for Rav, who I didn’t see as often as I would have liked.
And Kielana. Though that proved to be a colossal mistake.
” He tapped his fingers on his leg. “I tried to stay away from anyone I could. The king would have only punished them to make me more miserable.” Boden slipped a string into the pages and tossed the tome into a nearby sleeping hide.
“Also, should I be concerned that drinking was the only idea of fun you could think of?”
“It can be pretty fun. Have you ever tried mixing ale with—” The words faded in her throat.
Boden had strolled away mid-conversation, sauntering toward the bow of the ship, as if he hadn’t just discarded their interaction like a moldy pastry. Alvara ground her teeth. If he didn’t want to talk about King Einar’s palace, he could have just said so.
A female dressed in a blue flowing silk gown at the other end of the ship hooked her finger toward Boden, her full lips lifting in a smile that Alvara did not like one bit.
Her immaculate skin, her perfect dark hair that cascaded down her back in waves, the generous curves of her body that would have tempted Kutamir himself—how did she get on the ship?
And more importantly, why was she so godsdamned beautiful?
Boden approached her, surely to question how and when she had snuck on the ship, and…gripped his hands around her waist. The female stroked his arm, wringing out Alvara’s insides and dripping vile acid into her stomach.
A past lover…maybe Kielana. It made no sense for her to be on the ship, but the mental image of them tangled in each other’s arms set what little rational thought Alvara had left ablaze. She still couldn’t look away.
Boden tipped his head and brushed his lips against that godsdamned hag’s mouth, and Alvara chomped down on the inside of her cheek.
She shuffled back a step, but her foot slipped on a puddle of seawater, and she landed on her backside.
The pain of her fall did nothing to distract her from the sweltering heat washing over her face.
He kissed her. He actually kissed her.
Alvara dug her nails into her palms. She could push her overboard. If she did it quickly, no one but Boden would see what she had done.
The female wrapped her arms around his neck and pulled him tighter against her. Seeing their bodies pressed together, the possessiveness in his touch…
Alvara didn’t care. And there was no reason she should. Boden was his own person and could bed whomever he wanted.
She pivoted toward the opposite end of the ship, teetering with each step.
It wasn’t any of her business. She had simply been surprised because he had never mentioned any current admirers, not that she had ever asked or she ever would.
It would be a foolish question when the answer didn’t matter at all, let alone interest her.
Alvara scooped up his book, and the musty scent anchored her. It was nothing. To confirm that she indeed had no feelings whatsoever about Boden’s entanglement, she made her way toward them, the tome clutched in her hand.
Where they had once stood, only a puddle of water remained.
Had he actually taken her to bed? The sun had barely awoken. Never in all her years had she seen something so brazen and ludicrous. Bastard. She cocked her arm that held his Dwarvish tome, preparing to launch it.
Splash.
She followed the sound and cursed. A seal was dragging Boden through the waves—no, not a seal. A selkie. And yet he still looked madly in love with the thing.
Alvara flung the book to the ground and dove into the water without another thought.
The stinging cold of the sea washed over her body, a shiver running up her spine as she swam.
Her arms and legs moved in a frantic, clumsy rhythm, but it wasn’t enough to fight the quivering of her freezing muscles.
She was a lousy swimmer, but she knew enough not to drown.
“Let him go!”
The selkie paused in her escape, swiveling her head toward Alvara.
“Yes, you, you tart.” She hurled her magic at the selkie and froze the water around it and Boden, who had gone limp. She was running out of time.
Alvara launched herself toward him, latched onto his foot, and yanked his body with a grunt.
The ice around him splintered, and she sank under the waves with his weight.
She swallowed a mouthful of sea water and coughed on the burning liquid as she pumped her legs to bring them both above the surface for air.
Gods, he was so heavy. She lugged him toward the ship at the pace of a bear waking up from hibernation—actually, she was probably slower—and yelled in the human tongue at the sailors on their ship.
“Help!” At least this time she knew it wasn’t the word for chicken. Saltwater clogged her nostrils, and her limbs screamed with the effort of keeping them both from drowning. The selkie growled behind her. She scrambled to gain distance, but the choppy sea fought her every move.
A few of the humans finally popped up at the railing, and their jaws dropped.
Thank Vitharen at least one of them had enough awareness to launch himself off the ship and glide toward Alvara with the grace and speed of a fish.
He latched onto Boden and propelled himself backward toward safety, freeing her fatigued arms.
She screamed. The selkie had sunk its teeth into her ankle and begun to drag her under.
More seawater flooded her lungs. The light above her moved farther away, even as she flailed in the damn thing’s grip.
She jabbed her boot into its flesh, but the creature held on tight.
She was not going to lose in a fight to a godsdamned seal.
Alvara grabbed her dagger, squeezed her burning eyes shut, and stabbed.
The selkie hissed and released her, and she kicked to the surface, her mind spinning with each movement.