Chapter Fourteen
The ship anchored some distance from shore. The long and narrow wooden walkway stretched ahead of us, leading toward land.
“What happened to Barron’s body?” I asked as we disembarked, falling behind Jina and Ranis to speak to Fraya.
“Overboard.” Fraya hiked a thumb over her shoulder. “Before sunrise. We don’t do ceremony.”
I thought of his daughters. Whoever they were, wherever they were, they’d never know what happened to their father, or that he’d died trying to sell out a girl he’d toasted to hours earlier.
“That seems—” I didn’t know how to finish.
“It’s how it’s done.” Fraya waved a hand dismissively. “Out here, the sea takes what the sea takes. Nobody asks questions.”
“Where’s Jimin?” I asked.
“He stayed behind on the ship. Someone needs to oversee the crew while Theron and I are away. It had been Barron’s job. Now it’s his.”
Ahead, crew members maneuvered the crate onto a wagon waiting at the end of the dock, grunting under its weight, the chains clinking against the wood. I waited for the growl, the rattle, anything from escaping from the crate… nothing.
Silence.
Had they drugged the creature? Was it dead? It didn’t matter. I shouldn’t care. If it was anything like the oclego, or the thing I saw in the sky, they had to be vicious, would have killed us on the spot. I reminded myself.
Dozens of soldiers lined up at the end of the walkway in gleaming gold armor and a helmet that caught the sunlight.
Even their sword hilts and the spears at their sides were golden.
Some soldiers sat mounted on white horses, each draped in heavy cloth that fell past the saddle, embroidered with a gilded rose.
These soldiers were tall, taller than Theron, with pale skin that seemed to glisten, and ears that tapered to points beneath straight dark long hair. They were simply beautiful, all of them mesmerizing. The kind of beautiful you can’t look away from.
“Don’t stare,” Fraya murmured behind me. “It’s rude.”
“I can’t help myself,” Jina whispered.
“I’ve never seen the likes of them.” Ranis nearly tripped over his own feet, catching himself at the last second. “I’ve sailed the world on Russo’s ship, and I’ve never seen folk like these. Where are we?”
“They’re called Seelie.” Fraya kept her voice low. “We’re in their territory now. Welcome to Caelum—kingdom of the Purple Sea.”
“So this is the place.” Ranis’s eyes lit up. “I’ve always wanted to visit. They say Yeri, and the other gods walked here once.”
The soldiers on foot and on horses fell into formation around us without a word or an order from a general. They guided us toward the direction off the path and onto another road.
“Captain Theron,” one of them said. “The queen will speak to you at the throne room.”
Theron nodded and placed a hand on the crate. “What shall I do with this?”
“The queen leaves it up to your discretion.”
Theron offered a curt nod.
The town beyond the dock unfolded around us—streets paved in pale stone, buildings carved with the same care as the soldiers’ armor, balconies dripping with flowering vines. The people paused in doorways and windows to watch us pass, quiet and reserved, not a word spoken among them.
More soldiers lined the streets at every turn, and more still on the rooftops, bows in hand, their eyes moving between the ground and the sky in equal measure.
Watching for what?
I thought of the wings I’d seen from the upper deck on Theron’s ship. The growl from the crate. Whatever lived in the air above this kingdom, the soldiers knew about it and feared it enough to keep watch even in daylight.
We turned a corner and the street opened into a wide square. At the far end stood a massive golden gate, three times my height, its upper edge worked with an intricate design, the same rose at its center.
The gate swung open, soldiers on either side hauling it wide without visible effort. Archways draped in pale fabric lined the courtyard, the cloth moving gently with the breeze.
Beyond a courtyard gave way to a castle that rose impossibly high, tower after tower climbing toward the sky until the topmost ones disappeared into the clouds, as if the edifice had no intention of stopping.
Each tower had windows, dark openings against the white stone, and I had the unsettling sense that someone watched from every one of them.
We were led through corridors lined with drapes of white and gold, floor-to-ceiling, until the throne room doors opened onto a space so vast it swallowed my footsteps whole.
White marble floors stretched in every direction.
Pale drapes hung from the ceiling, so long their ends brushed the gold-accented columns on their way down.
At the far end, on a raised dais, stood three thrones.
The queen sat in the center, larger and higher than the other two.
On either side of her sat her sons. One was young and sharp-featured, his silver hair cropped close, watching us in silence.
The other was older, more heavily built, with broader shoulders, his expression unreadable and his fingers steepled in front of him, a smirk playing at his mouth.
His violet eyes were the same as his brother’s and their mother’s.
The queen was stunning. Pearls woven through hair so pale it was nearly silver, but it was the rest of her that stopped me.
A crown set with stones in colors I’d never seen—deep blue, vivid green, brilliant white, blood red—each one catching the light differently, throwing small, fractured rainbows across the floor near her feet.
More stones at her throat, more at her fingers, every one of them different.
“Sapphire,” Fraya murmured beside me. “Emerald. Pearl. Ruby—”
“Amethyst, Citrine, and Onyx,” Ranis finished.
Fraya nodded toward the queen without looking at her. “Amethyst, Purple Sea is hers.”
Jina leaned against Fraya from the other side. “So each sea is named after a gemstone?”
Fraya nodded, then placed a finger across her lips.
The queen hadn’t moved. Hadn’t acknowledged any of us yet. She stared, the way the soldiers on the rooftops had watched the sky. Then she finally rose. As if that were a cue, the soldiers lining the room dropped their spears to their sides and stood in a resting stance.
Her alabaster hair, unlike anything I’d ever seen, fell past her waist, long enough to brush her fingertips where they rested at her sides.
Her gown matched the color almost exactly, white and silver woven together through the delicate material.
Small flecks of gold shimmered through it as she moved, like dust caught in sunlight.
“My queen.” Theron bowed. “Crown Prince Lucian and Prince Pierre.”
“Do the same,” Fraya whispered sharply.
We followed suit, lowering our heads practically to our knees, then straightening.
The queen’s lips twitched, and she settled back onto her throne. “What have you brought for me, Theron?”
The way she said his name sent icy chills up my spine.
“I’ve captured a boarox in Morvik.” He gestured toward the crate, set about ten feet behind us.
So that was the reason Theron had been in the Green Sea. And I’d happened to be there too, with Russo. Fate had a funny way of working things out. But he’d known what was inside the crate the whole time, even when he’d told me he didn’t.
The queen’s eyes lit up, her fingers folding together. “And what else have you brought me?”
Her violet eyes cut to mine, examining me the way Russo had at the auction, assessing, calculating, like I was a price tag rather than a person.
My stomach dropped.
Theron didn’t answer right away.
“Perhaps you need a reminder why you’re here.” The queen’s tone made it clear there was more to this arrangement than Theron or Fraya had let on.
The princes said nothing and only watched.
Theron’s jaw tightened, just barely. “I’m aware of why I’m here, My Queen.”
“Are you?”
She rose from her throne again, unhurried, descending the steps toward us. Each footstep made no sound, the gown moving as silent as water.
“Because it seems to me you’ve brought me a boarox only. What about the leonhawk?”
“The boarox took months to track. As far as the leonhawk, it would be much easier to catch one if I had wings.”
He’d tried to make light of the situation, I assumed—but wait, was he being serious?
The queen answered my question by baring her teeth.
Each one tapered to a point like the tip of a dagger, nothing like any teeth I’d seen on a person, more like a wild animal.
The sight of them, paired with that otherwise serene face, sent cold chills through my chest.
I wondered if the princes had teeth like that too, hidden behind those composed expressions. I didn’t want to find out.
Jina grabbed my arm.
“Steady,” Fraya murmured. “Do not show any dislikes.”
“I thought—” Theron began.
“You thought.” The queen crossed the distance to Theron in a few steps, stopping close enough that she had to tilt her chin to meet his eyes. “I don’t pay you to think, Theron. I pay you to deliver. There’s a difference.”
The room had gone quiet. Even the soldiers, who’d looked relaxed moments ago, stiffened, knuckles white around the spears. Even Theron, who owned the sea and commanded his crew, seemed smaller here. Not cowering but careful.
I thought of Fraya’s words from that morning. He doesn’t forgive easily. I wondered, watching this exchange, if that went both ways.
“He did deliver, Mother.” Lucian descended from the dais.
Theron went rigid beside Fraya.
The queen scoffed and turned away.
Lucian stopped directly in front of me. Up close, his features were sharper than his mother’s—pointed ears, a narrow nose, and eyes the color of amethyst, gleaming like one of the gemstones in his mother’s crown. He studied me the way you’d study a rare object.
Could he tell I was Seaborn?
Then he moved to Jina.
Jina closed her eyes and whimpered, then opened them, her lips twitching into an attempted smile.
“Wait.” Lucian glanced back toward the dais. “These girls are new.”