12. Blindly Trusting a Survivor
Blindly Trusting a Survivor
The sky-blue fabric of the dress clung to me in unfamiliar ways.
It was as if I’d borrowed a piece of someone else’s life and slipped into an identity I didn’t know how to wear.
A foreign version of myself that was more poised, more feminine.
I shut the bathing room door behind me and ran my hands down the front of the cotton skirting, smoothing out wrinkles that weren’t there.
You would think the interaction I had with the sea serpent would be what had me flustered. But no. It was the bodice that felt too tight and the neckline that felt too low, too wide. Apparently, my priorities were in excellent working order.
I found my way back out to the common area to find the table set and bowls of stew at each of the four place settings.
Gannet had already taken her place at the table, and the men were in the middle of sitting down.
They noticed me enter the room, and at once, they both abruptly stood back up, their chair legs screeching across the metal floor.
I stopped, frozen like a startled rabbit. Was there something on my face? Had I put the dress on backwards?
Charis was the first to move and came around to pull out my chair, motioning for me to take a seat.
Oh. Chivalry. Right.
Getting the prickly sense that Griffon’s eyes were on me, I arranged my skirt and attempted to sit with grace. I was fairly confident I didn’t pull it off. Both Charis and Griffon returned to their seats and, as I had perfected over the last few days, looked everywhere but in Griffon’s direction.
At the center of the weathered wooden table sat one half of an enormous clam shell. Like a bowl, it held smooth, frosted fragments of sea glass in shades of turquoise, amber, sea green, and cobalt.
“Thank you for everything. This smells wonderful.”
“Wren, it is our pleasure,” replied Charis.
Gannet swept her long mahogany hair behind her shoulders and smiled. “That dress brings out your strikingly beautiful blue eyes, Wren. It complements you much more than it ever did me.”
“Rubbish, Gannet. You look radiant in everything,” Charis gushed as he reached across the table. Gannet extended her pale hand until it was enveloped in his dark one. I watched the movement and glanced up to see them looking at each other with so much affection, it took my breath away.
It was such an odd thing to see. I’ve read plenty of books about love, tales of passion uniting kingdoms and star-crossed lovers, but always assumed it was one of those things that existed only in books.
Like mermaids. Or functional governments.
The reality of it was so much more soul-stirring than words could describe.
Gannet looked up at everyone again. “Eat up. Before it gets cold.”
I glanced at Griffon to find him looking at me with that hard to read expression on his face.
Not for the first time, I wondered what went on in his head.
He had yet to bathe, but his hands and face were clean.
He still wore all black, but without his overcoat and weapons, he looked less intimidating.
Raising the spoon to his mouth, he broke my stare.
I followed suit and took a bite. Until that moment, I hadn’t realized how famished I was.
It had been two days without a proper meal.
There was light conversation around me and discussions about booking an airship, but my focus centered on getting the delicious food into my stomach.
Social skills could wait. Food could not.
Emptying the earthenware bowl in record time, I pretended I had manners and raised the cloth napkin to blot my lips.
Gannet chuckled. “You must have liked it.” And then her face grew hard as she glowered at Griffon. “Or you must have been starving.”
I looked back and forth between Gannet and Griffon. Griffon’s face was emotionless. Gannet continued to glare.
Thankfully, Charis interrupted. “Wren, would you like another bowlful?”
“Yes, please.”
Charis returned with another serving and placed it in front of me before returning to his seat. Tension was still thick in the air, making me feel uneasy.
“Gannet said you knew about the desalination process they use here.” When in doubt, talk about chemistry. That always made things less awkward. “I was wondering if you knew whether they used reverse osmosis or distillation.”
Charis’ face lit up. “Reverse osmosis. We don’t have the open acreage for solar distillation.”
I nodded. Finally, a conversation I could actually contribute to. “That makes sense. I once read that you can convert the brine to caustic soda and put it right back into the process.”
Charis nodded as his brows rose. “We started doing that a few years back. It minimizes the amount of waste material.”
“Makes sense for a continuous system like this. And I would assume you need to keep the pH threshold under 2.3?”
“Lower,” Charis smiled indulgently, “No higher than 1.8. To prevent the fouling of the filter membranes.”
“Then do you run into problems with iron or silica scaling?”
“Iron, mostly. Our chemist is constantly working to balance the process.”
I nodded in understanding.
So caught up in the conversation, I forgot there were others in the room. Glancing over, I found that Gannet and Griffon’s eyebrows had both disappeared up into their hairlines.
Right. Normal people don’t get excited about membrane fouling. I suppressed a cringe and fought the urge to duck under the table and live there forever.
My face began to heat as I absently wondered if you could use ocean temperature differentials instead of reverse osmosis.
Theoretically, if the temperatures on the surface were at least twenty degrees warmer than in the deep sea, you could desalinate the water and even power a turbine.
Although it would probably work better in a warmer climate.
Griffon’s eyes remained on me.
Thank the gods all that gibberish didn’t come out of my mouth. Sometimes I wished I could be more normal. Or at least have an off switch on my brain. I shook my head and went back to eating my stew.
After devouring the second bowl and failing to stifle a yawn, Gannet led me to the room where I would sleep.
It was a cramped space, furnished with just a single bed and a small desk.
Gannet sat on a patchwork quilt, holding what I assumed were my nightclothes, and patted the spot next to her.
The busy cotton squares in florals, plaids, and stripes were once vibrant, but had softened with time. Hesitantly, I sat down.
“Griffon told us you’re Sideri.”
I whipped my eyes toward her. I’d been expecting “sleep well” or “don’t touch anything.” Not that.
A faint smile graced her thin lips. “I thought I would give you something to make it easier.” She handed me two long barrettes with stars and swirls engraved in the metal.
Staring at the items in my open palm, I wondered how fixing my hair could possibly make this any easier. “I don’t understand.”
She took a barrette from my hand and flipped it open to reveal a small blade. It had a smooth, flat edge and a dangerously sharp point at the end.
Oh. Not for hair fixing. For stabbing. That made more sense.
“Use the razor edge to keep your potens lock shaved. The more often you shave it close to the skin, the less likely anyone will notice if they look. And having a small piece of lanolin soap on hand will keep irritation at bay.”
“Okay.” The word faltered on my tongue. Her kindness caught me off-guard. I wasn’t used to people just…helping.
“Here, I’ll show you how to do it. It gets easier the more you practice.”
How would she know how… “You’re Sideri, too.”
Like lightning splitting the sky, my curiosity sparked to life at the realization.
She nodded, unwrapping a small piece of lanolin soap from waxed paper, and dipped it in the washbasin. “It doesn’t need to be very wet.”
“How is it that you’re free?”
She paused, but eventually replied. “That’s sort of a long story.”
“Would you tell me?”
She pulled my hair back from behind my ear and rubbed the damp soap against my skin.
“When I was young, I was gifted to the House of Larum and assigned to a naval whaling brig. I sailed for a few moon cycles, but the hunting was…difficult. The captain of the vessel was the heir to the House. He was an arrogant, cruel man.” Her lip curled as she pulled out the small blade.
“He used me to have an advantage in the pursuit, a guarantee of fame and glory.”
The small blade flashed in the flickering oil lamp light. I shouldn’t allow someone that close to my neck with a pointy object, but I felt no unease. She was nice.
Blessed stars, Griffon held a blade to my throat not all that long ago, threatened my life, and yet I still plan to journey across the continent with him.
And there were times when he definitely wasn’t very nice.
I wondered if my naivety would one day get me killed. The odds were looking pretty good.
Oblivious to my inner turmoil, she continued, her face growing tight.
“It wasn’t my intention to incite the pod.
I just couldn’t watch another creature get slaughtered.
” Her eyes slid toward the deep green in the porthole above the desk.
“They rammed the boat repeatedly until the hull splintered. They kept me safe on the open sea and above the water. Charis and his father had been fishing off a small boat just east of here.” She smiled at the memory. “The rest, as they say, is history.”
She took a breath and showed me the blade.
“Hold it like this, pull the skin taught and gently scrape the blade at this angle. From top to bottom, so you go with the grain.” The rasp of the blade scraping across my skin remained behind my ear, and to my relief, never traveled toward my jugular.
Which was good. I was sort of attached to that part of my body.
Once the short hairs were gone, she demonstrated how to wipe the blade clean and sharpen it against a strip of leather.