I unbutton my dripping shirt and slide it over the girl’s naked body like a blanket. The sudden movement seems to jolt her, and with a gasping breath, her eyes shoot open. They’re as blue as Sakura’s lips.
She rolls to her stomach and coughs up the ocean, heaving until there seems to be no more water left in her. When she turns to me, the first thing I notice are her freckles, shaped like stars. Constellations dotted across her face like the ones I name while the rest of my crew sleeps. Her hair sticks to her cheeks, a deep, dark red. Muted and so close to brown. She looks young – younger than me, maybe – and, inexplicably, when she reaches for me, I allow myself to be pulled into her.
She bites her lip, hard. It’s cracked and furiously pale, just like her skin. There’s something about the action and how wild it looks on her. Something about her ocean eyes and the way she strokes my collar softly. Something familiar and hypnotic. She whispers something, a single guttural word that sounds harsh against her lips. I can’t make sense of it, but whatever it is, it makes me dizzy. I lean in closer and place a hand on her wrist.
“I don’t understand.”
She sits up, swaying, and grips my collar more tightly. Then, louder, she says it again. Gouroúni. She spits it like a weapon and her face twists. A sudden change from the innocent girl to something far crueler. Almost murderous. I recoil, but for once I’m not quick enough. The girl raises a shaking hand and brings it down across my cheek. Hard.
I fall back.
“Cap!” Torik reaches for me.
I dismiss his hand and stare at the girl. She’s smirking. A ghost of satisfaction painted on her pale, pale lips before her eyes flutter closed and her head hits the deck.
I rub the edge of my jaw. “Kye.” I don’t take my eyes off the ocean girl. “Get the rope.”
15
Lira
WHEN I WAKE, I’M bound to a railing.
Golden rope is looped around one of my wrists, lassoing it to the wooden barrier that overlooks the ship’s deck. I taste bile that keeps on burning, and I’m cold, which is the most unnatural feeling in the world, because I’ve spent a lifetime marveling in ice. Now, the cold makes me numb and tinges my skin blue. I ache for warmth, and the faint glow of the sun on my face feels like ecstasy.
I bite my lip, feeling newly blunt teeth against my skin. With a shuddering breath, I look down and see legs. Sickly pale things that are crossed awkwardly beneath me, dotted by bruises. Some in big patches, others like tiny fingerprints. And feet, too, with toes pink from the cold.
My fins are gone. My mother has damned me. I want to die.
“Oh good, you’re awake.”
I drag my head from the railing to see a man staring down at me. A man who is also a prince, whose heart I once had within reach. He’s watching me with curious eyes, black hair still wet on the ends, dripping onto perfectly dry clothes.
Beside him is a man larger than any I’ve seen, with skin almost as black as the ship itself. He stands beside the prince, hand on the hilt of a long sword that hangs from a ribbon on his waistcoat. And two more: a brown-skinned girl with tattoos spread up her arms and on the sides of her cheeks, wearing large gold earrings and a suspicious glance. Standing defensively beside her is a sharp-jawed boy who taps his finger against a knife in his belt.
On the deck below, so many more glare up at me.
I saw their faces. Moments before the world went dark. Did the prince save me from drowning? The thought makes me furious. I open my mouth to tell him that he had no right to touch me, or that he should have let me drown in the ocean I call home just to spite my mother. Just because she deserved it. Let my death be a lesson to her.
Instead I say,“You’re a good swimmer,” in my best Midasan.
“You’re not,” he retorts.
He looks amused and not at all frightened by the deadly creature before him. Which means that he’s either an idiot or he doesn’t know who I am. Possibly both, though I don’t think the prince would waste time binding me to a railing if he planned to kill me. I wonder how different my mother’s spell has made me appear for him not to recognize me.
I look at the others. They watch the prince expectantly. Waiting for his orders and his verdict. They want to know what he plans to do with me, and I can sense how anxious they are as my identity remains a mystery. They like strangers even less than I do, and staring into each of their grimy faces, I know they’ll toss me overboard if their prince commands it.
I look to the prince and try to find the right words in Midasan. What little I’ve spoken of the language tastes odd on my tongue, its vowels twisting together all too slowly. It tastes as it sounds, like warmth and gold. My voice isn’t my own when I speak it. My accent is far too sharp to loop the words, and so my tongue hisses on the strange letters.
Carefully, I say, “Do you always tie women to your ship?”
“Only the pretty ones.”
The tattooed girl rolls her eyes. “Prince Charming,” she says.
The prince laughs, and the sound of it makes me lick my lips. My mother wants him dead, but she wants me to do it as a human to prove my worth as future ruler of the sea. If I can just get close enough.
“Untie me,” I command.
“You should thank me before barking orders,” says the prince. “After all, I saved you and clothed you.”
I look down and realize that it’s true. A large black shirt scratches my legs, the damp fabric sticking to my new body.
“Where did you come from?” the prince asks.
“Did someone throw you overboard while you were getting undressed?” asks the girl.
“Maybe they threw her overboard because she was getting undressed,” says the boy with the knife.
This is met with laughter from the rest of them.
“Forgive us,” says the prince. “But it’s not every day we find a naked girl drowning in the middle of the ocean. Especially with no other ships in sight. Especially one who slaps me after I save her.”
“You deserved it.”
“I was helping you.”
“Exactly.”
The prince considers this and then pulls a small circular contraption from his pocket. It looks like a compass of some sort, and when he speaks again, his eyes stay pinned to it, voice deceptively casual.
“I can’t quite place your accent,” he says. “Where is it that you’re from?”
An eerie sensation settles in my chest. I avert my eyes from the object, hating how it feels when I look at it. Like it’s staring straight back.
“Untie me,” I say.
“What’s your name?” the prince asks.
“Untie me.”
“I see you don’t know much Midasan.” He shakes his head. “Tell me your name first.”
He switches his gaze from the compass to me, assessing, as I try to think of a lie. But it’s hopeless because I don’t know any human names to lie with. I’ve never lingered enough to hear them, and unlike the mermaids who spy on humans whenever they can, I’ve never cared to learn more about my prey.