Though the words should be overcome with pride, they are rough and bitter. Tinged in as much sadness as they are resentment.
I think about how much time I spent trying to make my mother proud. Enough that I forgot what it was like to feel content or anything I wasn’t ordered to feel. I let her gift me to a merman like I was nothing but flesh he could devour, all the while reasoning that it was something I had to do for my kingdom. And Elian has thrust that own perdition onto himself. To fulfill the burden of the world and the duty of his title, he’s willing to lose the parts of himself he treasures the most. The freedom and the adventure and the joy. Parts I barely remember having.
I look away, discomforted by how much of myself I see in his eyes.
Either way, you have to take his heart, I think to myself. What other choice is there?
“If the necklace is that precious,” I say,“we should have just killed Tallis to get it.”
“You can’t just kill everyone you don’t like.”
“I know that. Otherwise you’d be dead already.”
But it’s not true. It almost surprises me how untrue it is. Because I could have killed him – or at least tried – and fulfilled my mother’s orders a dozen times over.
The ceiling rattles before Elian can retort. There’s a low rumble in the wind, and for a moment I think it might be the sea waves crashing against Tallis Rycroft’s pathetic excuse for a ship, but then the rumble grows louder and a bang shakes the cabin. Dust rains from the ceiling, and beneath us the floorboards splinter.
There’s a chorus of yells and then nothing but the sound of cannons and gunfire. Of screaming and dying. Of the world descending into chaos.
Elian pulls at the ropes with a new ferocity. He shuts his eyes and I hear a resounding pop. I stare in disbelief as he tries to pull his hand from the restraints, his left thumb now slack. Miraculously, it slips halfway down before the rope lodges against his skin.
“Damn,” he spits. “It’s too tight. I can’t slip out.”
The cabin groans. A large split slivers up the wall and the window frame cracks with the pressure. Above us, footsteps pound the deck and the thunderous clashing of swords is second only to the deafening snarl of cannon fire.
“What is that?” I ask.
“My crew.” Elian jerks at the rope again. “I’d recognize the sound of the Saad cannons anywhere.” He gives me a smile to light up nations. “Listen to my girl roar.”
“They came for us?”
“Of course they came for us,” Elian says. “And if they’ve battered up my ship doing it, then there’s going to be hell to pay.”
As soon as the words leave his lips, a cannonball crashes through the window. It shoots past me and collides with the wooden beam that holds Elian. He ducks his head with siren speed, and wood shavings rain down his back. My breath lodges and a feeling of nausea rises up through my stomach. Then Elian lifts his head and shakes the dust from his hair.
I let loose a long breath and my frenzied human heart returns to its normal rhythm. Elian surveys the massacre of wood around him. And then slowly, almost wickedly, he smiles.
He rises to his feet and slips out from beneath the shattered beam. He jumps, bringing his bound hands under his feet and to his chest in one swift motion. Briefly, he scans the dank room for something to cut the rope, but the cabin is desolate save for its two prisoners.
Elian glances at me and his smile fades as he takes in my restraints. The undamaged beam ready to take me down with the ship. He looks at his tied hands, his thumb still painfully dislodged from the socket. The room that is too bare to make use of. The girl he can’t seem to save.
“Go,” I tell him.
Elian’s eyes harden. Darken. That green disappearing under a whirlpool of anger. “Being a martyr doesn’t suit you,” he says.
“Just go,” I hiss.
“I’m not just going to leave you here.”
The sound of gunfire pierces the air. And a scream – a roar of fury – so loud that I wince. Elian turns to the doorway. Outside, his crew could be dying. The men and women he calls family marking their lives as forfeit to save their captain. And for what? For him to surrender his own life to save the very monster he has been hunting? A girl who has been plotting to steal his heart from under him? A traitor in every sense of the word.
Both of us have put our lives and our kingdoms on the line to find the eye and overthrow my mother. If nothing else, I won’t stand by and watch someone else lose their kingdom just so I won’t be alone when I lose mine.
“Elian.” My voice takes on a murderous calm.
“I—”
“Run!” I scream, and to my surprise, he does.
His teeth grind for a moment before, jaw pulsing under the weight of the decision. And then he turns. Quick as an arrow, the young prince darts from the cabin and leaves me to my doom.
28
Lira
I WAIT FOR DEATH to come.
There’s a chance that when I die, I’ll return to my siren form. The corpse of the mighty Princes’ Bane, stuck inside a pirate’s ship. Perhaps, a sunken ship. Perhaps, where nobody but the mermaids will find me. My mother might even feign mourning at the loss of her heir, or simply command the Flesh-Eater to help make her a new one.
I’m feeling a bit too sorry for myself when Tallis Rycroft bursts through the door. His eyes scratch over the cold and empty cabin, and he rips a wooden plank masquerading as a shelf from the wall, its rusted nails snapping with the force.
His trousers are stained red from where Elian’s knife went in. Through the tear I can see thick black stitches crisscrossing his skin back into place. A rush job, but it seems to have done the trick. Elian must have missed any arteries.
Tallis’s knuckles are raw and scratched pink. When he charges across the room, it’s in a jagged limp. He spots the broken beam where Elian was and snarls, kicking the splinters at me.
I don’t flinch.
“Where is he?” he barks.
I cross one leg over the other and slump my shoulders indifferently. “You are going to have to be a little more specific.”
In two strides, Rycroft crosses the room and wraps his thick hands around my neck. He pulls me to my feet and growls.
“You tell me where he is,” Tallis hisses. “Or I’ll snap your pretty little neck.”
The weight of his hands around my throat reminds me of my mother’s hold. I want to cough and splutter, but there doesn’t seem to be enough air. There’s a fury without measure in my veins, pushing and pulling my insides until all that’s left is a deep pit of loathing.
I twist my lips into a snarl of my own. “You seem upset,” I say.
Tallis wrenches his hands from me. “They’re ripping my ship to shreds,” he seethes. “When I find that bastard, there aren’t words for what I’ll do. He’s declared war.”
“I think you did that when you attacked the Midasan prince and took him prisoner. If you think this is bad, imagine the entire might of the golden army devoted to hunting you down.”