Page 24 of Cursed Crowns
“You are ridiculous!” Celeste jammed the tricorn over her hood. “You’ve always been far too fond of storms!”
“You can have this one all to yourself, Marino!” yelled Wren, who was feeling dangerously seasick. Her moment of triumph would be embarrassingly short-lived if she ended up vomiting on herself. “I’m going back to my hammock!” Then she pulled her cloak around her and hurried belowdecks.
The rum made Wren drowsy, and the storm rocked her to sleep. Hours passed in the briny dimness, morning slipping seamlessly into afternoon before evening fell once more. When she woke up, the sea was eerily still, and the sun was setting. There was no sign of Celeste, but after their argument on deck Wren hadn’t been expecting her to join her as a cabinmate. She was probably reclining in the captain’s quarters, drinking all the good wine.
Wren ventured on deck, where her breath made filmy clouds in the air. TheSiren’s Secrethad passed through the raging storm and emerged into a glassy sea, where an icy mist clung to the ship and the sky was the color of a finely polished pearl. There was an eeriness about this water, as though it were filled not with living things but ghosts hiding in the ripples of long-dead waves.
Wren found Marino leaning over the bow of the ship.
“Looking for treasure?” she said, coming to stand beside him.
Their reflections stared up at them through the mist. “Something better,” said Marino. “Mermaids.”
Wren’s eyebrows rose.
“Two years ago, I glimpsed one here on a starless night.” His lips twitched into a smile. “She was floating like a blossom on the water. I thought she was sprung from a dream, at first. But then she sang to me.”
Wren leaned over the glassy water, searching for a shining tail in the waves. She had never seen a mermaid before, but a pirate that once washed up in Ortha had told her stories of them. How they glowed like jewels beneath the water and held the light of the stars in their eyes. How they sang with all the grace of a dawn chorus but swam where no sailor could hope to catch them. They were frightened of the world above the surface, of the famine and the greed and the wars, and those who stoked them.
“Did you speak to her?”
Marino shook his head. “I couldn’t summon the courage, Your Majesty.”
“Call me Wren. Or Tilda, if you like. I hate formality,” said Wren. “And why don’t you chuck some of your gold into the sea next time? You’re rich. That might work.”
“Don’t tease me.” Marino turned back to the misty water. “If there’s one thing this life has taught me, it’s that you can buy almost anything in the world, except love. There is nothing you can trade for it. Only your heart.”
Wren looked out at the gentle water. It was a perfect mix of gray and blue, the same shade as Tor’s eyes. Her heart clenched at the memory of him sailing away from her. She had tried to shut the moment away,to bury it in the back of her mind, but in the sudden stillness of her thoughts, it crept out again. A whisper of hope came with it, and she found herself wondering if she would see the Gevran soldier once she got to Grinstad... if she was a fool to think he might even help her rescue Banba. She knew she had no right to ask anything of him, not after he had sacrificed his prince to save her life. But hope was like a bird sprung from a cage. Once set free, it was hard to catch.
“I know that look.”
Wren blinked. “What look?”
The captain smirked at her. “You are in love.”
She barked a laugh. “You’re mistaking love with hunger.”
“If you say so.”
“Oh, shut up.” Wren swatted him. “You’re the one obsessed with a fancy flounder.”
They shared a chuckle as they turned back to the sea, theSiren’s Secretgliding gracefully as a swan. For a long time, they were both silent, each lost in their own thoughts. Then the wind changed.
“Look,” said Marino, gesturing toward the horizon. “Do you see that?”
Wren rose to her tiptoes. “See what?”
“The famous ice cliffs of Gevra. We’ve made good time. The storm certainly helped.”
The mist curled as it parted, revealing a swathe of land so high and bright, it burned tears into Wren’s eyes. She blinked them away, her heart pounding as she tried to make sense of what lay before them.
“Stars above.” The ice cliffs cut a jagged line across the horizon, jutting up from the sea like shards of shattered glass. The Gevran coast was a barrier so sharp and unforgiving that no man or woman couldever hope to conquer it. “It’s impenetrable.”
“Not quite.” Marino pointed to a gap in the cliffs, where two shards of icy rock bent away from each other. Between them lay a narrow fjord, where the sea rushed in.
Wren curled her fingers around the railings, suddenly aware of their numbness. “Will we fit through there?” she asked, the words chattering through her teeth.
Marino nodded. “To many sailors that fjord is known as the Death Crevasse. But I’m an accomplished captain of great skill. I have no cause to fear it.”