I can’t breathe. Not with him staring at me. With all of them staring, with their prejudice, and judgment, and pity. “I do not want your gods-damnedpity. Get away from me.”
“There is a difference between pity and empathy.” Esme is standing too. She holds up her hands, eyeing me as if I’m a cornered animal. “Let us help, Selene, if we can.”
Perhaps I am. Cornered, and rabid, and injured. My eyes burn and blur and fill. “I want to go back to the cabin.”
Callan doesn’t move. But beneath me, the ship shifts, caught in a current or a wave. My feet tip. When I stagger, Callan reaches out to steady me. And his fingers wrap around my injured wrist.
The cry rips free of my throat. Callan twists my wrist as though it burns with the fire I can still feel, his gaze dropping even as his touch gentles. “You’re bleeding. Rio, get the kit Matthias packed.”
Esme is asking me questions. Leo ducks between us as Merrick calls for him to give us space. They’re all so much.
Too much. They are toomuch.
I yank my hand free of Callan’s hold, my words a snarl. “Get your hands off me. I need no help from you.”
“Selene—”
Pushing between them, I take off, passing Riordan on my way back to the cabin. He calls after me, but I don’t turn around.
The anger grows, choking me. Cutting off my air as I stagger down the corridor into Callan’s cabin and push the door closed. Twisting, I sink down to the floor, gasping to try and fill my lungs. My palms ache as if the skin has peeled away, and I glance down at them.
They’re glowing. Dim at first, before growing brighter. The copper against my skin burns. My ankle. My spine.
Too much—
The low flame of the lantern hanging on the wall vanishes. My head slams back into the door as shadowsexplodefrom my palms. They smother my cry, pressing down on me and filling the room with thick, twining ribbons of black, winding and crossing until I can’t see anything but glimpses of the room beyond.
“Stop,” I choke out. “Stop,please—”
They stop. Everything stops. The ribbons stop moving, hovering in front of me as I blink. My eyes slowly travel down.
I know what they are. Or, what they are supposed to be. Hala’s first Gift. The ability to see the fate of those we choose to read, to see their destiny laid out in the shadows.
But there is nobody here, and the scene in front of me makes nosense.
This should not be happening. I glance down, but the copper is still in place.
And yet—
My head spins, spikes of pain driving into the back of my skull as I squeeze my eyes closed and force my body to breathe. In, and out. Again.
And then I open them.
The shadows are still there. I stare at them, trying to see a pattern. A story, like the swirling amber flames Merrick pulled and twisted with his maegis.
But there is nothing that tells a story in front of me. Nothing that suggests a fate has been read. That I’m seeing a future, laid out in front of me with Hala’s blessing.
They’re just ribbons. Ribbons of pitch-black shadow. The only light in the room comes from my illuminated palms, any glow from the lamp buried by the darkness.
Racking my brains, I think back to the lessons Erena tried to instill in me. To Nyx, and Celeste, the familiar dagger sliding into my chest. But there’s nothing.
They never mentioned this. Never told me that the shadows could work like this.
They tell a story, Nyx had told me once. Her nails had scrubbed roughly at my scalp as I clung to the edges of the tub and blinked tears from my eyes.You will know how to wield them when the time comes. Hala will guide you.
But I am alone.
Slowly, I reach my hand to my forehead. It’s been a long time. But my fingers still remember the shape of the crescent moon as I sketch it clumsily.
