“I’m sorry,” he said, watching the light permeating the sea and fishes lazily swimming awake. “But I can’t let you.”
Anger boiled my blood, heating my cheeks. I wouldn’t stop trying to escape. Even if it meant my life would be at risk, because it would be worth that small chance that I could make it back to land, to Vega, to warn my father and his people of what was to come.To dosomethingfor Oakhaven for once besides being locked away at another fucking ruler’s behest.
“The captain of the ship,” Hylos said into the void.
My heart went staccato.
“Calypstra reports he seems to know of the instrument you told Morvyn you enjoy, the virginal.” He turned to me. “And we just so happen to have one that needs mending.” He arched a blue brow at me. “All ordained.”
He stepped near and I didn’t retreat, instead hanging on to his every word. “I will allow the captain to leave his cell each day after breakfast. You will work with him on repairing the instrument and be with your own kind. Hopefully, you will find comfort in that.”
But my mind was already threading through a plan. If I could speak with the captain, spend time with him daily, maybe we could conjure a way out of here, together.
“On one condition,” Hylos added.
“What?” I asked.
“Spend time with us. See my people for who they truly are, what we stand for. See past the terra holy tales and learn what isn’t told in your prayers.”
I thought of the captain’s temperate hazel eyes that had undone me with one look. Thought of the wonderful rhythm of his voice that sounded like the gentle rise and fall of sunlit waves, warm and golden, breaking on shore. Crashing over me.
“Fine,” I said, trying to hide just how much I yearned to be with him again.
“And ¼” he started.
“You ask two things of me when I am offered only one?” I scoffed, knotting my arms across my chest. “That’s not how negotiations work.”
“It is when you hold all the power.” He smirked.
“What is the second demand youunfairlyask of me?”
“Stop trying to flee.”
Never.
“Not just because you will die if you make it out of the safety of Naiadon, but because I believe our fates are intertwined. That there is more to this story than either of us know. I feel it in my very blood. I hope with time you will see it too. When the time comes for you to decide which side of this war you wish to stand on, if you believe it is truly not mine, then I will allow you to walk out of here without another word.”
“Fine.” I would bide my time,thenescape with the captain and his crew. Once on land, I would return to my father’s castle and tell him all that I knew about Hylos and the sirens so he could stop them. So Oakhaven would be safe.
Hylos stuck out his webbed hand, and without hesitation, I shook it.
Chapter 16
“Hylos told me what happened last night with the Kelpie,” Nixie said, her large, mauve eyes watching me carefully.
Did Hylos also tell her what the monstrosity called me? The voice still lingered, a ghostly echo in my mind.Lost princess.
We wound up the library stairs, the glass steps radiant in the morning light that stretched through the green-blue sea. A sunny day likely shined above, the air still touched with cold from the winter sweeping off my father’s land, and not a cloud in the sky blocking the sun that beamed so brightly that it had found me, even at these depths.
I could almost feel that sunshine on my skin. Smell the snow in the distance. How I longed for home.
“Nasty creatures,” Nixie continued, despite my lack of response. “They come from the Midnight Realm. Born in pure darkness. I think that’s what makes them evil. A lack of light and beauty.”
We reached the top of the stairs, and I saw the captain standing in the center of the library next to Raylik and the broken virginal. Raylik’s webbed hand firmly grasped the captain’s shoulder, and the captain’s face flashed with recognition steeped in ire. As though I was not his ally but his enemy.
His captain’s coat was gone. He wore only a white undershirt stained with salt water and sweat, unbuttoned to reveal the hard lines of hischest. Those honey-gold eyes that had once glowed with warmth over our blissful dinner had now dimmed, tempered and cool.
It was one thing for the sirens to imprison me; I knew cages. But the captain had only ever been bound by the horizon of the sea. It made my blood boil to know they had trapped him below it. The man had no business being confined.
