“It was hardly your fault, that time at least. Though we’ve both done things we shouldn’t.”
“Or could’ve handled things better,” he added. She nodded. A brief moment of comfortable silence passed between them. “You spoke with Adela?”
“Good guess.”
“Not quite a guess. I ran into Crow when I came after you. She made it clear that under no circumstances would I be welcome in Adela’s cabin.”
“That sounds like Crow.” Eira looked back to the water, the conversation with Adela still a fresh wound in her mind.
“Given the fact that you were welcome…were your suspicions correct? Was she lying to you to protect you?”
Eira shook her head slowly, still avoiding his eyes. “No. I’m not her daughter. If I’m related at all—which is probably unlikely—it would be some kind of distant cousin or niece through some branch of an unknown family tree I don’t think I’ll ever see.”
“I’m sorry.” Cullen rested both of his elbows on the railing next to her, staring out. Their shoulders were flush against each other and it was a relief to have him there in that moment. She had thought she’d wanted to be alone. But having a friend—or whatever Cullen was at this point—was a relief.
Even when the world pulled her to its vast reaches. Even when her heart was descending into a chasm of her own making. Her friends were still there. They’d never left her side.
The oceans they’d crossed together were thicker than the blood of any family Eira would ever know.
“It’s all right.”
“Is it?” He glanced her way.
She couldn’t blame him for his skeptical expression. Eira shrugged. “It has to be, doesn’t it?”
“You’re allowed to not be okay.”
“I know. But…” Eira sighed. “I feel like I am, but I also know I’m not. I think part of me knew this was coming. Another part of me didn’t want to admit it. I think I’m in a place where I can accept it. But I also don’t want to.” She laughed softly. “I know the right thing to do is be at peace with it and keep moving. Accept it with grace. But…if I’m being honest, there’s a part of me that still wants to shout and scream. That feels as though it is—I am—one cosmic joke.”
“You’re not.”
Eira nodded. “The logical part of me knows that. I’ll keep myself together. It’s just a moment where it would be so much easier to act like a child about all this.”
“I can understand that.” Cullen laced and unlaced his fingers. The nervous fidgeting almost had her reaching over to placeher hand on his to reassure him. The urge was hard to resist. “My whole life has been learning how to suppress my emotions, despite whatever I want, whatever instinct tells me… You know, I was always so jealous of you.”
“Of me?” Eira straightened slightly.
“You never seemed to care about what others thought of you in the Tower. Even after what happened, you kept walking with your head held high.”
“I careddeeply. I just didn’t let it show.”
“I know that now.” He gave her a small smile. “But, even if it was a facade, that woman was still you. The one who could act as though the world didn’t matter. Maybe you need to summon her again, pretend until it becomes real.”
The wind teased her hair. “No, I’m done going backward; I won’t revert to how I was. I might not know where I’m heading yet. But, for better or worse, I want to keep moving forward. I know who I was yesterday, who I am today, and I’m ready to meet the woman I will be tomorrow.”
20
They remained on deck for a while after their conversation died off, enjoying the quiet serenity of the other’s company. The words stayed with her for the rest of the night—like a lullaby—as she made her way belowdecks to her hammock and fell asleep alongside the rest of them.
Unsurprisingly, she was the first to wake the next morning. Even though the slow and steady rocking of the ship had been a comfortable way to sleep, her mind was too restless to fall into a deeper slumber. She felt like she was at a crossroads—the future impossible to ascertain and yet she wanted, desperately, to grab onto it tightly enough to know it from her current vantage.
All the options kept her from falling back asleep as much as they pinned her to the hammock, their weight unbearable on her chest. Every thought and worry stacked upon the next. She used waiting for the others to rouse as an excuse to not be more hasty.
If Eira had been forced to guess who was going to be the second to wake, Yonlin wouldn’t have been it.
She met his eyes and gave him a quiet “Good morning,” more mouthing the words than saying them aloud.
He swung his feet over the hammock and kept his voice low as well. “Sleep well?”
