Rune swallows, his throat bobbing. “I’ll never know how they emptied the crow’s nest, only that our man on watch was dead before we were boarded.”
I press my lips together. The answer wouldn’t help him now. It was likely Garreth, the Viper’s hawk shifter. Ivor liked bird shifters, but while others would come and go, it was Garreth that was always in charge of scouting ahead and eliminating any warning system.
“They dragged me from my bed, planned to execute me in front of the crew, before Elio warned them that we had messengers already in the water, and if they hurt me, they’d end up at war with Nareth. And no matter how powerful Ivor was, a man can’t fight the ocean.”
My stomach churns as the pieces fall together. “So he grabbed Otto instead.”
“He was fourteen.”
Tears well in my eyes, though my own hands were coated red by that age. My soul was never as pure as his, never as bright. Of course my father chose him to send a message. He hadn’t even tried to end him cleanly. “Ivor wanted him to suffer.”
Rune’s voice is filled with mournful venom. “Ivor wantedmeto suffer.”
The quiet tears track over my nose to meet Rune’s skin. Soraya’s shirts had hidden my tattoo, but there’s no way Otto hadn’t had it in the back of his head during every interaction. Every smile. Every glance.
I draw a finger over the inked snake on my wrist. “Everyone on Ivor’s crew has one of these, whether they like it or not.”
Rune reaches out to brush it with his thumb. Like the act will sweep it away. If I could, I’d carve it from my flesh and fling it into the ocean for the creaturesto devour.
I catch his eye, holding back the tears that threaten. “Otto knew I was a Viper from the beginning,” I say, my voice barely a whisper.
He nods. “He did.”
“Then—why—” Words fail me. I don’t understand. How could he chatter away, hand me food with a grin, try to protect me in the kraken fight, when I may as well have been the one to slice the blade through his chest? “He showed me his quail,” I whisper, devastated, and Rune barks a laugh.
“He trusted you long before I did.”
“You trust me?” The thought splits my chest wide open, and I should hate this vulnerability, knowing he doesn't know the truth of who I am. That I lied, that I share Ivor’s blood. That I’ve killed at my father’s command, over and over. It may as well have been me wielding the blade against Otto. This thing between Rune and I isn’t real. Not when I know a single truth would shatter it to pieces.
His warm breath kisses my cheek as he answers. “With my life, little doe.”
The words threaten to break me. “Then why did you tie me to the mast?” I ask, pulling back, trying to put my body and my mind back in order. “Did you think I’d let myself get killed, and then you wouldn’t have the riddles?”
“I thought,” he says, his canines glinting in the half-light as he grins, “that you’re a terrible swimmer. And that I wouldn’t be able to look away, waiting for the moment I’d need to jump in and save you.”
I scoff but thread my arms around his neck and pull myself into his chest, tangling our legs together. “I’m a fine swimmer.” The words are muffled against his chest.
“And I’m a hopelessly charismatic human man with a fish costume.”
I snort and knee his leg, but it’s half hearted.
A sleepy silence falls between us. His breath begins to even out, even as my mind continues to race—faces of the crew, Otto’s grin, Rune’s life-giving breath, Soraya’s singing, the ease of all those onThe Gilded Hart. I’ve destroyed all of it.
I clamp my fingers into fists until they ache, trying to force my body into stillness as quiet sobs threaten to take over. It’s second nature to shove them down. I never wanted this. I wanted to be alone. Because alone and unfeeling were the only kind of safety I knew to search for. But now, in the shelter of the darkness, I can’t help but wonder how different my life would have been, if I’d have been allowed to keep this, if I’d tried harder to find what I’d lost when my mother died.
“I trust you too,” I whisper, when his arms are dead weight against me. The truth of it destroys me. There’s no secret worth hiding now. No impossible hopes when who I am still stands between us. When this is over, I’ll tell him, if only so he knows that below Nisse, there was always a girl, and he’d helped her find the path through the dark in the end.
My hands arewarm and dripping wet. The dark of night is absolute. It hides me.
It always hides me.
I feel him before I hear him. I always do, and I don’t need light to know he smiles at the carnage before us. His giant, scarred hands squeeze my small shoulders. I’m the only one—I’m always the only one—who fit in the manor’s window. When he speaks, his voice, his pride, it is my own. The sniveling animal in me cowers away from us both.
“This is it, Nisse.” His voice rumbles, blotting out the sound of weeping in the burning village beyond the front door. “This is your power. This is your strength. This is why men will weep before laying a hand on you. Again and again you’ve proven yourself to me. Proven you’re worthy to share air with the strongest the seas have seen. You do your father proud.
I wake with a start, Ivor’s voice still rippling in my mind. The inn’s room comes into slow focus—the patterned window curtains, the colour of the bedding, the empty corners that harbor no threat.
The space next to me is empty. Rune pads to the door, wearing bottoms now, apparently to answer the knock that woke us both. When he opens it, the hinges don’t squeak, and warm light squeezes through the door frame to illuminate the bed in a sharp rectangle of light. Elio stands on the other side. His face is wan, worried, and dread licks up my spine, never eager to leave me alone for more than a breath.
