My stomach swoops. His brow is pinched, his lips parted softly. Beads of sweat slip from his temples to mingle with the wetness of his hair. Slick clumps of it stick to his neck, his cheek, and my fingers itch to brush it back, but my hands are sticky with blood. The sensation is familiar enough I know how to block it out, how to push through when it feels like it may never wash away, but I doubt any of them would find it comforting.
Otto has been chattering since he walked in. Tavi has already moved to the barb in his hip. She braces, and I know my eyes are too wide when they meet hers. If this one’s bleeding like this now, it hit something, and pulling wrong may kill him before the poison can.
She tugs, the movement deceptively graceful. Blood streams onto the blankets, but Otto is there, shoving some sort of fibrous material inside a split second before Rune jerks away from his touch.
“Deeproot will help stop the bleeding, but keep putting pressure on it,” Otto says.
Tavi obliges, leaning in, and Otto moves to me, offering more of the red, feathery fibers. When I step back instead, he steps in, packing the wound with expert skill.
“Don’t we need to clean it?” I ask.
He shakes his head. “The deeproot will help with that too. It works especially well for ocean-based poison or infection. I have a theory it works especially well for sirens too because—”
“Otto,” Tavi chides, jerking her chin at thesalves still waiting on the bed.
“Got it. Got it. So I don’t know which of these might help but we’ve got a lot of areas we can test on with the way the thrall squid wrapped around him. I don’t recognize the barbs, but with the amount of time it takes the squid to work I wonder if whatever it injected had a numbing element to it. Maybe he simply couldn’t feel it.”
Elio clears his throat. He hovers at the bed, his eyes flicking between the ship’s unlikely medic and the pained expression on Rune’s sleeping face. “We’ll never know if we don’t get him to wake up, eh, Otto?”
“Right!” Otto spins to the poultices again. Gingerly, he tips the bottles onto small squares of fresh bandage and sticks them to individual spots. First, one labeled bitter pipevines. Then another named orange bloodleaf. On and on it goes. The golden markings on Rune’s arm are all but faded. It seems clear now that they’re part of his heritage.
Siren Prince.
The words lurk in the back of my mind, the fearful strategist in me refusing to wait before leaping to theories. If he’s a prince, why would he need treasure? Why would he be risking his life hunting pirates topside at all? Part of me whispers about vanity, but the more time I spend on this ship, the more I question that sickly confident facade I’d met that first night onThe Gilded Hart. And the crew held their own against the beast on the island—none had turned tail and fled. No, this ship isn’t just for show.
But why risk it for the map?
“His hip’s bleeding again,” I say, just as Otto finishes wrapping over the small bandages on Rune’s forearm. A rushof nerves sends my heart racing, but I shove the feeling down, filling my lungs till they feel near to bursting before letting the breath loose again.
“Good!” Otto quips, leaning close to examine the slow drip of blood oozing down Rune’s pale skin.
I blink. “Good?”
Elio sighs. “The king’s going to kill us if he dies.”
“Killyou. He loves me,” Tavi says, though it’s impossible to tell if she’s joking. Elio’s smile tells me he can see something I can’t.
“Yeah,” Otto says, ignoring them. “They can’t be completely closed or we won’t be able to draw the poison out. The deeproot filters and acts as a block while it begins to clot, but it dissolves. Now”—he leans and grabs a larger dark bottle that’s buried beneath the others, then begins to mix several inside—“we can make the drawing salve. It’ll have to be applied every two hours or so.”
I cross my arms. “I can do it. I’ll be in here anyway, right?”
All eyes assess me for a moment.
Elio nods slowly. “We’ll do shifts. In pairs.”
Otto lifts an arm to scratch at the back of his head. “Well, I’ll have to be the one to keep an eye on him for the next several hours to check the thrall squid marks.”
“And this is where I sleep,” I offer.
“Then you two will pair together,” Elio says. “Tavi and I will be checking in regardless. No one stays alone with him until he’s stable.”
Otto makes a show of acquiescing. “Yes, Captain.”
“Don’t—” Elio’s eyes widen. “Ah, shit.”
“Your greatest dreams realised?” Tavi says with a glint in her eye. “The crew will be eager for an update when the sun rises. Think you can handle it?”
Elio all but pouts. “Why couldn't he have made you first mate?”
