This crew . . . they mourn together. Hold each other. Wrap the dead in tear-stained canvas and press dried bundles of flowers and herbs between the layers before releasing them to the deep, anointing them in both earth and water. It’s a far cry from theSea Bane, where the useless were tossed over like filth—dead or alive. I helped with that too.
Rune rests his hand on the prow beside me, inches from my own. It would take one movement. One quick surrender. Maybe the urge alone is enough to prove how much I’ve changed.
But he tied me to the mast. He’d kissed me and taken the key.
We can’t keep doing this. The words replay in my head on a loop. We can’t keep dancing around the reality of us. We can’t push for a dream that claws back, that takes more than it could ever give.
It was always going to end this way.
Easy steps disturb the silence. Elio strides up, still bandaged and shirtless, but his short hair drips water.
Rune’s eyes flash as he turns, letting himself back onto the deck. “I told you to rest.”
“And I told you to stop being an insufferable mother hen. I get enough of that from Tavi.”
I try to pretend I’m not listening, but snort anyway, the image too absurd for me to reign in the reaction. When I look back, Elio grins, but Rune still studies him, cataloguing the way he favours one side.
“Needed a swim. Wanted to check the damage from the outside.”
Something in his voice suggests there’s more he’s not saying, and I turn to face them, my nerves already prepared for the moment it’s bad news.
His eyes flick between us both, then rest on Rune. “I think there’s something you need to see.”
ACHILD OF THE SURFACE
27
RUNE
“Where?” I ask, as I swing my legs over and jump down to the deck. Boots thud behind me as Odi joins my side.
Elio fiddles with the white shark-tooth necklace he always wears. “Below. A little ways off. Didn’t get a good long look. Square, white stone—at least it used to be. Barnacles all over it. Crumbling before my eyes—”
“Maybe the map marks more than islands,” I mutter, before beginning to pace back and forth. I should have considered it before.
“You think it marked the Sotor?” Elio asks.
I shake my head, but Odelia is already speaking. “No one could survive that. It wouldn’t make sense.”
“No,” I agree. “The Sotor go where they please. We’d hardly have been the first to see them if they lingered in one spot for long.”
From where she sits on the railing, Odi tracks my every step. She looks tired, like she’d rather tuck herself away in the dark somewhere and shut out the world. Who knows . . .perhaps I’d join her. With the weight of death on my back, it’s hard to find the desire to keep chasing my mother’s ghost.
I flick my gaze back to Elio. “But I can go scout it. You need to rest. And there’s every chance it’s unrelated.”
He folds his arms across his chest and cocks his head to the side. “And the siren statues out the front? Same as the ones we found at the temple.”
My brow furrows as I spin to face him.
“Why the hell didn't you lead with that? How far did you go?” I ask, trying my best to not sound too desperate.
He huffs, a smile playing on his lips. “You cut me off. And I didn’t go far. Just to where I could confirm the statues.”
I offer him a nod—an apology. “. . . Fair. How far down?”
“Deep enough that only a skilled swimmer would reach it.”
This is it. The third key on the map. But I can’t help but hesitate. I can’t afford to trigger some natural disaster or awaken another slumbering sea creature that will try to tear us in two.
