And the dungeons are where I spent my last night of freedom. I was given a singular cup of wine and pieces of dried fish. Sleep had not come easily on the stone bench I was meant to lie on. My jailers roused me an hour ago and stripped me of my gown. Trembling in my thin shift, I hadn’t even tried to fight them. My body had gone completely numb.
I barely registered the sight of the massive rock as Captain Blacktide and his pirates rowed me out towards it. The rising sun glowed along the bright blue water. The pirate captain reeked of whiskey and body odor as he unloaded me from the boat. Heavy iron shackles were placed around my wrists and ankles.
“Your death will not be in vain. Remember that,” Blacktide said before stepping back into his boat, leaving me bound to the massive boulder.
That is where I am now, contemplating the choices that have led me here.
The sun rose high overhead, and the heat beat down on me with a burning intensity. Salt stung my nostrils. A few seagulls called overhead. It has only been a few hours, but the sea is already rising. When I was initially placed here, it lapped gently at my ankles. Now, the brackish water has reached my chest.
No Kraken is coming for me. I will drown before all the villagers standing along the docks, barely a hundred yards away. Not one of them will save me. They won’t risk the pirate’s ire, but more importantly, they want what he has said to be true. They’d rather have me live a life of eternal pain if it meant ending their own suffering.
Desperation dances in their hungry eyes as they stare out at me. My mouth is parched, and I don’t bother using my last minutes of air to call out to them. It would be useless.
My eyes snag on a familiar face near the front of the dock. Gil’s green eyes are framed with deep wrinkles. When our gazes lock, he swiftly looks away, and my heart cracks. He is not my family, even though he had taken me in at sixteen, shortly after my parents’ deaths. I had started looking up to him. I thought he cared enough about me that he would’ve spoken up on my behalf. Even if it had only been the barest of condemnation, it would’ve meant the world to me.
Yet, as I watch him clutch the hands of his two young sons, I realize just how wrong I had been. Gil has his own family to take care of. I have no one. No one will mourn me, no one will miss me. I have spent the last eight years alone, and I will die alone.
Nothing like being chained to a rock against the rising tide to make one realize how inconsequential they are.
Sweat pours down my neck, and the water rises even higher. It brushes the underside of my chin. My arms have gone numb from being chained above my head. The skin on my shoulders is red from the sun. My throat feels like sand. The edges of my vision begin to blur.
From the dock, I can hear a few murmurs. An older woman, draped in stained linen, thrusts a bony hand towards me.
“Is this right? She will drown soon?”
“Why has he not come?” a young man beside her asks.
“Patience,” Blacktide snarls. “He will come. Have faith.”
Have faith.
There was a time I believed in something bigger than myself. I had dreams of adventures—of setting off in one of the ships that docked in the harbor and seeing what the world had to offer. Now, as I feel the sea bathe my lips, I realize I was always on borrowed time.
Bluewater is not kind to unaccompanied females. Still, to die at twenty-four at the behest of a madman seems ridiculously unfair. If I live through this, I will live each day for myself. I’dhave adventures—I wouldn’t hold myself back. Dreams of what could’ve been dance through my mind and distract me from the fact that the water has now reached my nose.
“What’s that?” someone calls from the dock.
“Did you see it?”
“Have faith!”
The water covers my nose, and I let go. With one final silent plea, my weightless body remains tethered to the rock as the last dregs of air still in my lungs. I pray that this is over swiftly and that in the next life I’m dealt a kinder hand. A few more voices rise up, but I don’t hear them. My vision blurs, and everything goes dark.
2
QURILL
I’ve lingered in this bay for far too long.
It’s been nearly a year since I returned to my father’s palace, and based on his correspondence, my growing absence is displeasing my mother. And whatever brings my mother anything less than joy, my father will deal with swiftly. Even though I know I should leave, my restless spirit bids me to linger in Bluewater Bay a bit longer.
The water here is calmer than the waves at the heart of the Darksea. The outbreak of riotous water and darkening skies has nothing to do with my father or me. The sea is its own entity, with powers far beyond all our comprehension. It exacts revenge on the sailors it deems necessary to pay its watery tithe. Even my father is a servant to the water—no one commands him more than the tides.
Well, one person does. My mother.
My heart pangs at the thought of them. The ache is a familiar one. Our relationship has grown fraught recently, which is why I’ve been delaying my return home. I know they only want what’s best for me. Is it not in a son’s nature to rebel? The weight of their expectation feels like an anchor around my ankle. I’monly thirty-five, and the thought of settling down makes me itch. Monotony to me is a fate worse than death.
My father had lived for centuries before finding my mother. For her part, she had years as Queen of the Darksea before I came into the picture. They both had their adventures—albeit together—and they want the same for me.
