It feels like we’re running out of time.
That only means I will stay longer the next day, until the humming behind my ribs becomes stronger, more potent. It feels different from how it did with Rat. When I drowned him, the power came rushing in on me like a flood. Here, it gathers and trickles in through a faint, steady stream.
Each day, the salt draws more power out of me and pours even more back in. But it also hurts. My joints ache and tighten with each passing day, as if my body is a vessel too small to contain so much power.
Sable always makes sure that a clean, dry towel awaits me every time I get out of the tub, laying it neatly folded on one of the barrels nearby, as carefully placed as the emerald gown his shadow gifted me what feels like a lifetime ago.
Only today, Sable brings the towel himself.
He watches me get out of the tub, the saltwater dripping down my body, my hair, into a small pool at my feet. He spreads thetowel, steps closer, and carefully lays it around my shoulders, then wraps it around me.
“Nightglass has spotted something,” He says as he rubs the towel against my shoulders in a slow, gentle motion.
I swallow down my confusion, my focus placed entirely on his hands. Despite the comfort his touch gives me, it feels like he is preparing me for something.
“What is it?” I ask.
“We don’t know yet.” He sighs. “It looks like a giant wall.”
I glance over his shoulder toward the open sea. In the distance, a white stripe meets the horizon. Even from afar, it looks like it stretches endlessly toward the sky before disappearing into the clouds. At least it’s not a giant waterfall.
“It’s better than the abyss,” I whisper.
A smile tugs at his lips. “Aye.”
He studies me for a moment, his eyes softening, the faintest hint of a smile touching his lips. Without wanting to, I glance at his feet. His shadow is barely there, flickering and faint.
“You’re not fighting the urge to throw me overboard?” I ask him, my voice nothing more than a whisper as I keep my eyes fixed on the dark shape at his feet. I expect him to brush it off with a dry remark, to deflect.
“No,” he says quietly. “And I hope you know that under normal circumstances I’d never—”
“I know.”
I cut him off, looking up at him. I don’t want him to apologize for something he can’t control.
My thoughts leave me as I step towards him and take his hand in mine, venturing to give him comfort. It feels rough against my sensitive, salt-coated skin. The tingling sensation it leaves behind feels new and familiar at the same time. He has held me before, as has his shadow, and I cannot help but crave the feeling of his hand around my waist.
First, he tenses. His shoulders draw together tightly, and he stands there like a statue, seemingly caught off guard. As I brush my thumb over his palm gently, his shoulders slacken, and his muscles loosen.
“I‘m glad,” he begins, breathing through his nose. “I’m glad you know I’ve never wanted to hurt you, little fish.”
I squeeze his hand, then drop it, a smile tugging at my lips as I cross my arms in front of my chest, wrapping the towel tighter around my shivering body.
“But insulting me never has been a problem for you?”
He shrugs, smirking slightly. “Not really. Stay close. Try to rest. We should reach the wall by nightfall.”
“Captain!” A crew member shouts behind him.
He turns before I can respond, calling out a sharp order as he strides back toward the helm. The crew moves with new purpose, adjusting the sails or pulling ropes, but the tension in the air only tightens. As I walk across the deck, the cold air tearing at my hair, the shape at the horizon ahead grows more defined.
The wall rises higher with every passing minute.
It stretches from water to sky, its surface pale and uneven, catching the light in ways that make it hard to tell where it ends and where it dips into the clouds. The longer I look at it, the more my skin prickles with nervous sweat, the hum behind my ribs deepening in response.
It feels old. Not untended or abandoned, but as though it was shaped by the sea itself, like it has been hidden here, unintended for the eyes of those not formed by the sea. The pirates shift uneasily around me, tension vibrating through the deck, but it does not unsettle me the way it does them. Instead, something quieter settles in my chest. Recognition. Relief.
The sensation wraps around me in a slow, almost gentle shifting, until it feels inescapable. Whatever waits beyond thisplace knows me. I feel it in my gut, in my bones, in the salt that clings to my skin.
