Now he doesn’t move at all.
I suddenly feel so helpless at the sight of his body. I want to scream and end this nightmare, like I did the last time we were under attack. Only this time, I know for certain that this is real and that there is no escaping.
He is dead.
The attacker turns toward me, his eyes flicking over my frame.
That’s when I realize that he’s not a stranger at all.
Up close, he looks worse than I remember, broad and heavy in his grimy, cracked leather coat. His unkempt hair clings to his temples, and his skin carries a greyish tone, like something left too long beneath the sea. A faint shimmer clings to his throat, pale flecks that glint with an iridescent sheen.
Ground scales. That’s how they were able to pass.
He’s one of the hunters who have been haunting me my whole life, come to take what is most valuable to them—my scales, my blood, my power.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Thehunterstepstowardme with malicious intent, his boots sliding through the blood that spreads across the planks between us. I see the exact moment he understands who I am — what I am — before his gaze drops to my throat, to the place where my voice still vibrates softly. His grip tightens around the blade. In his face, there is no hesitation, no uncertainty of a man who questions the morality of what he is about to do.
I dig my fingers harder into the gaps in the wood beneath me as I look past him. More boots hit the deck, more men spill over the planks as the hunters climb aboard with weapons drawn. I understand with sudden, sick clarity that we never stood a chance against them. They waited, they watched, and they chose the exact moment when my voice would be the weakest and our guard the lowest, to strike.
We are outnumbered.
We are unprepared.
We are going to die here.
The realization settles into my chest with suffocating weight, and I become deeply aware of how fragile my body has become, how diluted the strength inside of me feels after everything I have already given to the crew.
I wait for him to close the remaining distance between us and drive that blade straight into my heart, before anyone can reach me. Before Sable could reach me. But the hunter doesn’t move.
“Captain said to capture you alive,” he spits. “Makes the highest profit. I see you got some shiny new scales too.”
His gaze drops to my legs.
Fear bubbles in my stomach, before it cramps so tight it makes the deck tilt beneath me. Frozen, I watch him pull a dirty cloth out of his breaches as he towers above me, and I press my back against the mast, as if I could sink into it if I tried hard enough.
The power within me is drained, and yet I wonder what happens if I reach for it anyway.
As he leans down to grab me, I pull at the strings of my song and open my mouth. My throat aches as the first note escapes, and it is dripping with the taste of iron. Blood runs over my lips and down my chin, clinging to my skin in slow, heavy strands as I try to drag air into my lungs. I spit it out to avoid choking on it, with both palms against blood-stained wood.
He laughs, and tears blur my vision.
I lift my head just enough to see him standing there, his blade loose in his hand now, his shoulders relaxed with the easy confidence of a man who knows the outcome of this fight has already been decided. His eyes move over me with open satisfaction as more blood spills from my mouth.
“Is that all?” he asks.
You are weak. The sea whispers into my ear, and for a moment, I believe it. Believe that this is how it ends, on my hands and knees in a mixture of Saint’s blood and my own.
Yes, I am weak.
But that does not mean I cannot be brave. I haven’t survived this long for it all to end like this, with me in the hands of the men I have been running from my whole life. I’d rather die before they pluck a single scale from my body.
My fingers tremble. Something moves beneath my skin, a slow pressure at the tips of my fingers, as if something buried deep inside my bones is trying to force its way free.
Then pain blooms, and my nails push forward, lengthening beyond what should be possible, thinning into clear, curved points that gleam faintly in the dim light.
Talons.
