Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,114

to anyone seeking to continue the traditions of the Bullet Seas.

Caledonia spent more of her time thinking about the ocean than actually seeing it. Every decision fell to her, and while she no longer felt the immense pressure of every single one, she also wondered if the only reason she was still the one making them was because she was the one everyone feared now.

Respect. That’s what Pisces said. Not fear. She might have been right, but when people saw her for the first time, it was hard to read their wide-eyed expressions as anything but fear. She’d turned herself into something ferocious on purpose. She’d needed to be in order to have any chance at winning that fight. And there was no coming back from it. Not in the eyes of others. She’d known that. She’d made the choice with her eyes open, and now she was feeling the full press of the consequences.

Caledonia tucked her chin as she hurried around a corner that brought her out of a sheltered alley and into a main thoroughfare. It didn’t matter what she did to avoid notice, people found her red curls whether she’d wrapped them in a scarf or bound them in a tight braid. In spite of the sticky evening humidity, she’d donned a hooded jacket, but even that wasn’t enough. She heard the gasp of the first person to notice her—a child with big brown eyes and pale brown skin—and did her best to appear unthreatening.

It never worked. People watched her pass, some of them even bowed slightly, and she was reminded all over again of the things she’d done to earn that response from strangers.

Pisces would tell her to think of all she’d done to ensure those same strangers got to choose who they followed and who they didn’t. It was comforting, but only just.

As Caledonia’s steps brought her near the city center, she strode past a row of colorful murals now splashed across tall walls. They’d grown little by little as stories and dreams took root in the city. The first depicted ships like stars streaming into the night, the second fields of bushy green crops growing in neat rows from earth so brown it was almost black. The most recent was a crew of girls on the bow of a ship with their eyes hard and bright and fixed on some point in the distance. In the center stood a girl with streaming red curls that dripped into the waves, tangling there as though she were part of the sea.

When it had appeared, Pisces pulled Caledonia from her bed late at night, knowing she wouldn’t want to see it when there were witnesses. Hand in hand, they had hurried through the dark until they stood in front of the painting.

“They love you,” Pisces said, as if this should be proof that what Caledonia interpreted as fear was in fact love and respect. “You’re a legend.”

Caledonia couldn’t speak immediately. The image of herself was stunning, but the other girls were what caught her attention. Tin and all four of her sisters held a flag between them, their grip firm as the wind rippled through the fabric. Amina stood on the rail with her long braids bending at her back like a sail, and she pointed north, toward the Hands of the River. At her side stood Hime, calm and poised; she wore a hood to symbolize her work as a healer. On either side of Caledonia were Nettle and Pisces. The smaller girl was tucked beneath Caledonia’s arm and unlike the others, she smiled broadly and boldly into the sky. Pisces was on Caledonia’s other side, her shoulders bare, her own family sigil drawn on her temple, and her fingers entwined with Caledonia’s, a bit of lace caught between them.

Behind them all, two figures stood in the background. Redtooth, tall and strong with the tips of her blonde braids coated in red clay. And Lace, a rolled map clutched in her hands.

When Caledonia found her voice again, she turned to Pisces and said, “We.”

“What?”

“We are a legend.” She corrected Pisces’s earlier statement.

Pisces smirked, but conceded the point.

Beyond the row of murals, the city coiled around a central square. When this had been the Holster, it had been a place for Aric’s terrible theater. Now it was transforming into a market that reminded Caledonia of Cloudbreak. She wove through dozens of stalls, all closing up shop for the evening, until she found herself on the other side,