pay.
“It took me five years before I discovered the secret of the godwoken—if I could get their power, I could use time magic to amplify it. To turn back the clock and win back her life. And I did it.” His voice is a low whisper, as though he’s no longer telling a story, but speaking for only himself. “I did it. I hunted the water deity—a beast made from coral and the weeds of the sea—and stole a scale from its back. That day, I changed my fate forever.”
His long, pale fingers clench tight around the decanter. “But gods are tricky bastards. I never stopped loving Corina—she was the reason I lived. The reason behind every breath I took. I didn’t know what I was getting myself into with that magic; I thought I could offer something else, and that so long as I got Corina back I could make anything work. But what I wanted most was her, and what I loved most was also her.
“I turned back the clock, and I brought her back. But she didn’t remember who I was. And try as I might to win her over, she was repulsed by me. No matter what I did, I couldn’t win her heart. And in the end, none of it mattered. She got back on her father’s ship that same fated day, and the mermaids stole her from me again.
“So I tried a second time. The guardian deity of the sky was said to have wings as soft and as white as clouds. I sailed to an island far beyond this kingdom, to a place with mountains so tall they touch the skies. It was the last place anyone had ever seen it, and I searched there for two years before I found what I’d been looking for—a fallen feather, imbued with its magic and power. Again I turned back time, and again Corina slipped out of my reach and back onto that blasted ship. I don’t know what I lost that time, but I gained something even more important: the knowledge that I needed to love something else, something new, before I tried again.” He takes a long swig from his decanter. “I thought to start a family. If I had that, I could give those blasted guardians something new, in exchange for Corina.”
The glow of the oil lamp feels dimmer, and the draft in the room cooler as it gnaws into my bones. The room tightens with shadows that crawl from the darkest crevices, stretching toward and across the floor. They take me by the throat, making my voice hoarse.
“You wanted to trade me and Mama? But … we would die.” My voice doesn’t sound like my own; it’s too squeaky. Did I misunderstand? Surely, that’s not what he could have meant?
Papa would never trade me …
His profile is shadowed by the dim amber light, turning him into nothing but sharp and shadowed angles—a monster in the night. He doesn’t turn to me; doesn’t try to ease the fear boiling hot in my gut, making me too numb to move.
“I just have to find a guardian.” He turns back to the parchment at his desk, and I see now that one of them is a map scrawled with notes. Several of the islands are circled or crossed out, with notes scrawled along the map. They’re words like “leviathan?” and “fire serpent?” accompanied by page numbers for source material and scribbled-out notes and drawings of the beasts. The air deity is so beautiful even in the artwork, with feathers so thick and white it almost looks like fur, and a curved obsidian beak. Though it’s got four massive claws, it doesn’t look like a vicious beast. It looks peaceful, and as though it should be a crime for anyone to even imagine hunting it.
I wait, deathly still, to see if Papa starts laughing or offers anything more. His back remains bent as he huddles over the parchment, shuffling them with a stream of whispers too quiet and quick for me to decipher. It doesn’t take long to realize I’ve been forgotten.
Praying to the gods to keep it that way and to make my feet and breaths as noiseless as possible, I slip off the bed and out of the room, my heart beating so fiercely I worry he may hear it even as I’m halfway down the hall, sprinting for Mama’s room.
Mama’s always said Papa had his own way of loving people. But as