gentle pull of the waves is enough to lull me to sleep. At this point, I’m convinced I’ll never again have a full night’s rest unless I’m poisoned or ill. I should have stolen some sleeping powder from Curmana while I had the chance.
It’s the aching in my thigh that keeps me awake and alert, tense from every creaking floorboard and every slam of the wind against the ship. I know it’s irrational—nothing can get me in the middle of the sea, unless the Lusca decides to test its luck, again. But even so, memories of Kerost and Curmana rattle against my skull, tricking my eyes into seeing strange stirrings in the shadows of beasts that aren’t truly there.
Some of the Kers had turned their noses up at my rule, believing it to be too little too late.
Elias had tried to poison me to shake the throne and upturn the monarchy. He wanted Curmana to rule itself, and was willing to kill me to do it.
And no matter how I spin it—no matter how power hungry Elias may be—perhaps he had a point.
After all this time and everything we’ve done, why should the Montaras still rule Visidia?
But there’s another thought warring against memories of Elias, as well.
I’d thought I had my plan ready—find the artifact, break my curses, and restore Visidia to what it always should have been. But now the inkling of hesitation sinks into me, burrowing itself deep.
If I find this artifact, I’ll have the power to bring Father back. And despite Bastian’s warning, despite every awful feeling within me that says breaking the curse is the right move for Visidia and that Father was an awful king, I want to be selfish. I want to hear his laugh one more time. I want to see his real eyes, and not the two holes filled with smoke and shadows that wait for me in my dreams.
But if I give myself that gift, what would happen to Visidia? Without the truth—without magic restored to them once and for all—how am I better than any other Montara?
Not to mention there will be a price to pay, no matter what I choose to do.
To have what you most want, you must give up what you most love.
But what exactly is that?
“Are you going to tell me what the problem is, or are you going to keep sighing all night?” Vataea’s voice cuts the silence of our dark room. Even heavy with sleep, her words still sound like a lullaby.
“What will happen if I choose the sighing?” She’ll either roll her eyes or eat me alive for the joke, but either way, I’ll know if this is a conversation she’s awake enough to have.
To my surprise, Vataea snorts. “Then I’ll melt a candle and stuff my ears with its wax, and you may go on sighing for as long as you wish.” It’s too dark in the windowless cabin to see her, though I can tell she shifts from the rustling of her hammock. When she speaks again, her voice is louder and more focused. “What’s wrong?”
My injured thigh pulses as I turn to face her. Even if we can’t see each other, it feels better this way. “Why are you still here, V?”
Given the long silence that follows, I know this isn’t the question she’d been expecting. She hesitates for a moment, and only when it appears she’ll never answer does she ask, in a voice unusually quiet for her, “Would you rather I be somewhere else?”
“That’s not it at all. But you could be anywhere right now, doing anything. So why are you here with us? Why would you risk your life for us, when there’s so much more you could be doing?”
Her sigh comes after a brief pause, long and dramatic. “If I knew we were sharing our feelings tonight, I would have stayed asleep.”
I roll my eyes, thinking to chuck my pillow at her face. Remembering those teeth of hers, however, I think better of it.
“Humor me,” I tell her. “Just this once.”
She flips onto her side, and though I can’t be sure, I swear those yellow eyes of hers can see me in the darkness.
“If you really want to know, I’ll tell you. But I’ll say it only once, and will never repeat myself.” The words sound like a warning at first, but quickly turn timid, dipping to little more than a whisper. “I didn’t ever think I wanted friends until I met you, Amora. My kind