The Siren and the Deep Blue Sea - Kerrelyn Sparks Page 0,8
fruit, cheese, bread, and wine, a narrow bed, and a window seat looking out the ship’s aft. On the trip four years ago, Brigitta had settled in the window seat, refusing to play the Game of Stones with her sisters. She’d been spooked, Maeve recalled, and rightly so. She had been kidnapped soon afterward.
Maeve paused by the table where she’d played with her sisters to pass the time away. They’d been especially silly with their predictions in a vain attempt to cheer up Brigitta.
Oh, dear goddesses! Maeve’s breath caught. At the time, they had joked that Sorcha would end up with an elf. How strange that their jest had come true!
And what had her stones been? Maeve glanced at the window seat. She’d sat there next to Brigitta. “My prediction was the best,” Maeve had boasted. “In four years, I’ll meet a tall and handsome stranger with green teeth, purple hair, and three feet.”
Green, purple, and three? A shudder ran down Maeve’s spine. Out of the forty Telling Stones, what were the chances that three of them would repeat like that?
She shook her head. It wasn’t an exact match. She had picked four stones that day—four, three, purple, and green. This last time, she’d ended up with only three stones. She’d missed repeating the number four.
But four years had passed.
Coincidence, she told herself. Superstition. She couldn’t let the Telling Stones frighten her as they had Brigitta. Even though all the predictions for Brigitta had come true.
“Damn,” Maeve muttered as she paced around the cabin once more. There was no reason for her to get spooked. Luciana was the one who predicted the future, not her. She didn’t have the blood of witches in her veins.
Or did she? Maeve stopped with a jerk. She really didn’t know.
There was no point in wondering about the unknown. She opened her bag, which a sailor had deposited at the foot of the bed, and took out the book she’d borrowed from the Ebton Palace library. She hadn’t had much time to look at it the night before.
Sitting at the table, she carefully examined each page. Once again, it took some time for her to adjust to the archaic language. And once again, she became thoroughly engrossed in the old story. Imagine the terror, she thought, of suddenly realizing that your world and everyone you knew and loved was coming to an end. A violent end. An entire continent gone. An entire race perished.
She closed her eyes, mentally picturing the chaos. People dashing about, searching in vain for a way to escape, and when that failed, a safe place to hide. The earth beneath her feet shook, and buildings crumbled around her. Fires broke out. Smoke and volcanic ash darkened the sky. Frantic screams and mournful wailing echoed around her. Mothers desperately tried to shield their children from suffocating ash. The children’s cries wrenched her heart. Her eyes stung.
It hurt. The heat was singeing her skin. Roasting her. She couldn’t breathe.
A knock at the door jolted her out of her thoughts.
“Maeve?” Nevis cracked the door open and peeked inside. “Oh, you’re awake. I thought you might be asleep. We haven’t seen you in hours.”
She blinked and looked around the cabin. Hours? When had the room grown so dark?
Nevis came in, carrying a lit lantern. “The sun is setting. I thought you might need this.” He latched the lantern onto a hook in the ceiling. “And the galley has some stew if you’re hungry for din—oh, you have plenty of food.” He wandered over to the sideboard. “Didn’t you eat?”
“Ah, no.” Maeve took a deep breath. Good goddesses, what had happened? She’d been so immersed in this book she’d missed the midday meal. “I’ll eat now. Would you like to join me?”
“Sure.” Nevis grabbed a pewter plate and helped himself. “What have you been doing?”
“I was reading a book.” She wandered over to the sideboard to load her plate. “An extremely old book I found in the library at Ebton.”
“Mmm.” Nevis made a garbled noise as he stuffed some cheese into his mouth that sounded like, “What’s it about?”
“Aerland.” She selected some sliced roast beef, cheese, and an assortment of fruit.
“You mean Aerthlan?” He poured himself some wine.
“No, Aerland,” she corrected him. “It’s an ancient continent that used to exist in the Great Western Ocean.”
He snorted. “Right.” He set his plate and cup of wine on the table. “Is this the book?”
“Yes.” Maeve filled a cup with wine and winced as her hand trembled. She was