I WAKE AND THEN immediately wish I hadn’t.
There’s a raw pain in my ribs, like there’s a creature gnawing at my skin, and I feel groggy in a way that tells me I’ve had too much sleep.
The room I’m in is as jumbled as my thoughts. I brush my open shirt out of the way and brace my heavily bandaged ribs. My teeth grind against one another as I let my legs swing over the side of the bench. It’s a mere second of being upright before the gnawing turns into a bite.
“There’s something about a bullet wound that makes me want to jump out of bed too.”
Kye is washing his hands in a nearby sink. It’s thick with oil and grease. When he’s finished, he shakes the water from his hands and turns to me with a condemning look.
“This is supposed to be a bed?” I ask.
He places a wet hand against my forehead, and I resist the urge to retract from the cold.
“I don’t think you’re dying now,” he says.
“Was I dying before?”
He shrugs. “Maybe. But the little circus medic fixed you up okay. He even taught me how to dress your wound so he could focus on helping the ship stay afloat.” Kye nods to the bandages with a smug look. “Pretty perfect, aren’t they? My first.”
“Could you not have given me a bed, too?” I ask, not failing to notice that someone – I hope Madrid rather than Kye – has also dressed me in something more plain and comfortable than the dress I was in.
“Madrid fetched you pillows.” Kye wipes his hands on a nearby rag. “It’s the best we could do since moving you wasn’t an option.”
I glance down at the stained sheet draped thinly over me. There’s a black velvet pillow where my head was, plush enough for me to have slept comfortably for however long, and a thin oval cushion is pressed into the shape of my feet. It’s not exactly fit for a queen, but for a gunshot victim aboard a pirate ship, it might be considered luxurious.
“How are you feeling?” Kye asks, and I smirk.
“Were you worried?” When he doesn’t reply, I test my ribs with a deep sigh. “Fine,” I say.
The bandage is tight around my body, and the dressing feels fresh and crisp against my clammy skin. It must have been changed recently, I realize, which means that Kye has been watching over me.
“I expected Madrid,” I tell him. “Of all people, I didn’t think it would be you.”
“She was here for a while,” he says. “Longer than a while, actually. I had to send her off to get some sleep before she resorted to stapling her eyes open.” He looks down at his hands. “She was worried you’d be just another girl who couldn’t escape.”
“Escape what?”
“Rycroft,” he says, and then shuffles uncomfortably. “I’m glad you’re awake.”
The comment isn’t as throwaway as he might want it to be. For all the distrust between us, Kye and the rest of the crew risked their lives to come back for me, and while I lay bleeding on their ship, they didn’t leave me to sleep in solitude. They stayed. They came for me and they stayed.
“So you trust me now?” I ask.
“You nearly died trying to save Elian.” Kye clears his throat as though it’s a struggle to get the words out. “So like I said, I’m glad you’re awake.”
“I’m glad that you didn’t kill me while I was unconscious.”
Kye snorts a smile. “I like the way you say thank you.”
I laugh and then wince. “How long was I asleep?”
“A few days,” he tells me. “We had some strong sedatives and we all thought it would be a good idea for you to get some rest.” He grabs the rag from by the sink and passes it uneasily between his hands. “Listen,” he says gingerly. “I know I’ve given you a hard time, but that’s only because Elian seems to like putting himself in death’s hands a little too often and it’s my job to stop that from happening whenever I can.”
“Like a good bodyguard,” I say.
“Like a good friend,” he corrects. “And I think taking a bullet for him has earned you a break from me being shitty.” He sighs and throws the rag onto my lap. “I guess this officially makes you one of us.”
I take a moment to process that. The idea that I belong with them on a ship setting sail for everywhere and nowhere. It’s what I wanted, isn’t it? To gain the crew’s confidence so that they wouldn’t suspect me. And yet, the instant Kye says it, I don’t think about how I’ve earned trust I plan to break. I think about how different it feels, to be a new kind of soldier, earning loyalty by saving lives instead of destroying them. Fighting a war on the other side.
“I didn’t quite hear that apology,” I say. “Could you repeat it?”
Kye glares, but it’s different than before, lighter, nothing hostile grazing over it. A smile settles on his face. “Guess Elian’s been teaching you his version of humor,” he says.
At the mention of Elian’s name, I pause.
He promised that he wouldn’t come back for me if something went wrong, and then he did it anyway. The moment he freed himself from the restraints and was faced with the opportunity to leave, he didn’t want to.
I squeeze my eyes shut as my head begins to pound. My entire purpose for being on this ship is to kill him, and when the opportunity came for someone else to do it, I stopped them.
I pushed him from the bullet the same way he pulled me from the ocean. Without thinking or weighing up what it could mean or how it might benefit me. I did it because it seemed like the only thing to do. The right thing to do.
In my world, Kahlia is the sole remnant of my lost innocence. The only proof that there’s a tiny part of me I haven’t let my mother get her hands on. I don’t know why, but Elian has evoked the same feral feeling that used to be reserved only for her. The desire to allow sparks of loyalty and humanity in me to take hold. We’re the same, he and I. Just as looking into my cousin’s eyes feels like looking into a memory of my own childhood, being around Elian feels like being around an alternate version of myself. Reflections of each other in a different kingdom and a different life. Broken pieces from the same mirror. There are worlds between us, but that seems more like semantics than tangible evidence of how dissimilar we are.
Everything is murkier now. And Elian made it that way in a single second, with an action as easy as breathing: He smiled. Not because I was suffering or bowing or making myself malleable to his every whim and decree like I’ve done with my mother. He smiled because he saw me. Free and alive, and already making my way back to him.
I’ve been so focused on putting an end to my mother’s reign that I haven’t thought about how I can put an end to her war. Even if I get my hands on the eye, I still planned to take Elian’s heart, just as my mother ordered, thinking it would prove something to my kingdom. But what? That I’m the same as her, valuing death and savagery over mercy? That I’ll betray anyone, even those who are loyal to me?
If I find the eye, maybe it’s not just sirens who don’t need to suffer anymore, but humans, too. Maybe I can stop the age-old grudge that began in death. Be a new kind of queen, who doesn’t create murderers from daughters.
I think of Crestell, shielding Kahlia from me and laying down her own life instead.
Become the queen we need you to be.
“I should get the captain,” Kye says, breaking me from my thoughts.
I slide from the bench, letting the pain soak through me and then drift away. I gather my footing and focus on this newfound urgency. “No,” I tell him. “Don’t.”
Kye hesitates by the door, his hand already pressing down on the handle. “You don’t want him to come?” he asks.
I shake my head. “He doesn’t need to,” I say. “I’ll find him.”