Page 14 of Ballad of Sea and Sky

She was a brave little idiot.

The moment I had seen her at that ridiculous feast, I had wanted to get my hands on her. She looked miserable, which I couldn’t blame her for, betrothed to that buffoon of a captain. But it was more than that, and I was struggling to remember my goals as I retrieved the keys she had hidden inexpertly in the corner of the cell. I unlocked the iron door, hissing at the cold bite of the metal as I shifted the princess’s dead weight in my arms. Her eyes had been…well, mesmerizing—a blue-green like the sea on a summer day. She looked at me like sheknewme, not who I was or my title, or anything superficial. Like she sawmeunder everything.

It was disarming. And unsettling. And I felt a strange tug in my chest when I looked at her. I didn’t want to examine that too closely, especially as I was kidnapping her.

It hadn’t been entirely an act, my pain. I had overreacted when she reached for my wings, the agony of the broken bones and of losing the ability to fly, however temporary, too raw for me to control myself. Just like when I was a child, I thought bitterly.

They would heal though, I reminded myself. It might take a week or two until I was back to normal, but theywouldheal. I had dealt with worse.

The incapacitated guards were still unconscious on the floor below, where I had dragged them before I’d heard the princess descending. I was prepared to fight my way out, knowing I could retrieve the keys on a phantom wind as I locked myself back in, and expecting to find new guards come to beat me.

The selkies seemed to be overconfident in their prison. The cuffs had been old. Despite the sucking pain of them against my skin, they were easy to crack with enough force. The right grip on just the right place at the base of the skull had rendered the guards unconscious before I’d even had to sing.

The original plan after my fortuitous “capture” was to feign weakness, lie low, incapacitate the guards, and then sneak into the princess’s rooms to kidnap her. Our escape vessel would be docked just off the coast, waiting for my signal. Originally I planned to sneak out the front doors of the castle, but fortune favored the bold. Plan B, then. The tidepools at the base of the cliff would do just as well.

The grate that led to the pools below was already open, unscrewed earlier by Zephyr’s team as a backup escape route. My first mate had plans for every possible scenario, and I had never been more grateful for her wits.

I stifled the cry of agony as I rose, carrying the unconscious princess with me. Her betrothed may not be very bright, but he was extremely capable of beating the living shit out of someone, and I knew I would feel the cracked ribs and bruising for several days. The wings would take even longer, and I reminded myself that I was lucky they had only broken them.

I kicked the grate open, opting for speed over silence and hoping there were no guards on patrol outside the tower. It was going to be a tight squeeze, and it was a long drop. We were at least thirty feet above the water, which was rocky and shallow. Perfect for dumping refuse or—more likely—shattering bodies against when their owners had no more information to share. I shuddered, trying to decide how to descend without killing us both.

I summoned a breeze, willing it to form a column of air between the ground and the grate. I couldn’t fly, but I could fall with control. I’d have to slide myself out first, then summon enough wind to keep me aloft while I pulled the princess out after me.

The grate was wide, but not tall, and there was another cascade of pain as I forced my broken wings to tuck in so I could shimmy through.

Wind caught me as I dropped from the ledge, and I sank a few feet as my broken wings again buckled in agony. I breathed through the pain, knowing it was for a good cause. My people needed this.

I forced myself upright and pushed myself higher on the wind, using far more power to generate the column of wind than I normally would if my wings were functional. I turned back to the grate, reaching for the princess and trying to ease her out gently. She was smaller than I, like a rag doll in my arms, and she slid out easily as I clutched her to me, wary of damaging my prize.

There was no way her father would bargain if she were injured.

Her weight made us sink, and I lowered us to the ground, the rain beating fiercely against us as I manipulated the winds. I couldn’t signal my crew until I was on the ground in case I dropped the girl.

Once we landed, half submerged in a freezing tidepool, I began to sing. My voice was a pleasing baritone, and I imbued the song with a lullaby to will the sleeping palace tostayasleep as I waited for my first mate.

Zephyr and a small crew would be waiting in a dinghy offshore, somewhere hidden from prying eyes, and song was the only way we could think to signal each other. A flare would have been confiscated, and the wind could be too unpredictable from long distances. But siren song was ethereal magic, not nearly as blunt as the selkies seemed to think. We could weave it with precision when needed, able to direct our song at a single target or many.

I heard splashing and squinted into the darkness. Zephyr’s voice ringing out across the mist told me I had been successful.

“You look awful,” Zephyr shouted when the dinghy finally drew near enough that I could stop singing. Her voice was a rich alto, deeper than Marina’s, who was clearly a soprano from the few moments I had spoken to her. Something about her voice called to me. Pierced my soul. I shook my head, trying to focus on my first mate.

“Always happy to disappoint,” I quipped, trying to hide the pain in my voice. I knew it had come out in my song, a raw note of agony that permeated the otherwise soothing melody, but Zephyr pretended not to notice. At least in front of the crew.

“No trouble?” Zephyr asked, taking a visual inventory of my injuries through her single, brown eye.

“I’m fine,” I lied, climbing into the dinghy with the princess still in my arms. I wondered if she would shift if she got wet, and I was careful to keep her out of the water as I climbed in. I had no idea how selkie magic worked, except that somehow they could shift into seals.

“You’re a terrible liar,” Zephyr sighed, signaling to the crew to start rowing. The ship would be several miles out, but we would raise a sail once we were far enough from the coast, and then the wind would carry us more swiftly. “They took the bait then, I guess?”

“If by bait you mean me, then yes,” I said, my ribs burning as I awkwardly held the unconscious princess in my lap. She was soft and warm, and I was working hard not to think about exactly how soft and warm she was. Or how she smelled like peppermint and ocean spray.

“And how many did you have to kill?” Zephyr asked, frowning stoically at me. “Should we be expecting a small war, or a big one?”

“None,” I growled, irritation with my first mate’s lack of faith was near to the surface while pain was riding me. “I told you, Zeph, that I could do this without anyone getting hurt.”

“Yes, and you’ve so clearly succeeded,” she quipped, eyeing my extremely broken wings.

I smirked, which was truthfully more of a grimace. “No one other than me,” I amended. “Although the Selkie King would have his court believe that his captain killed my whole crew.”