Page 37 of Ballad of Sea and Sky

“Like your betrothed?” Caspian teased, now holding us still amid the wildness of the dance. The tempo seemed to be speeding up, the pace matching the frantic beating of my heart as I tried to redirect the conversation. “Isheinsufferable?”

”Heis none of your business,“ I retorted, face flaming. Caspian pulled me closer, catching me off guard. I stumbled, steadying myself against him.

“I think he’s very much my business,” he replied quietly, something smoldering in his eyes.

I swallowed, feeling my breath catch. “He is most certainlynot,“ I argued weakly, pushing myself out of his arms.

Caspian laughed as the music stopped and the rest of the patrons clapped and whooped. Several began a new dance as others began to file out of the tavern. I glanced out to see that the sun beyond the windows was setting, the sky a blazing rose in the dying day. How had time passed so quickly?

“What’s so funny?” I snapped, as Caspian guided me gently off the dance floor, one large hand splayed across my back, leaving tingles of awareness in every part of me.

“You are,” he chuckled, nodding to Astraios, who began to weave toward the exit with the other siren crew members and back onto the darkening street. He looked back down at me, eyes practically glowing with molten intent. “Here, I have a gift for you.”

Before we could follow his crew, Caspian pulled the paper bag from Marella’s stall from his pocket and took out the pearl comb.

“To remember your visit,” he said a bit gruffly, twisting the comb into my hair with expert fingers. His eyes burned as he looked down at me, his fingers grazing my cheek as he dropped his hand from my hair. “Freedom suits you, Princess.”

I was torn between giddy surprise, delighted by the gift and feeling all of my walls crumble around me, and intense annoyance.

“Thank you,” I said, reaching up to touch the delicate pearl flowers and trying to remind myself that I couldn’t want him. He was my enemy. I steeled my spine, frowning. “But this is hardly what I’d call freedom. And you can’t buy my support with pretty ornaments.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” Caspian chuckled, putting an arm around me to guide me from the tavern, his demeanor changing as if he hadn’t just been sizing me up to devour me. “Consider it a peace offering.”

“A peace offering for what?” I asked warily, my heart leaping as I felt his thumb brush my shoulder.

He grinned down at me, his gaze wicked in more ways than one. “For whatever you find to be angry with me about next.”

Chapter 13

Thecrewwereamerry rabble as they returned to the ship, with several additional sirens boarding. Some appeared to be sailors like the rest of the crew, but others carried luggage, and I assumed we’d be taking them back to wherever their home was.

“Make good choices, Urchin,” he drawled, wandering off to chat with Zephyr, who was animatedly arguing over maps with Astraios.

“I won’t!” I shouted back, earning a laugh and a vulgar gesture. Now I wasreallygetting the pirate treatment.

I wandered toward the stern of the ship, away from most of the major activity of unlashing rigging and preparing sails, and looked out at the crimson sea. The sun was almost below the horizon, and it looked like the sky was bleeding as the sun set. It reminded me of Caspian’s song, how the sea and sky were doomed to touch, but to never really be together. At the history between a siren princess and a selkie prince whose love was doomed.

Like you and Caspian, a rogue voice said in the back of my mind. I quickly banished the thought, irritably drowning the idea in the sea below me.

This strange attraction was no doubt borne of my lack of choice in a mate and my circumstances as a captive, not any real feelings of softness or connection. In a few days, I’d return to my normal life. To my parents and my sheltered home and a mating with the captain of my father’s guard.

The thought made me a little nauseated.

“So how was the town?” drawled a friendly female voice. Zephyr sidled up next to me, gazing out over the darkening horizon with her good eye. “Cas told me you actually agreed to dance with him, so you must have been in averygood mood.”

“That was until he suggested I bed Astraios,” I snorted. “Your captain is rather infuriating.”

“All males are infuriating,” Zephyr corrected with a wry grin, her eyes lit with amusement and a little knowing. “It’s why I’ve washed my hands of them.”

I didn’t reply, not sure what to say to this and not wanting to commit an offense. Same-sex pairings weren’t common on the Silent Isles, although they weren’t technically forbidden. But there was a lot of pressure to produce children, and society wasn’t always kind to those who chose to follow their own path, as I well knew.

What would it be like, I wondered, to grow up wholly comfortable with who I was, like Zephyr seemed? To be accepted regardless of any differences or shortcomings?

A building cough reminded me of my own problems, and Zephyr patted me heavily on the back. “That reminds me,” she said, pulling a paper bag from her jacket and pressing it into my hands. I recognized the paper and the scent from the apothecary earlier and groaned. Why did Caspian have to bekindas well as attractive? It would be much easier to hate him if he were a complete ass. “Cas told me to remind you to drink this tonight, since you didn’t have a dose in town.”

“I told him that I’m fine,” I said, contemplating tossing the herbs overboard. Zephyr must have sensed my thought, because she put a hand gently over my wrist.

“When you look at me, Marina,” she said, “do you see someone weak and broken?”