Page 40 of Tangled Sails

She was sweet, but wrong. “I’m a seasoned sailor, and I drank enough that when a storm came up, I ended up in the ocean,” I confessed, the words bitter on my tongue as I fingered the scar on my forehead. “Believe me, a coward is exactly what I am.”

“Grief isn’t cowardice.”

My scalp suddenly felt hot and a weight settled on my chest. “Grief… Is that what this is?” I whispered as I stared at the waves washing a little closer to our bare feet. “Can you grieve someone when they’re not dead?”

“I grieved my parents every day of their illness.”

I turned to her. “What was it that took them?”

It was her turn to stare out at the ocean and nod. “A wasting illness tore through our village when I was nine.”

I frowned, confused. “I thought you said you had your gift when you were nine.”

“Not yet…” She took a stuttering breath, mashed her lips together and pinched her eyes shut, preparing to say something that I intuitively knew would break my heart. “My magic manifested the day after they died.”

And break it did. “Oh, Lyri,” I breathed out as the implications rolled over me.

Her chin trembled. “Aunt Ethel said my magic was likely triggered by my grief.”

“I’m so sorry,” I said, wrapping her in my arms. She immediately tumbled toward me as tears watered her cheeks. I slid my hand around the back of her neck and threaded my fingers into her hair, tucking her under my chin.

“One day,” she choked out. “They would be alive if it had manifested just one day earlier. Instead, I was weeping over their coffins, and when I decided to sing them one last song before they were put into the earth, my hair got brighter, almost like it was glowing. We probably wouldn’t have noticed it if the day had been sunny, but it was raining and dark. People saw it and knew it must mean I had some sort of magic, though we didn’t know what kind.” Her hand fisted into the fabric of my sleeve. “They started congratulating me. While I wept over my parents’ graves, they congratulated me and pawed at my hair.”

I wanted to flog every last one of them.

“Aunt Ethel shooed them away and took me home. She didn’t rush me. She didn’t ask me to sing. In our grief, neither of us thought it mattered what my magic was for. It took me nearly two weeks to discover that I could heal. I don’t know who was more angry, my aunt or me. I think she blamed me for not discovering my gift sooner, because if I had…” Her breath hitched and she crumpled even further. “She made it sound like I could have controlled it. Like it was my fault it hadn’t manifested earlier. She would go on and on about how her sister was dead. It was always ‘my sister’ and never ‘your mother.’ And she never even mentioned my father—like his death didn’t matter. She rarely acknowledged my pain because she was too consumed with her own.”

I held her tighter and kissed the top of her head, knowing that words were meaningless in moments such as this. And she let me. She let me hold and comfort her, and there was a large part of me that thought perhaps I always wanted to be this person for her.

I berated myself for letting my feelings get this far. My mother had warned me not to fall for her, but here I was, tumbling down a cliff.

LYRIELLE

We returned to the castle on horseback after sunset, our pace slow with only the moon to light our path. My arms banded tightly around Tavric’s chest in the way that I knew calmed him and comforted me. Despite the tumult of telling him more about my powers, the time I’d spent with him had been rejuvenating. It always was, because Tavric always saw me, always listened to me.

After dismounting the horse at the stables, I expected he would have to go his own way and return to his duties, but he looked hesitant, like he wasn’t quite ready to return. He stared at me for several long moments, and I waited to see what he would say.

“I want you to meet my father,” he finally blurted out.

My whole chest flooded with warmth. “I would love to meet him,” I whispered, gratified that his desire to introduce me to him had nothing to do with healing.

He nodded and swallowed, his lips and eyes tense with emotion, then gestured toward the castle.

We walked side by side—not touching, but almost—as we wound through the castle corridors. We passed the room I was staying in and turned down another hallway. At the end of the corridor, two guards were stationed on either side of an elaborate set of carved doors. They reached out and opened them as we approached, and I held my breath as we entered the king’s bedchamber.

The weight of sickness and despair sat heavy in the air.

Tavric led me to the side of the bed, and I was immediately overwhelmed by just how ill the king was. He was wasting away, practically only skin and bones under the coverlet—just like my parents had been. He was pale, the skin of his face wrinkled as it hung loose from the lack of healthy tissue beneath. I hadn’t seen sickness like this since before I’d had my gift. Aunt Ethel had moved us away from the village I’d grown up in, the one ravaged by sickness, only days after we’d discovered what my magic could do. She’d taken us to Eldmere, to the tower.

Tavric bent down, leaning close to his father. “Papa,” he whispered, and the king’s eyes fluttered, a weak smile briefly dashing across his lips. “This is Lyri. She’s a…good friend, and she wanted to meet you.” He reached out a hand and drew me forward, urging me to sit on the chair that was pulled up close to the king’s side. “You can talk to him if you’d like,” he said, then turned and crossed to a nurse who stood in the corner.

I reached for the king’s hand, and he gave mine a tiny squeeze but kept his eyes closed. Seeing illness up close this way…I wasn’t used to it. “I’m glad to meet you, Your Majesty,” I managed to whisper. “You have a remarkable son, and a tremendous wife.”

He let out a little puff of air, perhaps in agreement. In that moment, I missed my gift terribly. I wanted nothing more than to be able to heal this man, but I didn’t even know how to comfort him, so I did what I’d always done with those who were suffering: I started to sing, wishing I could take away his pain.

I’d only sung a few phrases before I felt the familiar, awful pull that started at my heart. But instead of rising to my scalp, it pulsed down my arms and into my hands, warming the space where my palm pressed to his.

Suddenly, the king took in a breath that was less labored than it had been only moments before.