Page 67 of Tangled Sails

I hardly had a choice. “Yes.”

“Then come. I will take you to them. They are still searching.”

LYRIELLE

We’d been sailing a long time, and yet my strength was returning far too slowly. I shouldn’t have been surprised. I was desperately hungry and thirsty. Aunt Ethel may have held me prisoner, but she’d always fed me, especially if it had been a taxing day of healing. My body had never been pushed to this limit, and it frightened me to feel so wrung-out for so long. I couldn’t fight if I had no strength.

There was a puddle of tears beneath my head, but Harlan had ignored every sob and all my begging. So when he spoke, it startled me. “Sing, Lyrielle.”

The request confused me. He wasn’t hurt, so what use was my singing? “Why?”

“We need to open the portal.”

“I don’t know how,” I snapped. How dare he demand anything of me right now.

“Don’t be dim. The portal operates on magic. You have magic. Sing,” he commanded.

I shook my head, frantic. “I can’t go back there.” My breathing was speeding up, getting out of control. “I won’t sing.”

He lunged toward me, causing the boat to rock. My head slammed into the bench behind me, but my cry of pain was cut short when Harlan grabbed hold of my chin, his cold eyes boring into mine. “You will, or I will throw you overboard with your hands tied.”

His cold glare and sharp threat washed me in terror.

“You can’t swim, can you?” he asked with a raised brow.

No, I couldn’t.

“And you’re too weak to even sit up, so I can’t imagine you have much strength to fight in the first place. So if you want to live, you’ll have to open the portal to save your own life.”

New tears streamed down my face, joining the rest.

His grip on my face intensified and he gave my head a shake, screaming in my face. “Sing!”

I tried to obey, but fear choked my voice. He grabbed hold of me and dragged me up against the side of the boat, lifting me enough that he could shove my upper body over the edge. I gripped the boat weakly, crying out in fear, trying to lean back into the boat, but his large hand held the back of my head, keeping it bent over the water. “Sing.”

I did so, singing over my own sobs, making up the words and the lamenting melody as I went.

Selfish. How can you be so selfish?

How can my life mean nothing?

My choice is a corpse upon the ground

My wants a shipwreck on the ocean floor.

“Keep singing,” he demanded as he let me go and returned to his seat to take the steering oar in hand. He searched our surroundings, studying the air around us and the water below. He raised his hand to shade his eyes and then adjusted the oar.

I kept singing as he turned the boat this way and that, hoping with everything in me that this wouldn’t work, that he wouldn’t find what he was looking for.

But all too soon, I heard him say, “I see it” in whispered awe.

Those words were a blade to my heart, and I summoned all my strength to lift my head and look out over the water. It was still a ways off, but the golden glow at the surface of the water was unmistakable.

“Keep singing!” he screamed as we sailed swiftly toward the portal.

You offer a choice that’s no choice at all

Fill my lungs with sea water