Page 10 of Tangled Sails

She’s not a mermaid, my mind reminded me. Yes, I know, but she’s very pretty, my heart responded. It was a constant battle between those two.

My heart, of course, was correct. She was extraordinarily pretty. Porcelain skin, fine features, lovely curves, which I happened to know all about thanks to her drenched condition. Her dress was not a fashion I was familiar with; it was light purple, laced up the front, and had small puffed sleeves, one of which had slid off her shoulder along with her blanket when she'd burst to her feet, ranting about her strange predicament.

I would have loved to say that she was simply confused from her fall, and surely she’d just gone overboard from another ship. But few ships traveled at night, and I had a fine lookout up in the crow’s nest. I knew very well that there had been no ships in sight for more than an hour, and the coast of Islewyn was only barely visible on the horizon. Lyrielle claimed she couldn’t swim, and I was prone to believe her. Her situation did not make sense, but logic failed to provide me with the answers I sought. Magic? I immediately rejected the thought. Though sailors still liked to believe in the existence of mermaids, there was no evidence of real magic.

The length of her hair still astounded me. I’d seen some of it floating on the waves, glistening in the moonlight as it stretched out endlessly. Why would anyone have hair that long? And how? It didn’t seem natural.

“Well,” I said in what I hoped was a calming tone, though I’d been told many times that my presence was less than soothing. “You got away.”

My statement of the obvious made her go still, and her breathing became less panicked. When she looked out from behind her hands, her eyes were a little less wild.

She sat abruptly in the chair once again, bringing her down almost to my eye level as I knelt in front of her. She stared at me, her green eyes deep, fathomless, and glistening.

Then her tears welled, her breathing raced anew, and she fell apart in front of me, curling over with her hands fisted in her hair, sobbing.

Suddenly, the how of her arrival on my ship no longer seemed to matter. I was just glad that she was alive, and that she was here instead of wherever she’d come from.

Chapter four

TAVRIC

Lyrielle was asleep in my bed.

When she’d nodded off, I’d grabbed a dry set of clothes and left the cabin to change. I couldn’t feel okay about stripping down with her in the room, even if she was asleep, but the discomfort of the wet fabric against my skin wasn’t something I could put up with for long. I’d offered her dry clothing as well, but she’d shaken her head and pulled the blanket more tightly around herself.

After I’d changed, I spoke with the crew, ordering them to take us directly back to shore since we couldn’t very well go gallivanting on the ocean with an innocent and naive passenger on board. Especially a female passenger.

When I’d returned to my cabin, it was to find her curled up on the foot of my bed where I’d left her, her damp, uneven hair splayed over the coverlet, her fist curled under her chin, and her dark lashes resting in stark contrast against her pale cheek. In light of her comment about finally getting out of her tower, the paleness of her skin made my heart lurch. Had the sun ever touched her skin?

Though I made a habit of hiding away in my library when I was at home, I couldn’t imagine not having the ability to escape on my ship, to have the salt spray in my face, the wind in my hair, and the sun warm on my shoulders. What if this girl had never been allowed outside?

I shook my head, chastising myself for letting my imagination get away from me. No reason to invent horror stories.

Sitting at my desk, I attempted to organize my maps, but my eyes kept wandering back to her face, hungry for another glimpse. It felt wrong, like I was betraying the woman who had saved me, the one I’d been searching for for the past month.

After all, she was the reason I’d come running when Jenkins had shouted “mermaid.” While Lyrielle was clearly not a mermaid, I felt in my bones that Melody was. But whether Melody was a true mermaid or not, I had to find her—to thank her for saving my life at the very least.

Shaking thoughts of mermaids from my mind, I returned to my maps, grateful that we would be back in port before too long. Sleeping in this chair was not on my list of wants, and I wouldn’t dishonor Lyrielle, myself, or my parents by sleeping in the same bed with her.

Despite my determination to study nothing but my maps, the young woman curled up on my bed kept snagging my attention. A young lady, who was obviously running from something or someone, had been unceremoniously dropped in my ocean. What was I to do about that? My eyes slid over her dress, which was obviously homespun. Was she from a far kingdom? Had she escaped from pirates or been held prisoner? I couldn’t wait for her to wake so that I could start asking her some of my many questions. Hopefully she would be more receptive to them this time around.

LYRIELLE

I startled awake, my eyes darting around, looking for the familiar shapes of my tower.

I blinked.

And blinked again as my breathing came in shallow gasps.

It hadn’t been a dream. I was in the quarters of the ship’s captain prince who had fished me from the water after I’d fallen to what should have been my death.

Relief and panic warred within me as I told myself that this was what I’d wanted. Freedom from Aunt Ethel, from that tower, and from that life.

I wrapped my hands around my still damp hair, feeling the bizarrely short strands, so foreign in my hands.

“I imagine that will take some getting used to.”

I lifted my eyes to see Prince Tavric sitting in the chair I’d been in earlier, leaning forward with his elbows resting on his knees. I wondered if he always looked so stern and serious, or if it was just my presence that made him frown.