Page 28 of Witchsea

“Why didn’t you leave if you didn’t like the weather?” Mellyn’s question makes me jump. I didn’t hear him sneak up on us, but he stands on the edge of the training circle, his hands on his hips too. His dark clothes move in the breeze as he grins at me but then gives a slightly nervous look at Ren, like he doesn’t know how to approach Ren at all.

Ren laughs low. “Good question, child.” He looks at me. “Answer him, then.”

I’m tempted to tell Ren to fuck himself, even in front of Mellyn, but I don’t. Kids are my weak spot, and they always have been. “I didn’t want to leave my home. It reminds me of my parents, and it’s all I have of them now. I also had a job and people.” People meaning Rowe, but I don’t say it. “Sometimes it’s not as easy as just leaving.”

Mellyn thinks about it, and when he speaks, his voice is lacking emotion. “But you were always fated to leave the island of your birth and challenge the sky.”

I watch him carefully, goose bumps littering my skin. He wasn’t singing right now, but that sounded an awful lot like a premonition. Ren moves in front of Mellyn, placing his hand on his shoulder. “Your training with Map is later today, and you should get some food in your belly before it. Go on now.”

“Okay, Captain! Bye, Mir!” His voice is back to his happy self, and I watch as he runs down the steps into the ship.

“You don’t like kids, then?” I question with a small laugh.

Ren turns back, clicking his tongue. “It’s not that I don’t like children. If Lunaria herself blessed me with a child, I would die for him or her…but Mellyn is difficult to like. He knows too much, sees too much, and the gods have blessed him with power unlike I’ve ever seen. His future is uncertain, but I promised Clark I would protect him as one of my own, and I will.”

“How noble,” I quip. “But he is still a kid. I get the feeling you disapprove of me training him.”

Ren laughs. “No, but I think you play dirty, Map, and that shouldn’t be taught to anyone else.”

I curl my hand. “I promise to go easy on you and no cheap tricks—considering you always fall for them, Captain.” He begins circling me, a dark look in his eyes. Winding Ren up is the best way to have him actually teach me, rather than the controlled version that he brings to training every time. It’s almost like he doesn’t want to hurt me, but that isn’t the point of this training. I want to know how to defend myself against anything and anyone—even him. His power is the only thing that makes it unfair between us, and shadows are always lingering nearby on the floor. Ren is here to play this morning, though. I watch him like a bird watches a mouse, knowing the prey is fast and you can’t blink. Ren is very fast for a big man. When he wants to really teach me how to defend myself, I end up on my ass repeatedly, but he doesn’t mock me. He just tells me to get up, and we begin again.

Just like how he moves now—he moves like water in the sea—swift, straight into my space, and he owns it. He owns this entire training ring, and he does it so easily, in a way I’ve never seen anyone fight before. I’d never admit it to his face, but it is impressive. If this is how dangerous he is without his powers…with his powers, he must be unstoppable.

His hand slams into my chest, but I dodge it at the last second, and it’s good I did because I’d be thrown out of the training ring he drew on the deck for us. I dodge right, twisting my body around to slam my foot into the back of his leg. If he weren’t such a big opponent, it’d be easy to knock him down like that, but this Ren. He is all muscle, and it’s like kicking a fucking rock. He grabs my foot, twisting and spinning me until I fall onto the floor, slamming my back on the wooden deck. He’s on me in a second. His forearm pressed into my throat, his hips pinning mine down to the floor, and my breaths come out in big pants as he looks down at me. I couldn’t move if I tried, and he knows it. The smug look he gives me says it all.

“I win.” He breathes as heavily as me, the sun making a halo above his head in the light. He removes his arm, pressing both his fists into the deck by my head. His hips still hold mine down, fixed in place. “You need to be quicker. I used the same move to take you down yesterday, and you should have learned not to try that.”

“You’re not a fair opponent. I see your shadows and I know they help you somehow,” I mutter. “One day, you’re going to have to tell me how that is possible. Like, how is it possible, whenever I wake up, your side of the bed is warm and smells like you, but you’re never there? I don’t get it.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.” He just smirks, standing up. He offers me his hand to help me up, but I ignore it as I climb to my feet on my own. “So stubborn.”

I cross my arms. “You’re such a cheat!”

Ren grins and then yawns like this was nothing, even if I feel worn out to my bones. Two hours of this intense training is not nothing, and I can’t just walk away from it like he can. I need a nap…and a long drink, but I didn’t get a glass bottle of water from the kitchens when I should have earlier. “I’m going to wash off in our bathroom before you use all the water up, as usual,” he tells me.

“That isn’t fair. If you give me my own room, I can use my own water, and it won’t be an issue!” I snap. I’m never giving up the fight on wanting my own space.

He ignores me, stomping away. Typical Ren. He never wants to discuss the room issue, and it’s annoying because there are so many empty rooms on the ship now. I’ve looked around everywhere on this ship, except for a few locked doors I couldn’t pick, and there is so much space.

I walk to the edge of the ship, where there’s a slight gap with a single rod of wood across it to stop someone from falling off, and I sit down, hanging my legs off the edge of the ship. I rest my head on the railing as the sea breeze blows against me for a long time, and I just watch it, taking it all in. I might never see this part of the world again, and part of me hopes that I see it next with Rowe. I haven’t made a long-term plan of where to take him when he is better, only that we will get on the next ship and leave. I can find work anywhere and housing too. Birds fly across the sky in almost an arrow shape, the light bouncing off their white wings, and I watch them soar, the sound of their songs echoing in the air.

Chaos sits down next to me with a thump, and I look at him with my eyebrows raised in surprise. I couldn’t be more shocked when he hands me a glass bottle of water. “Ren told me you didn’t have water, and I said I’d get some for you. You look like you need it.”

“Why are you giving me a drink?” I suspiciously question.

His eyes narrow on me. “It’s not poisoned or filled with a sleeping potion, if that is your concern.” He shoves the bottle into my lap, and I’m forced to take it. “That is a tactic of yours, not mine. When I have opponents, I face them until they’re dead. Poison is too kind for my enemies.”

“That doesn’t surprise me,” I admit, and it’s enough for me to trust the bottle is just water. I’m thirsty enough not to care anyway as I open the cap and take a long drink. The water is cool from being below deck, and I feel it spread through my stomach with a sigh. “Thank you. I was about to leave and get my own, so you saved me a trip.”

He nods, and he doesn’t leave. I stare at him a few times, finding him watching the sea just like me. Chaos is usually the first one to walk out of the room when I come into it, and he never wants to sit anywhere near me. In fact, he only refers to me as “the problem” or “trouble” half the time. I shrug after a while, resting my head again and watching the sea. We sit in silence for a while, watching the birds, watching the tiny islands in the far distance that we pass. “I read about places like this, but seeing them is almost like dreaming while awake,” I confess.

“I never left my island until I came onto this ship, and every time we came somewhere new, I enjoyed the same feeling,” Chaos admits, and he turns to look at me. “I hoped you would die by accidental death or fall off the ship, never to be seen again, or something just as quick and silly, because you are trouble and a tremendous problem.”

I blink once. “Okay, I’m not sure where you are going with this, but I’m nervous sitting on the edge of the ship with you right now.”

“I won’t push you off,” he grumbles, but we both know he has thought about it more than once. “I am trying to apologize.” He swallows with the word like he doesn’t say it very often.

“Really?” I can’t hide the shock on my face.