To be fair, these guys haven’t exactly been pushing to get me on that boat. If they take the cupla and go, Rhordyn’s theory will be proven correct—that Cainon was only in this to stir the political pot.
I’ll never live it down, but sailing off into an encroaching storm with a boat full of people I don’t know or trust would be the height of stupidity if I haven’t at least tested Rhordyn’s theory.
The two share a look, neither of them taking a single step inside my quarters.
“Fine,” Vanth grumbles, pointing at a basket in the corner of the room. “You have five minutes to fill that with stuff, wrap that wound, and change into more ... appropriate attire. If we’re doing this, we have to be out of that bay before we lose the remaining light and your naïvete damns us all to a watery grave.”
He pulls the door closed before I can say another word.
My button-down is rolled to my elbows, my tight, waist-high pants offering an extra layer of pressure for my bandaged thigh. Sporadic gusts of icy wind whistle down the callous steps behind me, assaulting my ears, threatening to toss me down the cliff and no doubt take out my spear-wielding guards on the way.
Every few steps, I steal a peek over my shoulder, half expecting to see Rhordyn charging after me.
“Can you guys move any faster?”
Vanth grumbles something and they both quicken their pace. Hard to be sure, but I think they might be getting sick of me.
The basket I’m carrying is light, only full of essentials. The fact that it’s all jammed inside a pillow slip that smells of Rhordyn should be entirely discounted.
I know I was supposed to burn the thing, but I kept thinking of reasons not to.
I’m not okay.
These wet, slippery stairs feel like increments toward the gallows. Like I’m being led to an execution block and not a boat destined for a foreign territory where I’ll be sworn in as a High Mistress, surrounded by people who aren’t my people.
Tanith, Cook, Shay, Kai ... I’ll even miss the grumbling gardeners. I’ll miss the trees and the flowers and the bushes I’ve grown from seeds. I’ll miss the view from my spot where I’ve always felt safe despite my haunting past ...
My stomach churns.
The rain has abated. If I were the sign-seeking type, I’d believe this is right, even though my heart is screaming for me to turn back and run. For me to hide in my tower, lock the door, and never come out.
My boots finally hit the sand—boots I wore to prevent from sinking my toes deep and grounding myself. I can’t afford to dig new roots when I’m nursing the nubs from the ones I’ve recently severed.
Our hurried footsteps dent the sand as we sweep around the bay. We’re almost at the jetty when Baze steps out from behind a jagged line of rocks that have always reminded me of shark teeth.
My heart slams to a halt. My feet do the same.
He’s dressed in black leather pants and a loose cotton shirt only half tucked in. Three buttons hang open at the neck, as if he got dressed so fast he had no time to put everything in place.
He pushes back the disheveled flop of his hair with a dash of his hand, revealing eyes that appear almost black, reflecting the dark smudges stamped beneath them.
My brow pleats, gaze falling to the wooden sword hanging from his fist ...
I mutter a curse.
“Take this to the boat.” I shove my basket toward my closest escort while holding Baze’s stare. “I’ll be right there.”
“He’s armed,” Vanth hisses, refusing to accept my belongings.
I glance sideways to see him white-knuckling his wooden spear, blue eyes narrowed on Baze.
“You’ll be fine.” I push my basket at his chest again. “Just take this.”
He snatches my things and thrusts them at Kavan. “No, I’m worried about you.”
Oh.
“Well ... that’s sweet.” I sweep my hand around and weave it under my shirt, retrieving the Ebonwood sword I’d stashed there.
Baze’s eyes narrow, and he begins to stalk forward.
My grip tightens.
“But with all due respect,” I say, low and steady, “you’ll both just get in the wa—”
Vanth charges, spear at the ready, kicking up sand with his booted feet. I snarl and dart forward, dropping low and sweeping my leg out, knocking Vanth’s feet out from under him.
He drops like a boulder, flat on his back, mouth working like a fish out of water. His wide eyes draw wounded gulps of me looming over him, as though he can’t quite work out how he ended up down there, in the sand, with my sword kissing his carotid.
“What the fu—”
“You don’t touch him,” I hiss through clenched teeth, digging the sword a little deeper. “And if you insist on getting between us, that spear has to work its way through me first. And then you’ll have to explain to your High Master why you impaled his promised. Do I make myself clear?”
He squirms a little. “Crystal.”
The word itches so much my upper lip peels back.
I release him from the nip of my blade, leaving a bead of blood dribbling down his neck. He leaps to his feet, wipes at the wound, and studies the red smear on his palm with an insulting amount of shock in his eyes.
“Go,” I tell a round-eyed Kavan who’s regarding me as if this is the first time he’s laid eyes on me. “Prompt the captain to prepare the ship. I won’t be long.”
He looks me up and down. “Cainon’s getting much more than he bargained for.”
It’s far from a compliment.
He stalks off toward the jetty with a narrow-eyed Vanth in tow, tossing cursory looks over his shoulder every few steps.
“I hope you’re ready to watch that ship sail away without you,” Baze volleys, snagging my full attention.
So this is how it’s going to go, then.
“I’m leaving of my own free will,” I counter, moving the majority of weight onto my strong leg and widening my stance, sharpening my focus. Assessing his every breath, every blink for signs of what to expect next.
If Baze is going to try and stop me from leaving this stretch of sand, I’ll have no choice but to fight.
“Only because you haven’t been fully informed,” he snaps back, mimicking my motions, readying himself for a battle I doubt either of us wants. His shoulders flex as he passes his sword from one hand to the other, the gems on his ring glinting in the low light, catching my gaze.
Catching my interest ...
I slide my foot back half an inch, anchoring to the sand. “I’m afraid it’s you who is uninformed, Baze.”
His lips curl up in a half sneer. “I doubt that.”
We leap forward at the same time, black swords crossing with a sharp, wooden clang that seems to echo down the beach and almost makes me gag.
Fucking Ebonwood.
We hold—stares as locked as our swords. Our muscles. Our warring resolve. Though where I’m sure and steady, I swear his hold is a little less stable than it usually is.
Than it always is.
“Don’t do this,” he grates out, his hot breath fogging the air.
I can see the torment in the depths of his eyes. Can see that he hates this just as much as I do—what this turn of events has done to everything we’ve built.
“It’s already done,” I snip, referring to the cupla cinched around my wrist.
My life began to unravel the moment I accepted it, but I can’t bring myself to regret it. Not when so much is hinging on this union.
There’s suddenly a well of sentiment in his stare. “You don’t know what it’s like out there, Orlaith. You have no idea what you’re up against.”
“And whose fault is that? Who kept me in the dark for nineteen fucking years?”
I shove away, then stab forward.
His blade sweeps in and knocks my strike to the side with another jarring clang, taking a large bite from my composure. I snarl, letting that discomforting sound fuel me as I whirl, coming down at him from
another angle.
He dodges.
This may be a wooden sword but when it whips through the flutter of his shirt, it’s just as merciless as steel—leaving a gaping hole that exposes smooth slabs of muscle contained in a flawless wrap of porcelain skin.
For a moment, I think he let me get so close to gutting him. But when my gaze flicks to his face, I see twin seeds of shock in his tawny eyes ...
Seems this new sword isn’t so bad after all.
Tossing it from one hand to the other, I root my feet in the sand, keeping as much weight off my right foot as possible.
His attention darts to my wrist, and a darkness falls over his face. “Did they hurt you?”
I roll my eyes. “You mustn’t have very much confidence in your training abiliti—”
His sword whips out, the flat side landing a blow to my right thigh, sending a lick of pain shooting down my injured leg.
I yowl as it buckles beneath my weight, and he whirls around, taking my armed hand with him, pinning it behind my back between the press of our bodies.
“I thought I taught you to always shield your weakness,” he seethes, immobilizing my other arm and shredding the bandage with a smooth flick of his blade.
The dark blue tourniquet flutters to the sand.
A laugh bubbles out as he studies the deep, crescent wound punched through my wrist. “What did you do, leave him a doggy dish full of blood?”
The fact that he worked that out so fast is a little concerning.
“Yes ... actually, I did.” I stomp his bare foot with my solid boot—something he’s not used to me wearing.
He howls, pulling away just enough for me to slip my arm free. I twist out of his hold and dip low, the hilt of my sword clouting the back of his knees.
He drops like a rock, a dense oomph pushing from parted lips as my knee collides with his chest. All my weight is pressed into the one point of contact, the sharp tip of my sword poised atop his heart.
There’s a war in my chest, and I take a moment to check our surroundings—to ensure we’re hidden behind the shark-teeth stones and that my two guards are well and truly out of sight.
It’s just us on the beach; nobody bearing witness to my victory aside from Baze’s wounded pride.
I zero in on his hand that’s holding my knee, as if he’s considering an attempt to shove me off. Gripping his ring, I watch his eyes widen while all the blood drains from his cheeks. “Always shield your weakness, huh?”
“Orlai—”
I pull.
The shift is instantaneous, the utter vision of him so shocking I whip away from the safety of the rocks, leaving him in the maw of their protection while I marinate in the open air.
I can barely bring myself to draw breath, because I don’t recognize that man.
Not one bit.
His hair is so white it appears to harbor its own light source, his ears pointed at the tips, the outer shell lined with the same crystalline thorns that decorate my own. And his eyes ... they’re big and round.
They remind me of his.
But it’s like they’ve been dipped in dirty water, dulling their shine. And those black smudges beneath his eyes are now darkened dents in his face.
My gaze roves down, breath catching.
Heart stilling.
Every visible inch of Baze’s pearly skin—aside from his unfamiliar, statuesque face—is scarred. Riddled with bite marks big and small. Some are perfectly mirrored crescents, as though teeth were simply stamped upon his flesh. The rest are so messy, I can’t imagine how long they would’ve taken to heal.
But his neck ...
The skin there is puckered and bunched in places, gouged in others, as though it was wrapped in a barbed wire collar years ago. Like he fought against it, shredding himself beyond repair.
My insides gutter, stare shifting from the man I thought I knew to the castle casting us in its big, boastful shadow.
Did Rhordyn have anything to do with this ... this torture Baze has sustained over the years?
I blink, feeling a warm wetness dart down my cheeks. “And you had the nerve to call me a liar,” I rasp, and the voice is not my own.
It’s fragile.
It’s the voice of a girl who just realized how lonely she’s been for the past nineteen years.
I regard the dazzling pits of his eyes. “How very hypocritical, when you know exactly how it feels to be living in a skin that doesn’t belong to you.”
He’s crestfallen, trying to cover his torso with the scraps of his shirt.
Part of me feels guilty for stripping his mask without his consent, but the feeling swiftly disintegrates the moment he opens his mouth.
“He won’t let you go, Orlaith.”
I retreat another step, eyes hardening. Trying, and failing, to picture this beautiful, broken man as the Baze I’ve come to know and love.
The Baze I thought was unbreakable.
“He’s already lost me,” I respond in a voice too soft and vulnerable. I lift my chin to counter the weakness. “At least this way I’m securing those ships for the people who really matter.”
“So naïve,” he spits, shaking his head, top lip peeling back—blue from the cold. “You get on that ship, and he will hunt you. You have no idea what he’s capable of.”
An oily blackness spilling out in vicious, torrential spears.
Burning.
Silencing.
“Yeah, well, I think that sentiment works both ways,” I rasp past a smear of bile, pushing the probing image deep into that chasm of death and destruction and heart-impaling regret.
I look at the ring sitting in my palm; the perfect mask to hide his pain. Just like my necklace, it feels too light to be heavy with so many secrets.
Right now, it’s my only guarantee he won’t chase me to the boat.
I swallow, waving the piece of jewelry at him. “I’ll leave this on the jetty, and if you want to keep your ... your secret,” I push out past the lump in my throat, “I suggest waiting until we’re gone to collect it.”
His lip twitches, and he stabs his gaze at the sand beside him, as if he can’t bear to look at me.
Taking that as my cue, I spin, stalking toward the quay. “And someone needs to water my plants,” I throw over my shoulder, rolling my sleeve and concealing my torn-up wrist.
Feeling like a boulder has landed atop my chest, I climb the stone stairs that rise from the sand and merge with the elevated wharf, keeping my shoulders back, walking with the ruse of a certainty I don’t possess.
I scale aged, weather-beaten planks slippery from the rain, chin notched high, ignoring the odd flick of silver frills through the waves to my side.
I hope Kai doesn’t try to accost me ... If he does, I’ll fall apart. Scatter on this dock and refuse to pull myself together again.
He’d probably still wrap me in his ocean arms and tell me everything’s going to be okay. But it’s not. And it shouldn’t be.
Not for me.
I count each of the five hundred and twenty-two steps it takes to reach the boat with the big blue sail, its deck busy with the bustling energies of numerous seafaring men.
Baze’s ring scalds my palm, and I dare a peek back down the jetty that’s hazy from a spray of sea mist.
He’s nowhere to be seen, and I wonder which he’s more ashamed of: his scars or his heritage.
Me? I’m not hiding from anyone but myself. My fake shell might be tight and uncomfortable, but what’s below the surface is much worse ...
A beautiful, malignant disaster.
Kneeling, gaze still pinned to the dim scoop of the bay and those shark-tooth stones that decorate its gloomy smile, I set the ring down. When I rise, I somehow feel heavier.
My attention swings to the long, sleek boat that’s built specifically for cutting through the harsh terrain of an unforgiving ocean ... not that it alleviates my chest-cinching anxiety.
Toes barely kissing the ramp, my feet anchor to the pier. The s
trong, sturdy, familiar pier I’ve looked down on every day for the past nineteen years, never imagining I’d be in this position.
It feels more like a plank because once I step onto that vessel, that’s it. I’m across my Safety Line.
Those final steps seem insurmountable.
My pulse whooshes in my ears, louder than the crashing waves.
Strong, resilient, composed ...
I glance up into a mix of unfamiliar faces. The captain is staring down his nose at me from the deck—gray hair tied back, blue blazer pinched with golden buttons that hug a strong physique.
He scans my face as if he’s seeing all the cracks there. “The tide’s dropping. If we don’t leave now, we’ll smash our keel on our way out the bay.”
“Shit,” I mutter without moving my lips.
Always shield your weakness.
I draw on the sea air, then step onto the ramp—every muscle in my body braced to pounce. The sword hanging from my hand becomes the victim of my crushing fist, each footfall taking me deeper into unsafe territory.
But that drop to the deck comes too swiftly, and I swallow again, trying to force my sledging heart down my throat as I look at my feet ...
I feel like I’m standing on the edge of that chasm in my mind, peering into the gloom, afraid of what might be down there. Knowing it’s likely something hideous that will rock me to the core.
But I can’t afford to hide anymore.
You can do it! Just push your arms out like you’re flying and slide your foot forward ...
His voice sings to my tortured soul, shooting steel into my spine. I nod to myself—to him—stare stabbing out across the bay.
I picture his hands outstretched and waiting. Picture his big, half-moon smile. Pretend I’m moving toward that bolt of happiness that struck me as I fell into his arms and was tickled into a ball.
Breath held captive, I step onto the sturdy, hard-wood deck ...
I expect to feel some immediate shift in the air. Expect my entire body to fold over in unimaginable pain, or for a Vruk to spring forth and slash at me with talons that squeal with every swipe. I expect many things, and though none of them happen, I feel no relief.
I just took the most important step of my life, and those tickles never came.
To Bleed a Crystal Bloom Page 37
