The Cursed Sea

by Lauren DeStefano

  Saying nothing, Masalee stepped to the side, clearing a path for the guards to shackle Wil’s wrists and her ankles. The men pulled her to her feet and prodded her forward. Wil shuffled down the hall and onto the deck, chains clinking.

  Masalee was two paces behind, her silver guard’s robe sighing around her as though in indignation.

  They had not arrived at Cannolay’s main port, but at the castle itself, in an area that was blocked from view by a high channel carved directly out of the mountainside.

  From where she stood on deck, Wil could smell the water where the sun warmed it. It was so blue, candied and shimmering. She felt, for a breath, that Owen was standing beside her, whispering something she couldn’t quite make out.

  Espel was ahead of her, facing the palace as they docked.

  More shuffling. Wil felt Loom’s presence, as ever. She heard the rattling of his chains. Guards hauled him to stand beside Wil, and she turned her head to look at him.

  He stood rigid, jaw set defiantly. But Wil saw how dark his eyes were, how sunken and beady with exhaustion. She could smell the salt of his sweat, hear the rattle of his breaths. He did a good job concealing his weakness, but Wil saw it just the same. The closer they drew to the castle on the horizon, the more his curse strengthened. Already there was a rash of fever across his cheeks and nose.

  Wil was worried that his precarious state was something Espel had anticipated. Espel knew that her brother wouldn’t be able to survive entering the castle. He’d be dead long before he could be locked in any of its dungeons, surely. Was that part of her plan? Was Loom thinking about any of this? Did he know how worried she was for him just now?

  The tether between her cursed heart and Loom’s had not frayed at all in their time spent apart. Their hearts did not care which of them belonged to which kingdom. Their hearts did not care that Loom was furious with her, or that she deserved every drop of his ire. Their hearts did not care. They reached for each other just the same.

  She wanted him to look at her. Begged him with her thoughts. But he didn’t afford her so much as a glance.

  That was it, then. He had declared her dead to him forever. This enemy princess. This liar.

  Tell me something true. That was what he had said to her before he kissed her. What would have happened if she had told him the truth then? Would he have sent her away? Would she have gone? Perhaps then neither of them would be standing here before King Zinil, whose broad shadow spread out behind him like a corpse.

  King Zinil had boarded the ship and come to assess the prisoners his dutiful favorite child had brought him.

  Espel’s eyes went to Masalee just for a beat before they moved to Wil.

  Espel was one who existed to survive. Wil had seen Espel command her own army of guards using fear, and she had seen her feign compassion. She knew that this was a girl who had fought for her life and won, leaving bodies in her wake when she was just a child. And though Espel now stood regal in gold satin whose bright embellishments sharpened her beauty, Wil knew survival when she saw it.

  The king stood beside his daughter as though he alone was to credit for creating her. His pride was its own presence, filling up the entire kingdom, and everyone could feel it.

  Wil’s pulse was thready. King Zinil walked for her in broad, heavy strides that echoed into the open air. He grabbed her chin, jerking her face upward so hard that Wil thought he might break her neck.

  Loom tensed beside her. He had never been so silent. So impossible to read.

  “We’ll see if you’re worth the trouble,” King Zinil told her. Wil met his stare with coldness. She would let none of her terror show. Fighting this man now would mean certain death. The chains weren’t what stopped her. She could use them to her advantage; they were long enough that she could pin his arm behind his back and then use the chains to garrote him before he threw her off. But they were surrounded by guards. Guards who could shoot her, impale her with blades, or throw her into the sea to drown. Or worse. Espel could poison her with sleep serum, and when Wil awoke, she would be chained to a dungeon wall as Masalee manipulated her heart to the king’s advantage.

  The king let go of Wil, and she could feel the imprint of his grip still clinging to her bones. “Everyone leave us. Send for my high guard to fetch the prisoner,” King Zinil barked to the guards standing behind him.

  All the guards made their exit, even the ones who had been flanking Wil. Only Masalee was left standing beside Espel, who raised her chin.

  Wil recognized the high guard who boarded the ship next. He was wearing a silver robe, like Masalee’s, which denoted him as being the king’s highest guard: Zay’s father, the man who held his own daughter’s neck under a guillotine.

  This time, he was carrying a different prisoner, pulling him by the arm so that the man skidded to a halt before the king. Immediately the man dropped to his knees and fell forward into a bow. “Your Majesty, I—”

  “Can’t you keep your prisoner silent?” the king snapped at his guard. His gaze fixed on Wil. “This man was peddling stomach tonic in the port. It contained mercar. Do you know what that is?”

  Mercar was a fine red powder that her brother often used to create an adhesive for metals. When boiled in water, it created a rich purple ideal for dyeing fabrics. If this man was putting mercar in his tonics, it was likely in small doses to give them a rich color.

  But Wil said none of this. Mercar was not fit for consumption and had no place in medicine, and there was no reason a wanderer with no alchemy experience should know what it was. She shook her head.

  “In large enough quantities, it’s poison,” King Zinil said. “He sold this tonic to one of my guards and the man was dead that same night.”

  “It couldn’t have been my tonic,” the man cried, pressing his forehead to the floor. “Please, Your Majesty—”

  The king’s guard jammed the hilt of his sword into the man’s kidney. The man gritted his teeth and fell silent.

  “Step forward,” the king told Wil.

  She did as he commanded, her chains dragging on the floor between her bare feet. Her heart began to kick up a faster rhythm, independent of the rest of her body, as though it were a puppet being drawn on its strings. Masalee.

  The guard pulled the prisoner to his feet, and the man stared at Wil. He was nearly two heads taller than she was, and twice as old. At a glance she was nothing that should have been able to harm him—just a girl, whose hands and ankles were chained, no less. But Wil knew that look he gave her. It was the same one Baren had been giving her all her life. It was the look of one who could see past even her best impression of innocence. It was the look of one who could see the monster she truly was.

  She felt as though her skin had been removed and there was her heart in plain sight, black and putrid, pumping her cursed blood into motion.

  “Take his hand,” the king ordered her.

  She thought of Loom and Zay, who would surely pay the price for her small acts of defiance. There would be bigger battles to wage. This king would not have what he wanted from her, but if he had small victories, he would not see it coming when she struck. And she would strike. If she had to learn every thought in his head and every inch of his palace and every scrap of gossip from every servant in his charge, she would strike.

  But it would come at a cost, and this man was nothing to her. Wil had to remind herself of that. It was either this man’s life, or the lives of everyone she loved.

  She reached out and took the man’s hand in both of hers. He was trembling.

  Her heart’s strange, forced rhythm persisted. The sun brightened in her vision. Wil could smell whatever sweet fragrance Espel had used to bathe that morning, and the sweat from the heavy Southern heat in Espel’s hair and Loom’s labored breathing. She thought he whispered something then. Something she couldn’t hear over the rush of blood in her ears.

  The man cried out in pain as his hand began to harden. It was crystal, and it spread from his fingertips to his
palm. By the time it had begun to reach his wrist, Wil felt her pulse going sluggish again. Blood dripped from the spot where crystal met flesh, pooling between her fingers.

  “That will be enough,” the king said, and Wil allowed the man to jerk his hand out of her grasp. She saw all the tendons and muscles inside of his palm, the spider cracks of arteries.

  The king drew his dagger, and in a single motion, the crystal hand was severed and lying at Wil’s feet. Espel’s eyes went dark with the sound of the man’s scream. Her posture was rigid, and her mouth quirked.

  Wil did not let herself react. With her eyes fixed on the man writhing in pain, she thought of Owen. She thought of the king he would have been, and of his child, who still had a chance. All that was more important than this man, she told herself. This man who could save no one, not even himself.

  With a nod, King Zinil summoned two of his guards to haul the man away. He was still holding the severed hand.

  Beside her, Loom stood with his head hung low. Thick, perspired waves of black hair curtained his face. Wil wished that he would look at her. She wished that he would show her his eyes again. If he did, it would give her the strength to endure whatever awaited her in that glittering palace. It was foolish to hope that a mere glance would fix all that had gone wrong between them, but still, she wanted the chance to try.

  “Bring her to the dungeon,” King Zinil said. Wil went rigid when guards grabbed her at either arm. Her mind, in contrast to her heart, went frantic. Think, she commanded herself. She was too outnumbered to fight, surrounded as she was with weapons, and still shackled. But somehow she knew that if she entered that palace, she would never be free of it. She would never be without chains.

  Loom struck out with a cry, hooking the king’s ankles with a sweep of his leg, knocking him to the ground. Guards charged forward. Blades glimmered in the burning-white sun. Wil dodged an arm meant to snare her neck, jabbed her elbow into a guard who tried to coil an arm around her waist. Without the ability to move her legs freely, she misjudged a step and a guard slammed her to the deck, hard. She landed on her stomach, groaning, struggling to breathe.

  Several feet away, Loom had also been taken down. He was on his back, and it was Espel who stood over him, a foot pinning his chest and a blade in her hand.

  It was not one of Espel’s usual blades. It was black, glimmering with bits of metal. Zay’s jeweler’s knife—the one she used to carve gemstones as though they were butter; Loom had once said it could cut through anything.

  Now Espel held that blade to her brother’s throat.

  Everyone went silent, watching the siblings. Waiting for the kill.

  The king was picking himself up now. He took one staggering step closer to his children, and for the first time, Wil saw all three of them together. The boy she loved and the sister he couldn’t save and the father who had ruined them both.

  Espel did not take her eyes away from Loom. He stared back at her without fear, either because he knew she wouldn’t kill him or because he knew that she would—Wil couldn’t be certain.

  “Kill him,” the king said. “Kill him for crimes committed against this family and this entire kingdom. This is your time to avenge us all.”

  Espel’s chest rose and fell more quickly. Her grasp on the hilt flexed and tightened.

  Wil could not bring herself to scream. She could not summon the strength to watch Loom die. Not him. And yet, when Espel raised the blade and swung down hard, Wil didn’t look away.

  No blood spilled. There was no cry of pain. There was no tear of flesh.

  For a moment, Wil didn’t understand what she had just seen. Then the chain that had bound Loom’s wrists and ankles broke apart, and she understood.

  Espel whirled on her father next.

  Beside her, Loom rose to his feet. If he was stunned by her decision, he didn’t betray it. He assumed a guarded stance, prepared to fight anyone who charged at his sister.

  No one did, though. The guards had formed a bewildered half circle around the royal family, unsure whom to strike and whom to defend. Their king? Or the murderous princess who may have been seconds away from becoming their queen?

  The king laid a hand on the hilt of one of his many daggers, but he didn’t draw it. How could he kill this brilliant legacy he had created? This was the moment he had always feared—the child who had killed her own mother finally grown and strong and capable enough to kill him as well. He had turned her into a monster of his own design, thinking that would keep her at his side always. Wil saw the fear and the hurt in his eyes now as he realized that he had made a mistake. Espel had not wanted to be his monster. She had not wanted to be any sort of monster at all.

  If she killed him, it would end now. She would be queen. The guards would drop to their knees and swear their loyalty. The palace and the kingdom and the implications of this war would all be in her bloodied hands.

  She could have done it. She should have. But she wasn’t moving.

  Her arm shook just enough to jar the blade, revealing her vulnerability to everyone on the ship. She took a step back, shaking her head. She couldn’t do it. Even after everything, she couldn’t.

  Seizing the opportunity now to strike, the king drew his dagger. When he threw it, his aim was absolute. It sailed past his daughter and tore clean into Masalee’s chest.

  Seventeen

  MASALEE CRUMPLED.

  In a rush, Wil felt her adrenaline flood her body as she was freed of the marvelry’s grasp.

  She didn’t move. Didn’t dare.

  Espel cried out and fell to her knees at Masalee’s side, as surely as if her father had torn open her own chest instead.

  The king stood over her, clenching his fists, glowering. He stared at his daughter as though she were a flame consuming his entire palace, as though everything in his world was being destroyed. There was a strange sort of heartbreak in his powerful face.

  The king’s men charged for Wil. She swept low, dodging a hand that tried to snare her. She braced for a fight. But, to her surprise, King Zinil didn’t order them to take her down. He spun around to his guards, who all stiffened to attention. “Cast this ship out into the sea,” he shouted to them. “If you ever see it again, destroy it at all costs.”

  This was wrong, Wil thought. He had wanted Espel to bring her back to him, and now he was letting her go? Had he anticipated his daughter’s betrayal? Was he forming a new plan?

  There was no time for her to suggest this to Loom or Espel, not with Masalee bleeding to death before them.

  Espel didn’t regard her father as he stormed away from her, flanked by all his guards. She was holding Masalee’s face, saying words that Wil was too far away to hear.

  Wil was so entranced by Espel’s sudden vulnerability that she was startled when the jeweler’s knife severed her own chains. Loom spun the blade around to offer her the hilt. “Zay is locked somewhere belowdecks. Find her. She’ll be able to steer us out of here.”

  There was no anger in his voice, but no affection either. From those words, Wil could not tell where they stood, but for now it didn’t matter. It couldn’t matter. Blood was pooling at the heart of Masalee’s robe. “What about—”

  “I’ve got this,” Loom said. He put his hand on her shoulder and, oh, that familiar way he held her, gentle and protective. “Hurry,” he said. “My father will sink this ship if we stay.”

  The Southern king had only needed one blade to punish his daughter for her betrayal, and he’d done it. He had aimed for the one thing in this world she needed more than her own heart.

  Espel did not turn to see her father standing ashore and watching her as the ship departed, though she felt his eyes boring into her. She did not see the falter in his proud shoulders as he turned his back on her.

  But Masalee still had life in her, rapidly draining out though it was. Details forced their way in. Her chest was torn open. No. No, no. She peeled away the folds of the robe, trying to find the source of the red current. Masalee ha
d gone pale and waxy, but her eyes were focused. She was watching Espel intently.

  “Your Highness,” she gasped. “I—”

  “Don’t talk.” Espel tore away the silk to look at the damage. Her hands were steady when she consulted the vials hanging around her waist, searching for anything she could use. None of them had been damaged in the scuffle, and she was awed by the cruelty of that. All these small, replaceable things were unharmed, while Masalee lay broken.

  Loom was kneeling at Masalee’s other side now, pressing his fingertips over the wound. Her back arched and she gritted her teeth. He was going to kill her, Espel thought. He wanted to take Masalee away from her out of revenge for all she had taken from him. She had made a mistake in choosing to help him—what was she thinking, cutting the chains of a traitor?

  But he only said, “It’s deep, but it missed her heart. I don’t think there’s any internal bleeding. Her lungs sound clear.” He poured something that caused the raw flesh to sizzle and hiss, and used his hand to wipe away the froth and the blood, revealing the gaping wound.

  “Espel.” Masalee was still trying to speak. Her lids were heavy. “Listen—”

  “Stop it.” She took Masalee’s cheeks and leaned down to kiss her. Her lips were so cold. “Stop trying to say good-bye to me,” Espel demanded. “Just stay with me. Look at me.”

  Masalee did look at her, the same way she always had: like Espel had set the stars and the moon in the sky. She looked at her in a way Espel had never felt worthy of, and which filled her with so much love it changed the staccato of her heart. It did. Every time.

  Espel pressed their foreheads together, and Masalee canted her head to kiss her again. Their mouths barely touched, and then Masalee’s eyes fluttered back and she went limp.

  “Masalee?” Espel grabbed her chin. “Masalee!”

  For the first time in her life, Masalee did not answer her.

  Espel commanded herself not to succumb to the hysteria clawing at her mind. Of course she had imagined something like this happening. Masalee was her guard; it was her duty to die for her if it came to it. Espel had pictured Masalee dying many times. She had tried to prepare for it. But, kneeling there, seeing the life drain from Masalee’s cheeks and lips, hearing the creaky gasps of her breath, she refused. No. I will not let you leave me.