The Cursed Sea

by Lauren DeStefano

  Her thoughts turned to what would come next. Brooding was useless. Being practical would magnetize the needle on their compass. Whatever existed between herself and Loom, their kingdoms still needed help. Espel had cast herself free of her father’s hold, and now neither of the royal siblings had any claim to the Southern Isles.

  Wil had little to offer on behalf of the Northern Isles, being a spare. Even if Baren got himself killed with his destructive ventures with marvelry, Gerdie would be next in line until the new heir was born. Gerdie would not be partial to putting her at risk to end this war.

  But maybe he wouldn’t have to.

  King Zinil didn’t want his children, but once he’d gotten past his outrage, perhaps he would still want something from Wil. He had, after all, sent Espel halfway across the world to retrieve her. Wil knew kings. Kings did not let emotions dictate prosperity—even if said king would have to bargain with his estranged children. King Zinil wouldn’t turn Espel or even Loom away if they presented him with something he wanted.

  Nineteen

  “DRINK ALL OF IT,” ZAY said, when Loom’s expression turned sour. She had brewed lyster leaves into a tea, even throwing in some mintlemint leaves to offset their bitterness. The taste wasn’t unpleasant, but Loom’s stomach had grown intolerant of everything as his fever spiked.

  He forced down the tea to appease Zay, who was drawing back the blankets on his bed.

  “I don’t care how much your sister loves her guard, I still think her heart is shriveled up like a moldy peach pit,” she said.

  “Do peach pits shrivel?” Loom mused, lying on his stomach. He closed his eyes. “Espel is . . . obtuse, I’ll admit. But she’s still in there somewhere. I can still get through to her. I have to believe that.”

  “You could have died,” Zay said, spitting fire into that last word. “The ship pulled right up in front of the palace. It’s a wonder you’re even conscious.” She was laying strips of damp cloth against his back. His skin was pink with fever. This was a routine she’d performed dutifully in the first months of his curse, when he still insisted on returning to Cannolay with food and coins he’d managed to accrue in his travels. He was so determined to help his kingdom even if all he could offer was a crate of pears or a bottle of eyedrops he’d bartered in Brayshire.

  “I never left the sea,” he said. “I’ll be fine.”

  She wrung a cloth out over his hair, dampening it. “Tell me you aren’t stupid enough to trust your sister, Loom.”

  He smiled. It was a warm, sleepy smile that reminded her of when he was a child. “Now, now, there’s no need to be jealous, ansuh. You know you’re the only one I trust.”

  “At last, you speak sense,” she said.

  He chuckled, burying his cheek in the crook of his arm.

  Zay straightened her spine. There was still the cloth in her hand, dripping onto the satin sheets from between her fingers. “Am I really the only one you trust?”

  “Well, I suppose Ada has never betrayed my trust either,” Loom said. “But he doesn’t say very much, does he?”

  “And Wil,” Zay said. “You’ve hinged a lot of hopes on her.”

  Loom was silent for several seconds, and then, very softly, he said, “That was a mistake. You were right about her.”

  “No I wasn’t,” Zay said. “The two of you are exactly alike. Banished from your kingdoms and trying to save them nonetheless. You’re both stubborn, and if you ask me, you both care far too much about the things you choose to pursue.” Her voice softened. “And you’ve both lost a lot. I always knew that much about her, right from the start.”

  Loom opened one eye to peer up at her. “Who are you and what have you done with Zaylin?”

  She flicked at a wave of his hair. “I’m serious.”

  “So you like her now?”

  “‘Like’ has nothing to do with it,” Zay said.

  “Uh-huh.”

  He turned away from her. He was still and quiet for so long that Zay thought he must have fallen asleep. Just as she stood, he said, “All I know about that girl is that she’s a liar.”

  “Speaking as the only one you trust,” Zay said, gathering up the mug and the bowl of lyster water, “you are acting like a fool.”

  That evening, Wil found Loom in the galley. The pair of them were the only two passengers on this ship not to be currently occupied with someone else. Therefore, they were the only two who had the time to entertain the idea of food.

  It had been hours since Wil ate her last meal, which had been slid on a tray into her cabin before the door was shut and locked.

  Loom was staring intently into a bowl of mashed grains and apple slices. His appetite was feather light at sea, Wil remembered. He ate distractedly, small, infrequent portions, too restless to be still longer than it took to chew.

  Sweat beaded his brow. There was a damp towel draped across the back of his neck, fragrant with herb water. But his breaths weren’t as labored now. He had slept for several hours, Wil knew. From her cabin she had listened for him. She had heard Zay arguing with him when he’d tried to refuse whatever tonic she’d brought him. And then, later, Zay shushing Ada when he fussed after Loom had fallen asleep.

  But even the exhaustion of Loom’s curse had not been able to keep him down for very long. His restless mind had inevitably awoken him.

  And now both of their restless hearts—Wil’s and his—came back together like waves.

  She sat across from him and waited for him to stop pretending he hadn’t seen her come in.

  At last, without looking up, he said, “You have an idea.”

  She leaned back. “How can you tell?”

  “You’re fidgeting,” he said. “You fidget when you have something to say.”

  “I do not.”

  “Yes,” he said practically. “You’re a statue when you’re listening—especially if you’re scheming about something. You pout when you’re thinking, but once you have something to say . . .” He trailed, and looked once again at his bowl. He was trying not to smile. This gave Wil more hope than it should have; despite his efforts, he wasn’t nearly as angry with her as he’d like to be.

  “I think we should go to the Northern Isles,” Wil said.

  “In a Southern ship, that would be certain death,” Loom said. “Our kingdoms are at war, remember? He said that word, war, with its own fire, as though it were her fault.

  “We go somewhere neutral first,” Wil countered. “Sell this ship or abandon it. Get a new one and head to Northern Arrod.”

  His muscles tensed at that. His guardedness when he looked at her was jarring. He had never been this way with her. He had been cocky and a bit pretentious when they were strangers, though he hadn’t been unkind. Somehow, in their short weeks together, they had moved past even that, into the familiar sort of ease that Wil supposed could be called friendship. She’d never had any friends other than her brothers, so she couldn’t be certain. But now all that was gone. He had reduced her to something less than even a stranger. Strangers at least got some share of his warmth, and Wil could see now that he was trying to be cold.

  “Why would I want to go there?”

  Wil pretended that this exchange wasn’t breaking her heart. “Because I have an idea to get you on the throne.”

  Loom looked past her, and Wil spun around to follow his gaze. Zay was standing in the doorway, apprehensive. “Bad time?” she said. “I don’t mean to get in the way of your battle of angst, but I’m starving.”

  “Not a bad time at all,” Loom said. “Wil was about to share her plan for us to sail into enemy territory and get ourselves killed.”

  “It isn’t enemy territory,” Wil snapped. “Not to me.”

  Although she couldn’t be sure how true that was with Baren on the throne. He would kill her sooner than he’d kill Loom or Espel, even if they were the children of his enemy.

  Loom’s stare had gone flat. Zay inched onto the bench beside him and helped herself to his lunch. “Why woul
d we go to Northern Arrod?” she asked with her mouth full of grains.

  Wil pressed on. He could be angry with her if he pleased, but they had larger matters to contend with. “Don’t you think it’s strange that your father let me go?” she said. “He sent Espel all that way to capture me, and I was right there. He didn’t even try to take me down.”

  “He was distracted by Espel’s stunt,” Loom muttered. “He had expected her to kill me.”

  “I’m sure that’s true,” Wil said. “But he still could have tried to take me regardless. Instead, he called his men down.”

  Zay blinked at that. “He did?”

  “Yes.” Wil gripped the edge of the table as the ship listed.

  Zay exchanged a look with Loom, and something went unspoken between them. Some deep worry they shared. For once, Wil understood their secret language, because she had already thought the same thing. “You lived,” Wil told Loom. “And now your father wants to punish you for it. He let me get away because he’s planning something worse.”

  This got Loom’s attention and he finally met her eyes.

  “Before, he wanted me for my curse. I’m sure he still does. But I’d wager he’s planning to kill me for it. Not just that, to torture me to death while you’re made to watch.”

  Loom was working hard to maintain his neutral expression. But his fingers—just his fingers—betrayed him, tightening into a fist that made his knuckles white.

  “He’ll use Pahn to do it,” Wil said. “I’m not sure how. That’s the thing about marvelers, isn’t it? One never knows what to expect.”

  “What do you suggest we do?” Zay asked, for once in earnest.

  “We get ahead of whatever he’s planning. King Zinil wants me for two reasons,” Wil said, pushing aside the messy ordeal of emotions and sticking to the facts. “Because of my curse, and because I’m the daughter of his enemy. He’s just exiled both Loom and Espel, and ordered for them to be killed on sight if they return.” She looked from Zay to Loom. “But if you bring him something he wants, as a show of penance, he’ll welcome you back. If not you, Loom, then certainly Espel.”

  Loom had gone rigid. “What do you propose we give him?” He seemed to already know the answer.

  “Me,” Wil said. “Before he can send Pahn after me. Before whatever he’s planning, we give him what he wants.”

  “No.” The way Loom said the word wasn’t loud or sharp, but it was absolute. He said it again. “No. We don’t know what he would do to you. He might carve out your heart and put it into his own chest to have your power.”

  Wil shrugged. “Let him.”

  Zay lowered an eyebrow. “Did you hit your head?”

  “My brother is an alchemist,” Wil said. “The best in the world, from what I’ve seen. He knows how to alchemize a corpse in anyone’s likeness. I’ve seen him do it using nothing but cloth, ink, and bones he pilfered from the kitchen after dinner.”

  The tension hadn’t left Loom’s shoulders. “My father won’t want a corpse.”

  “So we’ll make it breathe,” Wil said, waving this detail off as inconsequential. “It’ll look like I’m comatose. Say you knocked me out with sleep serum.”

  “He’s going to figure it out eventually,” Zay said.

  “Yes, so we’ll have to move quickly,” Wil said. “Loom, this is your chance at earning his favor again. He’ll allow you back into the palace. From there, you can finally have your chance to kill him.”

  “What about Espel?” he asked. “Even if my father were to lift the curse, he’s not going to make me his heir. He would never choose me over her even now. You saw it. I betrayed him and he wanted me dead. She betrayed him and he wanted her to suffer. Do you think he stabbed Masalee just to punish her? It was more than that. He wanted Masalee to die so that Espel would have no one left, and she would come back to him. He still wants her to return.”

  “Then we pretend Masalee is dead,” Wil went on. No emotion, she reminded herself. Just facts and logic. She could not contend once again with the horrible methods of kings. “Espel returns with her tail between her legs. She brings you with her.”

  Zay squinted. “How convincing could an alchemized corpse really be?”

  “I screamed the first time I saw one,” Wil said. It wasn’t her proudest moment, but confessing such a thing was easier now than it would have been weeks ago, when she had labored to present herself as invincible.

  What she didn’t add was that her last venture to Northern Arrod had not just been perilous because of Baren. The curse set upon the kingdom suppressed her own. She couldn’t stay for long before it weakened her. Two days, maybe three. It wouldn’t take that long. Gerdie was quick, and he knew what he was doing. This would work; it had to.

  She was less concerned with Baren. She had spent her childhood evading him and she could do it once more.

  She feigned nonchalance about the way Loom was watching her, his head absently canted, lips parted at the center, like he was going to ask a question but kept thinking better of it. Was she so foreign to him now? She wondered. Did knowing her lineage change that much?

  He stood, and when he breezed past her and made his exit without another word, Zay surprised Wil with a sympathetic smile.

  “I think your plan is a big gamble,” Zay said. “But I also think it’s the best one we’ve got. We can’t float around in the middle of the ocean forever. Let me talk to him.”

  Again Wil felt that bitter jealousy to which she wasn’t entitled. This time, it wasn’t jealousy that Loom trusted Zay, but rather that Zay was worthy of his trust.

  Twenty

  THE SUN WAS MELTING INTO the Ancient Sea, setting the waves on fire with a flourish of oranges and pinks. It, too, was cursed, Wil thought, filled with all those dead spirits. It brought her comfort—her and the sea, both cursed, both still pushing forward and ever restless.

  Wil knocked gently on the door to Espel’s cabin. “I’ve brought some dinner,” she said. No one had told her to do this, but the door had remained closed all day, and despite all Espel had done, Wil found herself worrying for her.

  When the door opened, Wil drew a deep breath through her nostrils. She was trying to detect that ominous smell of death, that foreboding that Masalee’s situation was grave.

  But rather, the cabin smelled of blood and a citrusy salve that was medicinal but not unpleasant. Masalee was splayed on the bed, the bunched sheets proof of her fitfulness. Her mouth was open, her skin glistening and wan. She had been changed into bright purple linens, with a gold peacock embroidered up the left sleeve. Her bloody, shredded robe was neatly folded and tucked against the wall, betraying Espel to be one who organized and sorted things when she was anxious.

  Espel had become statuesque. Steely. More vibrant in defiance of her father’s attempt to break her. She stepped aside to allow Wil into her cabin.

  “Did Loom send you?” Espel asked.

  There was nowhere to set the tray. The bedside table was covered in vials, all neatly arranged around a bowl of lyster leaves floating in water. Wil knelt to place the tray on the floor, and Espel knelt before it, nodding in invitation.

  “No,” Wil said, taking a seat. Might as well get comfortable. “Loom is currently not speaking to me.” Thanks to you, she thought, but didn’t add. She couldn’t put all the blame on Espel for exposing her identity; it would have had to happen eventually. Maybe it was for the best that it had happened now. Maybe a week on a ship with a boy who now hated her would cure her of this irrational love.

  In the lantern light, Espel looked almost sympathetic, but even at her most vulnerable she was too stoic to betray such a thing. Just for a moment Wil caught a glimpse of the girl Espel truly was, under what her father had turned her into.

  In the murky swamp of her delirium, Masalee let out a pained cry. Espel was up and by her side in an instant; she traced Masalee’s mouth with a fingertip drenched in sleep serum.

  Wil envied Espel, and she even envied Masalee, who lay torn open
and burning with fever. She envied them for being so certain of their love. For having tumultuous lives but such uncomplicated hearts.

  “I don’t need to know what someone’s secrets are to know that they have them,” Espel said, sitting on the floor again. “I look at you and I see a girl who’s made of secrets. But you don’t betray a single one.”

  “I thought so,” Wil said.

  Espel regarded her food with the sort of weary stoicism of one who needed to persist with human tasks in the face of tragedy. Wil couldn’t tell whether she mourned more for her father or for Masalee. The only thing about which Wil could be certain was that this princess was not to be trusted. She wouldn’t tell Espel of her plan yet. It hadn’t been decided anyway.

  What startled her, though, was the empathy she felt. She knew what it was to be banished from her kingdom. So did Loom, but Wil supposed it was different for spares. And especially for only daughters. To have everything taken away was like being erased. Like floating in the darkness between stars, not existing at all.

  Wil didn’t seek Loom out before she retreated to her cabin for the night. Zay announced that she was setting them all on a course for the Western Isles, pending plans notwithstanding, because it was neutral territory and they would need more than solar panels for fuel if they drifted aimlessly forever.

  Even if Loom was too stubborn and hurt and angry to speak to Wil, she knew him. She knew that if she waited another day, his resolve would weaken and he would be more open to her plan. It was more practical than anything he had proposed, but more than that, he was too congenial to let this go on. Too diplomatic. Too kind.

  She wrested in the sheets. Zay was all about conserving a ship’s energy when she was at the helm, which meant no temperature modifications, and the night was stiflingly hot.