Between the Sea and Stars

by Chantal Gadoury

  “Matters not what happened in the past,” Edwin declared.

  But it did matter. If only she’d considered her actions more carefully . . .

  Javelin wouldn’t be dead. Carrick wouldn’t be alone.

  She wouldn’t be trapped in this human form, banished from the sea.

  “This inn is always filled with people,” Edwin was saying. “It’s strange, how rooms full of laughter can feel silent. How a hearth full of fire can feel cold. How conversations drifting through the walls can make a man feel . . . alone. You’ve brought warmth to my bones, Lena. You’ve filled this dark, empty room with your light. Fate brought you here for a reason. I believe that.”

  Lena hugged her arms across her chest and dropped her watery gaze to her knees. Edwin might think fate had brought her to the inn.

  But would he still desire her company if he ever found out how?

  17

  The smell of Mrs. Wyatt’s usual stew drifted through the halls of the inn and stuck in Lena’s gut. She left Edwin to his reading and wandered outside, dropping her gaze as she passed by sailors exchanging hearty pleasantries on the lawn.

  The fresh air gathered up her long hair and tugged her toward the grassy, yellow-speckled meadow, luring her feet toward the sea. She let herself be tempted away, her stomach aching for the sea fare she was used to. Mrs. Wyatt’s cooking was savory and warm, but it was strange. Heavy and overcooked and dripping with grease.

  Tonight, Lena wanted something that tasted like home.

  Thorns and tangled branches snared her skirt as she ducked beneath the thin canopy of trees, retracing the unbeaten path Jace had carried her along. She needn’t have remembered it—the sound of the tide was guidance enough. It seemed to whisper her name as she high-stepped over roots and fallen logs, calling her forward—Lena, Lena, Lena.

  A sharp surge of bittersweet familiarity strangled her lungs as she broke through the tree line and emerged on the beach. The sea beyond seemed unending, the horizon perched upon its infinite edge like a molten crown. The gently rippling surface was stained with the last, sinking remnants of the sun.

  Lena crossed to the frothy edge, eyes darting to the tufts of sea foam which littered the shore. She lifted her gaze to the ocean ahead, longing to dash through the shallows, to swim deep, deep, deep, to the lowest planes of the Skagerrak sea.

  She might as well have been standing in front of a padlocked door.

  She sighed, and lowered herself to the beach to remove her boots. Then she pressed her bare toes into the gritty granules of sand. The tide rushed forth to lap her ankles. Now and again, a rambunctious wave rose up to splash her knees.

  The wind increased as the pale evening darkened to night. It lifted Lena’s wild curls and swept sparkling crystals of sand and salt over her skin. She rocked onto her knees and began to search for an unfractured shell, one that she could use to make a spear.

  It took several minutes—and a few frustrated exhales—before she found a large white conch with a razor-sharp tip. She washed it clean, then began to rustle in the overgrowth of sea grass which sprouted all along the beach.

  “What are you doing?”

  Lena whirled around, clutching a snapped-off branch in her hand. Jace was standing, cross-armed, in the shadows of the trees, eyes narrowed with confusion.

  “Hunting,” she muttered. She yanked a wide blade of sea grass from the earth and began fastening the white conch to her branch, creating a spear.

  “Hunting for . . .?”

  “Crabs.”

  “Why?” Jace took a step closer to her. “Mor is making—”

  “I wasn’t in the mood for stew.”

  Jace stiffened.

  “It’s delicious. I just . . .”

  “It’s not delicious,” Jace interjected, and mustered a smile—though it seemed like he would rather frown. “May I ask what that thing is in your hand?”

  Air expanded inside Lena’s chest.

  “It’s how I hunt for crabs,” she replied, her words clipped.

  “A pocketknife would do you better. Just stick the crab and gut it.” Jace made a quick stabbing motion in the air to demonstrate.

  “I’ve hunted my entire life,” Lena said. Jace cocked a disbelieving brow. “I have.”

  “Sure.” Jace raised his hands into the air—a mocking show of surrender.

  Lena shoved her sleeves up to the elbow and returned to her knees, eyes scanning the beach. She might have struggled to walk, to dress herself. Might have nearly been captured by that horrible fish vendor in the market. But she didn’t need Jace, or anyone, for that matter, to show her how to hunt.

  Her eyes landed on a path of pinhole freckles in the sand. She shoveled down, mouth curving with satisfaction as a red-shelled creature appeared.

  She skewered it swiftly with the tip of her conch and lifted it into the air.

  Jace trotted forward, mouth slightly agape, and plucked the crab’s squirming body from her spear. In one quick motion, he withdrew a knife from his pocket and pierced its white belly, rendering it still.

  Lena jerked backward at the sight of the blade, bathed by the shadows of the violet-black sky. Before she could blink, Jace had tucked the knife back into his pocket. She pinched her mouth shut, trapping a shaky breath behind her lips, trying to conceal her alarm.

  “Look,” Jace mumbled, passing the crab between his hands. “I came looking for you because . . .” He shook his head. “I thought I should apologize. I know you had nothing to do with Soren Emil’s . . . assumptions. It’s just—the nerve of him, you know? If Pops wants a book, he should pay for it. We should pay for it. Just like everybody else.”

  “I think he did it out of kindness. He said Edwin was a friend.”

  “He insulted our entire family today. You call that friendship?” Jace rolled his eyes. “I don’t want to argue, Lena. I snapped at you, and I shouldn’t have. I said I was sorry. Let that be the end of it, okay?”

  A chilly breeze smacked through Lena’s clothing, but her skin remained hot. She returned her gaze to the beach, tucking her untrustworthy tongue between her teeth. The glint of a bubble caught her eye, humping up from a shallow notch in the sand. A spindly leg thrust forth, and then, a crab appeared, hauling its pale shell behind it. Lena tipped her gaze to its soft abdomen, then struck it with ease.

  “I can’t remember the last time we had crab for dinner,” Jace remarked. “I could help you roast them. Wait here.”

  He sprinted back into the trees. His arms were full of branches when he returned. Jace dropped the kindling in a pile. Lena watched as he rubbed two sticks together, blowing gently, his breath turning a wisp of smoke into a flame. He lifted the largest crab from her collection and lanced a sturdy branch through its middle, then jabbed it into the fire.

  Lena’s nose wrinkled at the strange scent of roasted meat. She was used to eating her sea fare raw. She watched as the crab’s outer shell began to glow—brightly scarlet, lapped at by flames. Within moments, the tender underbelly had toughened and charred to black.

  “You’re ruining it,” she said. Jace’s grin faltered, but . . . it was true. Lena could smell the crab’s fresh flavor being snatched away by the breeze. She grabbed the branch out of Jace’s hand and reached for the burnt crab at the opposite end.

  “Lena, don’t!” Jace shouted, but she’d already wrapped her fingers around its red-hot shell.

  She gasped, and dropped the crab into the sand. Her fingers throbbed with the heat of a jellyfish sting.

  “Come on,” Jace groaned, and yanked her to the water’s edge by the elbow. He roped his fingers around her wrist and dunked her burning hand into the water. “Better?”

  Lena nodded. A smug grin pressed over his mouth. He glanced at his sodden knees, then sighed and folded himself onto the wet sand beside her.

  “Mor will have my head on a platter for sending her to the laundry so early in the week. Hey . . .” He peered at Lena. “I’ve saved all five of your fingers, haven’t
I? I’d say that earns me a bit of forgiveness. Will you stop staring daggers at me now?”

  She supposed she’d punished him enough. She mustered a smile and withdrew her hand from sea.

  “I’ll take that as a yes,” Jace grinned.

  Lena stretched her legs forward, lifting her skirt to the knee so the silky tide could caress her shins. “What happened this morning?” she asked. “With Lord Jarl?”

  Jace tipped his gaze to the sky as if he were counting the stars. “He asked me to be his apprentice,” he said after a long moment. “Well,” he amended, “Lord Jarl never asks for anything. He . . . demands. But his terms were . . . agreeable.”

  Lena widened her eyes.

  “He offered me a formal education,” Jace rushed to say. “He wants me to have more than what I have now.”

  “Which is what you want?”

  “I mean, yeah. Who wouldn’t want to get the hell out of this place?”

  “Would it make your mother happy?”

  A muscle rippled in Jace’s jaw. “It doesn’t really matter what she wants. I’m a man, and I get to choose my path. I don’t want to stay here, stuck. Drowning in debt. I want to see the world. I want to be a part of something greater than just this shoddy inn.” He puffed his chest.

  “Lord Jarl called me a smart lad. He said, with the right opportunities, I could have everything I’ve ever wanted. Everything I’ve ever dreamed of. I didn’t buy it at first, but . . . the longer we spoke . . .”

  “You want to be like him? He’s horrible. I barely know him and even I can tell.”

  “I know how he comes across, but he’s made a name for himself. You should see the manor he lives in! I don’t like the man, but I could learn from him. I could have the sort of life he has.”

  “That’s what you want? To live in a fancy house at the expense of other people?”

  Jace groaned, impatience reducing his eyes to slits.

  “I want to be free,” he said. “I don’t want to eat stew for supper every night. I don’t want a crab that I dug out of the dirt to be a treat.”

  “To be fair, you didn’t dig up these crabs. I did.”

  He rolled his eyes. “You know what I mean. Lord Jarl is offering me a future—the future I want. He’s insufferable, but he’s smart. And it’s not as if I’ll have to work for him forever.”

  “What sort of work does he want you to do?” Lena asked.

  Jace shrugged. “Accompany him to other villages. To other countries, even. He’s big into folklore. He founded the maritime museum in town. He’s been traveling the continent for years, trading for silly artifacts to put on display.”

  Lena stopped herself from clutching the pink conch at her throat. “What sort of artifacts?” she queried.

  “Sunken treasure. Magical shells. Vials of merrow blood.” Jace snorted. “People still believe in all that horse dung, Lena. The stupid stories parents tell their children in order to have them behave. It’s worst in seaside villages like this one. Sailors spread their superstition like the plague, and who profits from it? Men like Lord Jarl.”

  “But your father,” Lena argued, shaking her head. “He was shipwrecked. The Fosse-Søfolk—”

  “My father died trying to save his comrades from drowning, or being ripped apart by sharks. He didn’t die at the hands of some mythical fairy-creature. Did you see the Fosse-Søfolk when your ship went down?” he challenged.

  Lena bit her lip.

  “Didn’t think so.”

  “Just because you haven’t seen something, doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

  Jace glanced at her. His glare softened, and he forced a placating grin.

  “You’ve been spending too much time with Pops,” he decided. “He’s a friendly old fool, Lena. But he’s a fool just the same. He’ll fill your head with nonsense if you let him. Still, it’s better than spending your days at the Bror Boghandel.”

  He scrubbed his boot over the beach, kicking up sand with his heel. Then he scooped the bangs from his brow and glowered openly at the sea.

  “As bad as Pops is,” he muttered, “Soren Emil is worse.”

  “The beach is so quiet at night.” Jace folded his knees against his chest and stared disdainfully at the white-crested waters. “It feels empty. Isolating. Sometimes, I think it’s laughing at me. Barring me from the lands across the sea. I think my fader must have felt the same way. He wasn’t always a sailor, you know.”

  He glanced at Lena, blue eyes eerily pale against the dark.

  “The older I get, the more I understand why he spent so much time out of the harbor. How freeing it must have felt, to simply raise anchor and sail away from the inn. To leave everything behind. The cooking and cleaning and grounds-keeping. The rent. Mor’s nagging. And even . . . even me.”

  He sighed, and wiped his fingers on his trousers. They’d eaten their fill, Lena easily spearing more crabs, though her burnt fingers were numb. Now the fire beside them had died to warm embers. Overhead, the moon shone like one of Edwin’s coins, perfectly round, turning the sea grass to threads of gently swaying silver and draping its brilliant light across the sea.

  Lena leaned back, bracing her palms against the sand, and extended her bare feet in front of her. Her damp skirt was plastered to her shins. Her curls had been raked in every direction by the choppy breeze.

  “Your family is here,” she noted quietly.

  “Yeah, I know,” Jace said on an exhale. His hair blew in the ocean breeze as another gust swirled around them. “The inn was mor’s dream, not mine. I don’t belong here, rooted to the ground. I never have, and frankly, I never will. I’m . . . more, Lena. More than an innkeeper’s son. I know it.”

  “Did Lord Jarl tell you that?”

  Jace latched his fingers together, fidgeting. “Pops told me once, with one of his stupid card games . . . that I was destined for something greater. Something beyond this world.” He huffed a short laugh. “I know it’s a crock, reading the future. And maybe he only said it to console a boy who’d just lost his fader, but . . . I wanted to believe it, Lena. I wanted to believe that my role here was temporary. That greatness was coming. I’ve never believed much in anything, but I wanted to believe in that. I still do, I guess.”

  “And you think Lord Jarl’s offer is the greatness your grandfather spoke of?”

  “Don’t laugh at me.”

  “I’m not,” Lena insisted, her voice grave. “But greatness and goodness are two different things.”

  Jace plowed up a handful of sand with his fingertips, then crushed the grainy clump in his fist. “I don’t want to settle for what’s easy, Lena. I won’t. I’m better than that.”

  He brushed his palms together and returned his gaze to the sea.

  “My fader would have understood,” he murmured. “Haven’t you ever wanted to just . . . pick up and leave? To say to hell with everybody’s expectations? To belong somewhere new?”

  Lena clamped her bottom lip between her teeth.

  She had yearned to leave her world behind, even just for a day. Just for a few moments. It had been her greatest wish, her only wish, and Poseidon had punished her for it. Even now, the sacrifice she’d never intended to make was nearly too much to bear.

  She scooted closer to the fire, suddenly cold. She had to bear it, had to move forward. Otherwise, the choices she’d made, their consequences—would all be for nothing.

  “I feel like I could belong here now, if I truly wanted to,” she whispered.

  “You weren’t raised here, Lena. You don’t know . . .” Jace heaved a sigh, and pushed himself to his feet. “No one wants to belong to poverty,” he said, offering a hand to help her stand. “Least of all me.”

  Lena clutched the last of their roasted crabs against her chest as they followed the inn’s flickering candlelight through the trees and across the tall, razor-edged grasses of the meadow.

  A soft breeze swirled around their damp bodies, encouraging them to huddle together for warmth. Jace pressed
a finger over his lips as they tiptoed through the front door of the inn, into the foyer. The evening meal was done, the crumb-littered space cleared of tables, the boisterous sailors all abed. A low-throated hum emanated from the kitchen—a mournful tune that oscillated sadly through the air. Otherwise, the inn was silent.

  Jace scuffed his boot against the floor.

  “I should check on mor,” he said, and Lena nodded. “There’s probably dishes left to clean.” But he stayed where he was, shoulders hunched forward, eyes darting periodically to the floor.

  “Well, goodnight,” he finally said, his voice a murmur, his fair cheeks slashed by shadows.

  Lena pressed her lips together and strapped her arms across her chest. Jace suddenly felt too close, the space between them dangerously slim. She hadn’t thought so when he’d carried her through the inn, or dragged her along by the elbow, but now . . . now there was something expectant about the nearness of him. Something she hesitated to name.

  Something she didn’t want.

  “Goodnight,” she said quickly and hurried up the hall to Edwin’s room.

  “Is that you lass?”

  Lena startled, hand inches from the door. Perhaps Edwin had heard the creaking planks beneath her feet, or the shuffle of her damp boots ascending the hall.

  “Come in, come in.”

  She peeked inside. Edwin was seated at his desk, his neck curved over a vast assortment of cards.

  “Don’t just stand there gawking, girl,” he chuckled. “You might be just the inspiration I need. The cards said you’d be by, though sometimes they tease me. I lit a candle for you, just in case.” He nodded to the porcelain dish at the edge of his desk, where a cheerful flame flickered from a thick puddle of wax. “My world is always dark, lass. But I thought you’d appreciate the light.”

  Lena crossed the room and knelt beside him.

  “What else have the cards told you?” she asked him, and he sighed.

  “Very little, I’m afraid. They’re quiet this evening. Too quiet.”