Brine and Bone

by Kate Stradling

  “I can make it there myself.”

  “I don’t think you should—”

  “Someone is hurt. Shouldn’t you find them?”

  He glanced up the hall. “I think I had better help you first.”

  A protest erupted from her lips. Heedless, he scooped her up from the floor and carried her the short distance to her own bed. “Forgive me, milady,” he said as he deposited her upon the mussed blankets. He left as quickly as he had come. His footsteps echoed down the hall at a run. Magdalena stared in wonder at the empty doorway.

  The longer she sat, the better she felt. A fuzziness lingered at the edges of her thoughts, but she rose and washed her face according to her usual routine. Her hands quivered as she dressed and pulled her hair into its customary braided bun. By the time she stepped cautiously out into the hallway, she felt almost normal again.

  She went straight to the infirmary, hopeful that someone had found the victim of her episode. But only Master Asturias was within.

  He observed her entrance with attentiveness, taking in her every move. She gathered that Captain Byrne had reported the incident. The healer said nothing, however, and when she asked whether he had seen any patients yet this morning, he only shook his head and returned to his work.

  Within the hour, a tumult arose in the palace. Servants bolted past the infirmary door, exchanging whispered words. Magdalena abandoned her studies to check the hall, her heart pounding in her chest.

  “What’s happened?” she asked a page in transit.

  The boy slowed his pace, walking backward as he conveyed the news. “The prince discovered a castaway on the ocean steps, naked as a newborn and silent as death. They’re bringing her up to Master Asturias now. They say she’s the prettiest little thing anyone’s ever laid eyes on.”

  Confusion laced through her. Dazed, she turned back to the infirmary and the healer who governed it. He already prepared his examination table to receive this pretty foundling.

  From further down the hall, voices chattered, their volume rising. She peeked out the doorway and glimpsed Finnian with Captain Byrne by his side and a string of curious onlookers in his wake. The prince carried a bundle in his arms, silver and blue wrapped together. As he neared, Magdalena discerned the profile of a face against his shoulder and a hand that clasped his collar tight. The blue was a blanket, and the silver that tumbled around it was mounds upon mounds of platinum-colored hair.

  Magdalena’s breath caught in her throat. The page had been right: this foundling was the prettiest girl she had ever seen: fifteen or sixteen years old, pale skin, a delicate frame, and a lovely face. The prince with his dark hair and strong arms looked positively heroic as he carried the wilting creature. They suited one another, like the moon suited the starry night sky.

  A treacherous sense of defeat stabbed through her, but she clamped her emotions shut. She was an apprentice here. She expected nothing more.

  Prince Finnian swept past her with a speaking glance. He deposited his bundle on the examination table, but when he tried to move away, the girl clung to him. She looked up with limpid blue eyes, her perfect lips never uttering a sound but every other part of her pleading for him to stay.

  “It’s all right,” he said, gently extracting her grip from his shirt. “You’re safe here. I won’t let any harm come to you.” After another fleeting glance toward Magdalena, he addressed Master Asturias. “I found her unconscious on the ocean steps. She hasn’t said a word. I don’t know where she came from or whether she’s injured.”

  “If you would be so kind as to dismiss our audience at the door, I will examine her,” said the healer.

  The crowd, nobles and servants together, dissipated on the prince’s command. Captain Byrne remained, but Magdalena set up a screen to block his view of the exam. Master Asturias checked the girl’s vitals and inspected her body for injuries while Finnian held her hand and self-consciously looked another direction.

  “She appears whole, your Highness. Open your mouth, young lady.”

  The girl edged closer to the prince. Her large eyes brimmed with fear.

  “I don’t think she understands you,” said Finnian.

  “Magdalena.” The healer beckoned his apprentice. “A quick look should be enough.”

  “I don’t think that’s—” Captain Byrne began from the other side of the screen.

  “Can you do it?” the prince asked her directly. Concern colored his words, but she could not distinguish whether it was for her or for the lovely girl that hung upon his arm. Had Captain Byrne reported her episode to him?

  “Of course,” Magdalena said, her voice barely above a whisper.

  The foundling’s sapphire gaze turned possessive as she approached. The slender limbs wrapped more firmly around the prince’s forearm, and the silver head leaned into the crook of his elbow, as though daring Magdalena to attempt separating them.

  She locked gazes with the girl and raised tentative fingers to her face. She brushed against her cheek. The light touch triggered a flash of images: watery darkness, punctuated with dim fairy lights; weeds and writhing serpents; a potion that glittered in its vessel like a collection of stars; a slim, sinister silhouette and the flash of a knife that sliced through flesh and muscle, leaving a trail of blood floating across her vision.

  Magdalena jerked away and clapped a hand over her mouth, doubling over. Her tongue seared and her eyes watered. Finnian started toward her, but the foundling tightened her hold upon him, arresting his movement. Master Asturias looked on in alarm, and Captain Byrne rounded the screen to lay a comforting hand on her back. She shied away from him.

  “No. I’m sorry, please.” She pulled her wits together, painfully aware of the eyes upon her. She met only the deep blue gaze of the foundling, who stared in motionless silence.

  Something about those images was off, otherworldly. The darkness; the strange, tiny lights; the pattern of inky blood floating upon the air…

  “What did you see?” Prince Finnian asked.

  The pain was subsiding. Magdalena forced her mouth to work, though her breathless voice wavered. “She has no tongue. Someone cut it out.”

  As one body they looked to the beautiful foundling. She stared forlornly up at the prince, as a child seeking compassion.

  He met her gaze as he asked Magdalena, “Was there nothing else? No other injuries?”

  The mutilation of the girl’s mouth had pushed to the forefront of her magic, so keen that she had not checked beyond. She swallowed, steeling herself for a second glance. “I did not see. I can look again.”

  “No,” Finnian and Captain Byrne said at the same time. The prince frowned at the captain, who solemnly shook his head.

  “If the cut tongue posed a danger to her, her mouth would be bleeding,” said Master Asturias. “Either the wound is old or it was cauterized, but without looking directly at it, I cannot tell. Your Highness, if you would like to leave her here for observation—”

  The girl tightened her hold on the prince’s arm and pressed herself more firmly against his side. Any question of whether she could understand them dissipated in that movement.

  “I think she wants to stay with me,” Finnian said. He glanced toward Magdalena and toward Captain Byrne beside her. To the master healer he said, “If it’s all right with you, I think I’d better keep her close.”

  Master Asturias tipped his head. “As you please.”

  “Can you walk?” the prince asked the silver-haired foundling.

  She lovingly smiled up at him and hopped from the table where her legs dangled. As her feet touched the ground, Magdalena gasped. Pain like a sword shot from the floor, piercing through her heels and into her legs. Quick hands caught her as she collapsed. Captain Byrne lowered her gently to the marble tile, but Magdalena only stared in horror at the foundling girl who yet stood beside the prince.

  Finnian stepped forward in concern, and the foundling matched his movement. That stabbing sensation shot up Magdalena’s legs agai
n.

  How was the girl still standing in such excruciating pain? How could her expression remain so serene?

  Magdalena ignored the tumult of voices asking her questions. She pushed her magic outward, desperate to understand the nature of this phantom injury.

  And the glamour slipped. The pale, perfect legs beneath the blanket became shriveled stumps, torn and scaly flesh that bore the pain of pressure they could not naturally support. Magdalena’s mouth went dry as she locked gazes with the girl. Bulbous eyes in a noseless face peered back at her, the wide, full-lipped mouth shut to conceal the needle-sharp teeth within.

  She could not breathe. She could not speak.

  “Milady,” Captain Byrne said beside her. Her magic snapped back in upon itself. The monstrous visage became beautiful once more.

  “She… she…” Magdalena struggled against a tightened windpipe.

  “What is it?” Finnian asked, concern infusing his voice.

  The words would not come. Magdalena forced them out.

  “She really is the prettiest little thing. Really, the prettiest—”

  Terror raced up her spine. Whatever spell possessed this creature was potent beyond measure. Its binding magic would not allow her to speak anything but that simple, deceitful phrase.

  Chapter 7

  The prince called his foundling Lili. The palace, servants and nobles alike, approved.

  “Such a lyrical name. It matches her graceful, delicate step.”

  “Have you ever seen someone move so exquisitely? It’s as though she floats more than she walks.”

  “She really is the prettiest little thing.”

  The glamour stuck to the girl like a second skin. Magdalena could not get within twenty feet without experiencing the stabbing pains in her own legs, as though she walked upon knives instead of marble. The magic of the spell overrode any control she had learned through her six years of study and practice. She kept to the infirmary and her small chamber as much as possible.

  “Jealous,” nobles and servants alike whispered. “She’s no longer the prince’s favorite, and jealous to the gills.”

  But jealousy could hold no place in her heart when terror took up every small corner. What did such a creature want with the prince? What did it intend by coming here? Had it placed Finnian under a spell?

  The foundling shadowed him wherever he went. She danced for him during his meals and slept on a pillow outside his bedroom door. Magdalena yearned to warn him of the creature’s true form, but no opportunity to speak existed, and the only words the glamour allowed her to utter were praises to the girl’s beauty.

  “You look pale,” Captain Byrne said, falling in step beside her a week after the foundling appeared.

  Magdalena spared him a sidelong glance. “I was up all night reading.”

  “Oh? Reading what?”

  She held up Master Asturias’s volume on sea lore. She had combed through it so many times already that she could quote certain passages by heart.

  The captain looked dubious. “Anything interesting there?”

  She paused in the hall and flipped to a page near the back. Alongside the handwritten text was a sketch of a gaunt creature with bulbous eyes and a wide, sharp-toothed mouth. Its spindly arms had webbing between the fingers, and the lower half of the body narrowed into a long, scaly fin.

  Captain Byrne recoiled, repulsed.

  “This was the creature at the cove,” said Magdalena, choosing her words carefully to avoid invoking the glamour’s influence, “the one I saw, the one the prince described that night on the ocean steps.”

  He leaned close to read the caption. “A sea-fay?”

  “Also called a siren, a lorelei, or a mermaid. It’s a type of fairy bound to the ocean. This creature may have saved the prince’s life.”

  “That’s good then,” he said.

  She shook her head. “The folklore says they lure men into the water and drown them. Why would it bring him to the shore instead?”

  “Maybe the folklore is wrong.”

  “Maybe.” She shut the book and resumed her walk. When the captain followed, she asked, “Shouldn’t you be with the prince? I thought you were his official chaperone.”

  “He’s still in his rooms. He promised to remain there until I returned.”

  Skepticism flitted through her. “And you believed him?”

  “Ordinarily I wouldn’t, but he wanted me to check on you, so I trust he’ll wait for my report. He said he hasn’t seen much of you lately. You’ve certainly made yourself scarce.”

  Her heart thudded erratically in her chest. She retreated into the safety of the rules. “Does he have you check on all the ladies of the court?”

  Captain Byrne barked a laugh. “He told me you might ask that. But of course he doesn’t. He’s worried about you.”

  So worried that he fused himself to a glamoured creature from the deep. Her cynicism destroyed any warmth the captain’s words brought. “He should worry about himself, not me.”

  “Of course he worries about you. Even I worry.” He dipped his head to catch her expression, and his voice dropped in volume. “Have you had any more episodes?”

  She stared at the ground beneath her feet, unable to answer the question. She’d experienced nothing as painful as that dawn attack where she had collapsed in the hallway, but the sensation of walking on knives still elicited tears. The mysterious charm upon the foundling blanketed the whole palace, as far as she could discern, so there was no point trying to explain what pain she experienced. She would fail to form the words upon her tongue.

  Captain Byrne broke the silence she had fallen into. “Milady?”

  An idea occurred to her. She looked up and attempted to speak the truth. What came out instead was, “The prince’s foundling really is the prettiest little thing. The prettiest. She’s the prettiest little thing.”

  He looked at her as though she had lost her mind. “Yes. I’ve… noticed.”

  “No,” said Magdalena. “She’s the prettiest little thing.”

  Captain Byrne frowned. “I know.”

  “She really is the prettiest thing.”

  He looked annoyed. “I’ve got it. Can we talk about something else now?”

  “I can’t,” said Magdalena flatly.

  They paused outside the door to the infirmary. Captain Byrne studied her with a deepening furrow between his brows. “You can’t?”

  “I can’t. Can you?”

  He tossed his head. “I can talk about a lot of things.”

  “About the prince’s foundling?”

  The studious expression returned. “What’s there to talk about? She’s the prettiest little thing. Although, it does annoy me that she’s the prettiest little—” His voice cut in his throat. He held up one hand as confusion descended upon his face. “Hang on. That’s not what I meant to say. She’s the prettiest little thing. No. The prettiest—”

  A faint sense of triumph laced through her. She leaned in and whispered, “You can’t either. No one can.”

  Panic danced across his face. “Why?”

  Because the glamour won’t allow it, she longed to say. Instead, “Because she’s the prettiest little thing” pushed past her lips. She shook her head to clear it. “I think you get the point.”

  Dazed, he nodded.

  Magdalena looked down at the book she cradled against her. “I can’t find the reason why a sea-fay would pull a human to shore. If I could find that, things might be clearer.”

  “Are the two connected?” Captain Byrne asked.

  “Of course they are,” she said. “The prince’s foundling is the prettiest little thing.” She thumped the book, and the captain frowned.

  “You mean she’s—” He paused, consternation crossing his face. “I’m just going to say that irritating phrase again, aren’t I.”

  “It seems that way.”

  “All right. But I think I’ve caught your meaning, strange as it is.”

  “Will you tell
the prince?” Magdalena asked, anxiety building in her throat.

  He tipped her a salute. “I’ll try. From the conversation we’ve just had, I doubt that I’ll succeed. Good day, milady.”

  She returned his farewell and stepped into the infirmary. The captain’s footsteps retreated down the hall, a quick tap-tap-tap that punctuated the morning air.

  In the corner, Master Asturias raised his head from where he hunched over his work. “Have you brought back my book at long last?”

  “Yes. Did you want it?”

  He harrumphed. “I always want my books.”

  She placed it on the workbench, within his reach. “And there’s nothing else about ocean magic, or about the fay that live there?”

  “We’re lucky to have that record. Most of the tradition surrounding the fay was oral, not written.”

  Magdalena contemplated him as he studiously ignored her. At long last she inquired, “Master Asturias, why might a sea-fay carry a human to land instead of drowning him?”

  He looked up at her through the magnifiers perched on his nose, his eyes huge in the thick lenses. “A siren that spares a human? Rare, but not unheard of. The sea-fay don’t drag a man to his death because they want to kill him. They do it because they’re fascinated and want to keep him as a plaything.”

  She pulled up a chair and settled next to him. “Fascinated?”

  Annoyed, he returned his attention to his work. “The fay—both land and sea types—love humans the way that humans love cats or dogs. Every so often, one of the sea-fay remembers that her coveted pet can’t breathe under water, and she returns him to shore before it’s too late. It’s rare, as I said.”

  “But why would humans fascinate them?”

  “We have the advantage of a soul, and they do not.”

  Her heartbeat quickened. She flattened her hand upon his work table and leaned close. “How can anything living not have a soul?”

  He stilled in his work. Magdalena, intent upon receiving an answer, did not avert her gaze.