Page 50 of Saint
I obeyed, letting them fall to the floor, and Nash reluctantly followed, the blood draining from his face. If he was a shipwright’s apprentice, he wasn’t used to being out on the water. Certainly not in a storm.
If theRivenwent down, there was no saving us. As soon as I thought it, it was almost like a weight lifted off of me. A relief in knowing that I had no idea what was going to happen. My life had been lived according to a very specific plan. From the moment my mother knew what I was, every day had a purpose—find gems. Make coin. But the moment I crossed into the Narrows, the plan for my life had been wiped from my mother’s ledgers. And I could feel that open nothingness that stretched before me now more than ever, as the ship groaned against the breaking waves.
At any moment, I could take my last breath. That single truth felt like an infinite space inside of me. Where anything could happen.
I looked up from my boots, catching Saint’s eyes on me. They ran over my face slowly, as if he were trying to read my thoughts. Or maybe he was remembering, like I was, what he’d said moments before that wave came down on the ship.
Could get used to this.
I was glad now that I hadn’t had the chance to ask for his meaning. Because if it had anything to do with the feeling that flooded my veins when his arms wrapped around me, when his cheek touched mine and his hands gripped me tight, I was almost sure I didn’t want to know.
19ISOLDE
I’d never been happier to see the sunrise.
We’d spent the better part of the night in Saint’s quarters as the storms tore through the sea, but the race of my heart didn’t stop when the howling did. Those storms were still inside of me.
I’d slept in fits and starts, unnerved by the creaks and groans of theRivenas if, at any moment, the hull would breach and drown us all. I wasn’t the only one who thought so. Every time the ship moaned, Nash shifted in his hammock, his eyes finding mine in the dark. It was nothing short of a miracle that we were still afloat, but we were. And I had no explanation for it.
I stood at the bow, watching the pale green water of the Narrows race beneath the ship. There was no mistaking the difference in the color. The Unnamed Sea was a dark, inkyblue that was like the richest hue of sapphire. As soon as we’d crossed into the Narrows on theLuna,I’d noticed the slow bleed of it to a shade of turquoise. The air was different too, missing the weight of the salt that laced the water I was used to.
Storms like those we’d seen last night were rare in the Unnamed Sea, and my mother’s helmsmen would sooner abandon an unfinished dive than draw her wrath by risking my life by riding one out. I was more precious to her than a single haul of gems, but not because she loved me. I was irreplaceable to Holland because of what I could give her.
I reached into my pocket, finding the only thing I’d taken with me when I left the Unnamed Sea. The purse was heavy in my palm and I pressed the tip of my finger to the sharp point of the midnight I could feel through the soft leather.
The closest I’d ever come to seeing the eye of a real storm was a few years ago, when I was on Fable’s Skerry. The little rocky island off the shore of Bastian was home to nothing except the largest lighthouse in the Unnamed Sea. And over time, it became the only refuge I had from my mother. On days when she had business in the city, I’d sneak away and barter with the fishermen to be ferried across the bay, then I’d spend hours lying on the sunny rocks and diving in the skerry’s sea caves. There were no people. No dive maps or routes to plan or ledgers to balance. Just me and the seabirds.
I’d been diving the skerry alone for years with no idea that there was anything there to find. Beneath the surface, the sea bottom was only rock and sand and swarms of silver fish. But all that time, the midnight was there. Just waiting.
I glanced over my shoulder to the deck. Clove stood at the helm, letting the wheel tilt just slightly, his eyes on the white clouds that striped the sky.
I cinched the little bag open and let the stone fall into my hand. The glossy black surface was cut into perfect facets and when I raised it to the light, I could see the glow of violet inside. I still remembered the exact moment, more than fifty feet beneath the surface of the water, when I heard it. The soft, lulling chime that was a stranger to me. A gem song I didn’t know.
I’d suspected almost immediately that it was important. But I didn’t know just how much of my world it would change. And when my mother told me that I was to be the one to name it, I chosemidnight,the only word I could think of to describe its haunting sound.
The heavy thud of something on the deck made me flinch, and I closed my fingers into a fist over the stone. Behind me, Nash had dropped the bag of bosun’s tools at his feet. He was missing his shirt, his skin already slick with sweat despite the cool morning, and his wet hair was curling on top of his head.
“Like trying to plug a hole. It’ll just keep widening,” he murmured, crouching down over the bag to fish out a long iron bolt.
He turned it over in his hand, shaking his head as he inspected it. The piece of metal looked like it had been salvaged from a ship built fifty years ago that had spent half that time underwater.
I slipped the midnight back into the purse and returned itto my pocket, coming to stand over him. “How much longer do you think this ship has?”
“Weeks? Days? Hours? Minutes, for all I know.” He picked up the adze, fitting the bolt to the end of the rod jammed into the anchor crank. A high-pitched ping rang out as he tapped it, gently nudging it forward. “But they won’t be sailing this thing for long.”
“What do you mean?”
He smirked. “Not a chance. The reason I’m stuck on this death trap is because I talked.”
I glanced to the open door of the helmsman’s quarters. Saint told me that Nash was a shipwright’s apprentice who hadn’t kept his mouth shut. But about what?
They couldn’t be planning to sail theRivenunder their new trader’s crest. No one in their right mind would risk hauling an expensive inventory in a vessel like this one. But maybe Saintwasn’tin his right mind. They didn’t have the coin to buy a new ship. If they did, they wouldn’t have been in such dire straits after I’d gotten their gems stolen.
Unless they’d already spent it.
“They have a ship, don’t they?” I guessed, keeping my voice low.
Nash’s hand nearly slipped from the adze before he cleared his throat, tapping again in a steady rhythm. “Like I said, I’ve learned my lesson.”
