Page 16 of Ballad of Sea and Sky

I groaned, breathing through the nausea as I rolled to the edge of the bed, just in case the shrimp from dinner made a reappearance. The thought of seafood didn’t help as I gulped down air to try to calm my stomach.

“Here,” came the male voice, a little gentler this time. Two booted feet strode into the frame of my vision, their leather scuffed and worn like the boards of the wooden floor beneath us. The figure crouched revealing leather trousers and bruised, golden skin, and a hand holding a glass of water. “Not that you need water brought to you,” the voice quipped, “but a drink might help.”

I finally forced my face up, my eyes trailing over bronzed flesh. Bandages covered several inches of skin, and some kind of leather-plated armor covered the shoulders. Above them, pure white feathers poked out from bandaged, broken wings.

The siren captain looked at me expectantly, his golden eyes holding mine as he held the cup of water. His hair was pure white, I realized, just like the feathers on his back, and it reached the top of his shoulders where the unusual armor protected him. His chest was completely exposed, aside from the bandages, and several long, deep scars marred the golden expanse of skin.

“You’re a shit actress, by the way,” the siren said. “Anyone with half an ounce of sense could have seen you knew nothing about healing.”

I reached out for the cup of water and winced. My wrist was swollen and purple where the siren had gripped it, and he looked down with a frown. “I apologize for the rough handling, though. I didn’t mean to hurt you.”

I didn’t reply, taking a tentative sip. The ground lurched dangerously again, and I gripped the mattress beneath me. The siren chuckled, crouching to meet my eyes. “Why did you come down to the dungeons, really?”

“I was curious,” I rasped, taking another sip of water and grimacing as my stomach protested. “Where am I?”

“The Argo,” the siren replied unhelpfully, gesturing around him as if I should know what an Argowas. “Pride of His Majesty’s fleet. I’m afraid you’ve been kidnapped, Princess.” The siren sounded both bored and amused at my confusion as I stumbled over his words, my brain feeling too sluggish to process them.

“I…what?” I stammered, letting the siren take the glass from me before I dropped it in my panic.

“Easy,” he said, amusement fading. “You’ll be returned to your people as soon as they agree to our terms, no harm done.”

Seas below, my father was going to lock me up and never let me out of his sight again. Vitulus and Sereia too. I had ignored all of their warnings, and I had fallen right under this siren’s spell.

“I think knocking me out and kidnapping me counts as harm,” I croaked, gazing blearily at the male, who was still crouching next to the bed. “Why?”

“Why knock you out,” he asked, canting his head to one side, “or why kidnap you?”

“Both,” I said, annoyed at the nonchalance with which he was treating my captivity. “My father will kill you for this.”

“He’ll try,” the siren agreed, standing so that he was towering above me. “He was planning on it anyway. Him or your betrothed. You’ll be back with both soon, as long as you behave.”

I rankled at being told tobehaveby the male who had warped my mind and kidnapped me.

The siren laughed, a broad, deep sound that carried through the floorboards and the frame of the bed. “That face, Princess,” he said, mocking me as he moved toward a pair of carved, wooden doors in the wall. “Get some rest. This door will be guarded, so don’t try to escape. I’ll send someone with food in a little while.”

“Why put me here if I’m your prisoner?” I asked, feeling panic rise as the reality of my situation finally sank in. Vitulus had killed his crew. My father had taken their wings. This male had every reason to despise me. “Why not chain me up?”

“Like your father did to me?” he asked, turning a frown on me that spoke of carefully restrained fury. “Because I have honor. And because I, unlike your father, don’t need to make an example out of you.”

“I’m sorry,” I rasped out, making him pause as he gripped the door handle. “About your crew.”

The siren looked at me, his expression unreadable. He nodded once, opening the door for only a second and snapping it shut, I heard muffled laughter outside the doors, and a scuffling of boots and scraping of steel blending with song.

Was it siren song? I belatedly realized I wasn’t covering my ears, but I didn’t feel particularly compelled. Maybe the song didn’t work through wood.

I laid back, mulling over the captain’s words and surveying the room for possible means of escape.

The room was spacious, with a small armchair nestled between bookshelves filled with books that looked older than the rest of the furniture. A desk looked out of three large windows, and a carved wooden chair sat before what looked to be ledgers and papers and maps. There was a small round table with two wooden chairs, and of course, the bed itself, which was carved from solid wood. There was a second door in the wall opposite me, which I presumed must lead to a bathing chamber of some kind.

The windows, then. If I could break them, I could maybe escape that way. The drop to the sea couldn’t be that far, and I could use the bedsheets to protect my hand from the broken glass.

I attempted to rise from the bed, but the moment I sat up, another wave of throbbing pain and nausea overwhelmed me, the ground lurching ominously.

Pushing aside the misery in my stomach and head, I forced myself out of the bed and over to the windows, stifling another gasp as I finally realized exactly how much trouble I was in.

Endless blue water frothed in every direction I could see. The Silent Isles were nowhere in sight.

Bynightfall,Iwasfeeling significantly better, and I had come up with a plan.