Page 28 of Ballad of Sea and Sky

“You can keep me in your sightwithouttouching me,“ I pointed out, stumbling as he pulled me down the rest of the gangplank and on to dry land. It took a moment to get my legs under me, and Caspian smirked as if he could sense my lack of balance.

“But where would be the fun in that?” he replied, teeth bared in a way that was almost vicious. “Lead on, Urchin.”

“Princess,” I corrected, grumbling as I proceeded down the dock, past fishing boats and sailors shouting and arguing.

I looked back at the Argo, realizing it was the first time I would see the ship from the land. It was old looking, but sturdy, much like the other ships in the harbor. There was a carved figure at the front of the ship, a bare breasted female with both siren wings and a selkie tail.

“What’s that?” I asked, pointing back at the carved front of the ship.

“What’s what?” Caspian asked, turning to look where I pointed. “Oh,” he said, giving his ship a contemplative look. “The figurehead. She’s unique, isn’t she?”

“I haven’t seen enough of them to really know,” I responded. “But why does she have both a tail and wings?”

Caspian looked down at me, his face one of disbelief. “Do you know none of your own history, Urchin?”

“My name isMarina,“ I corrected for the hundredth time, his assumption of my ignorance grating on me. “And I know plenty, thank you.”

“You and I will have to disagree on that front,Princess,“ Caspian drawled, turning and dragging me back down the dock. I bristled at both the implied insult in the way he said my name and the fact that he had neatly side-stepped my question.

By the time we reached the end of the dock, my annoyance had fizzled out as excitement overtook me.

I was in a city. A real city, with little thatched buildings and horse-drawn carts and people—so many people—bustling to and fro as they went about their morning errands. There were tents raised in what appeared to be a makeshift market, and patrons spilled out of taverns and shops, laughing and shouting to their neighbors. Some looked like me, possibly fae, but others were short and stocky with grizzled beards, some had horns and tails, and others wings like Caspian.

“Who are all these people?” I asked, pausing to take in the streets before me, which seemed to travel in every direction away from the docks. Stalls and tents were dotted around the streets as people shouted their wares and services, and patrons alternated between darting excitedly from stall to stall and ignoring them completely. “Are they all fae?”

“Fae peoples like you and me,” Caspian replied, following my hungry gaze around the city streets. “But the true fae live too far south to make it here in large numbers. They’ve only just begun to open trade, now that their wars are over. The people here are mostly dwarves,” he pointed to several of the short, stocky patrons who, despite the earliness of the hour, were laughing and drinking ale at what appeared to be a tavern. “And demons,” he added, pointing to a horned male who was haggling over the price of fish with a female who sported a long, fox-like tail. “And a few are sirens,” Caspian added, waving to one of the winged males, who waved back with a bemused look at me, “and selkies.”

“No,” I laughed, looking up at Caspian, who had raised a brow at me. “All selkies live in the Silent Isles.”

“You reallyaresheltered, aren’t you?“ Caspian mused, physically turning me to point at the harbor, where a few people were swimming around the hull of a ship, possibly inspecting for damage. One of them dove, his seal-like tail flicking above the water for a split-second before he sank below the water. “Your people and mine have been cohabitating peacefully for centuries in trading villages like this one. Not a lot of them, but enough.”

“That’s—” I wanted to say it was impossible, but no words came, my jaw hanging open stupidly as my entire understanding of my world shifted a bit. “How?”

“Like anyone ends up living in a place like this,” Caspian said, shrugging as he pulled me toward the market stalls. “One day they wake up and decide they want to experience the world.”

“Why does no one know this?” I asked, feeling my world tilt on its axis. How could selkies be livinghere,or anywhere other than the Silent Isles?

“People know, Princess,” Caspian said, looking at me a little sadly. “Perhaps you’ve been a prisoner for longer than you think.”

Chapter 10

Myshockatdiscoveringthat I had been woefully naive about the world in which I lived ebbed as we wound our way through the town, Caspian’s hand still holding mine tightly as if I might run at any second.

I tried very hard not to think about the warm press of his fingers, solid and reassuring in my own, focusing instead on the market stalls and the curiosities being sold and traded, and the people of all different backgrounds and histories.

“Did you eat?” Caspian asked, drawing me out of my reverie as we passed several stalls with delicious smells, their owners shouting about their different baked goods and encouraging us to try them. I shook my head, and Caspian dropped two coins into the palm of one of the merchants, pointing at little round pies which were steaming enticingly on a tray.

What was this male’s obsession with making sure I had eaten?

He handed me a pie wrapped in paper, taking a huge bite out of the other. “Meat,” he garbled through a mouthful of pie. “S’good.”

“I thought kings were supposed to have good manners,” I said, sniffing at the pie and taking a tiny bite. It was the perfect temperature, and the burst of savory warmth was welcome in the cool, damp morning.

“I could say the same about princesses,” Caspian retorted, nodding to the stocky, dwarven female who had sold us the pies. She was scowling at the uneaten pie in my hands, and Caspian leaned down to whisper, “You insult her by nibbling.”

“Oh!” I said, smiling apologetically. I took a large bite of the pie, almost choking on it. The female dwarf nodded, seemingly satisfied at my show of enjoyment, while Caspian smothered a laugh at my inelegant chewing.

“Such elegant manners.”