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‘I’m here, aren’t I?’

‘Still, anything is a bold claim.’

I clenched my teeth, reminding myself who I was talking to. ‘Our mother died giving birth to me,’ I told him, unsure why I bothered. He’d never understand. ‘If it wasn’t for me, my sisters would’ve had her to take care of them instead.’

A dark thought snaked through the back of my skull, but it took me a moment to place. It was the mention of mothers that nagged at me. Not mine, but his.

I wrapped Sebastien’s wound in fresh bandages and sat back, wiping my hands on my skirts. He released a ragged breath, relief purling across his broad shoulders.

My eyes trailed his exposed skin, the lump in my throat growing as I remembered the story. I hadn’t thought about what the truth in those tales meant for Sebastien. For the little prince, once so full of hope, so full of love.

‘What was it like?’ I asked quietly. ‘Having a mother?’

I expected him to pull away, tell me to leave, but Sebastien didn’t move. I listened to his breathing: waiting, hoping.

‘It was . . .’ he began, his voice ragged, unsteady. ‘It was like knowing you’d always be loved. No matter what you did, who you became.’

My eyes burned at the bitterness in his voice. He might not believe it any more – might think himself too far gone to ever be loved again – but it was clear how much he’d loved his mother. Centuries ago, when he’d been capable of such a thing.

His head dipped lower, tendons in his neck going taut. A constellation of white scars fanned like sun rays from his freckled spine, old wounds that had seeded themselves into the fabric of his flesh long ago, branded by something dark and ancient. I swallowed. According to the book, he’d been just eleven years old when he’d watched his father butcher the woman he loved most in the world on the throne-room floor. Eleven years old, when he’d picked up that sword.

‘Are you—’ I stumbled over my words. ‘Do you ever regret what you did? Killing him?’

I half expected him to close up again, to snap and recoil from my curiosity, but Sebastien merely shook his head. ‘I regret a lot of things, blackbird. I regret tainting the waters of my homeland. I regret failing my people, then and now. But I’ve never regretted that. Nerida thought us both traitors for the blood we spilled that day, but to me, it was always going to end that way. I only wish I’d done it sooner.’

‘Nerida?’ I echoed.

‘I told you the gods provide me things,’ he said, sounding almost amused. ‘And what god would be petty enough to curse a pirate but the sea?’

My lips parted, a breath escaping me. His apparent immortality, his powers, his ship . . . all things I had considered gifts. ‘She really cursed you?’ I ventured. ‘Is that why that monster attacked us? Because the sea hates you?’

Sebastien laughed harshly. ‘She doesn’t hate me, no. And as for that monster . . . I don’t know.’

He fell into a contemplative silence. I traced my eyes over the crest of his shoulder blades. He’d always been this looming shadow, this inscrutable power shrouded in darkness. But here he sat, drowned in sunlight, exposed to my hungry gaze. Shadows lingered in the slope of his neck, in the rough-hewn lines of his arms, in the curls of hair that brushed the tops of his shoulders. I resisted the urge to reach out and run my fingers through it, wondering if it would feel as sun-soaked and briny as it smelled.

I leaned forward, my hair tickling the rugged landscape of his back, wanting to touch him but not knowing how. Sebastien exhaled, leaning back ever so slightly, relaxing into me until my forehead brushed the top of his spine.

Then he tensed, arching away from me, hands combing through his hair just as I’d longed to do. I flexed my fists, wondering what it would feel like to have those fingers in my hair. To feel him—

‘Get out of here, blackbird,’ he said, breaking my trance.

I sank back on my haunches, lungs tight. I knew I’d already stayed far longer than I should have, yet I couldn’t help asking, ‘Why?’

‘Because,’ Sebastien rumbled, his voice twisting knots in my stomach, curling my toes, ‘it’s going to become increasingly harder not to kiss you if you keep climbing into my bed.’

*

Rain dripped from my lashes to the banister of the forecastle. The clouds hung low and heavy as the crew moved through the drizzle towards the funeral shrouds that lined the centre of the deck. I watched from above as they shuffled forward in pairs, carrying their fallen crew-mates and tossing them overboard. Each dull splash plummeted through me like the stones that weighed their bodies down. The death-stitched hammocks outnumbered the living. Pirates, who’d seemed invincible in battle, torn apart by the sea.

I brushed back my water-flecked hair, trying to chase away the guilt that had settled in the hollow of my stomach and wouldn’t budge. None of them would’ve been on deck that day if it weren’t for me – for the fact that Bane seemed determined to take me from them.

Bane. He wanted to meet on the winter solstice, just two weeks away. The gods only knew what kind of army he’d bring this time, and the Blood Rose’s crew was in no position to face them.

I hadn’t yet mentioned Bane’s ultimatum to anyone. Because the sooner they knew, the sooner the King and his crew would have to decide the kind of end they wanted for this war. The sooner it would all be over, one way or another.

Aron and Mors moved side by side across the deck below, heaving a canvas-bound corpse on to their shoulders. Their footsteps echoed like punches to my gut. I’d scarcely spoken to any of them in days, leaving them to heal their wounds in peace.

Out of respect, I told myself. Nothing more.