Page 116

I think that over, sucking my lip between my teeth.

“I know we both have our revenge,” he begins. “I know you deserve to get yours. But I worry. I worry that by doing that, I’ll lose you to her. Lose you to the person you once were. And I don’t know if my heart can take anymore loss, my luv.”

I swallow hard. His words, these words, they mark me.

“Stay with me,” he whispers. “Don’t go back to the deep. Stay with me at the surface. With the sun and the moon and the stars.”

I close my eyes and relax against him, resting my head on his chest, hearing the steady slow beat of his heart beneath, and I can’t help but imagine that it belongs to me. By nature, Syrens crave the hearts of men, but I only want his heart to love me.

“If I don’t get revenge, then who am I?” I ask in a hush. “All I’ve known as an adult is trying to return to the creature I once was. To the girl I was. If I let that go, then I have to make peace with what I am now.”

“So then you make peace with it,” he says, pressing his lips against my head. “As long as you know that the path to peace is a hard one, perhaps as hard as the one you’d take for vengeance. But it’s the right one, and that’s what counts in the end.”

I take a moment to think that over. He’s right, of course, but it’s always easier said than done. There’s something so passive about acceptance that bucks against my personality, perhaps because for so long that’s what I was. I just sat back and took what was dealt my way in the way of Aerik and my life as a princess. The fact that I finally have been given an opportunity for agency and to take action and I’m turning my back on it, it feels like I’m giving up.

“I’m just afraid that I’ll make a mistake, yet another one I won’t be able to live with,” I say.

He stiffens. “You think I’m a mistake?”

“No,” I say quickly, looking up at him. “You are not a mistake, Ramsay. You are a choice and, what you’ve said before, a different path to take.”

“So do you choose me, luv?” he asks and I’ve never seen him look so vulnerable. It causes a dull ache in my chest.

Because this is the question, isn’t it? Do I choose him and my legs and this life above the sea? Or do I say goodbye and go back to living under the water, back in a kingdom without my father, mother, or sister, with my other sister elsewhere?

The latter was all I had ever wanted for the last ten years.

The former is all I’ve ever wanted over the last few weeks.

“You don’t need to answer me,” he says, giving me a squeeze. “We still have time.”

I don’t need to look at an hourglass to know that time is running out.

CHAPTER35

Maren

“Sedge,”I say as I stand in the entrance to the galley. “Could I get two mugs of coffee?”

He gives me an amiable smile and nods, putting the kettle on the flames. Even though Sedge doesn’t speak, I enjoy coming down to the galley and talking to him. It’s not just that he’s a good listener, although I have noticed his mind wanders a bit, but I understand him. He may not vocalize words as language but there is a language he communicates with and that I think most of the crew know how to read at an innate level.

“Are you doing alright?” I ask, even though I’ve asked him this a lot over the last few days. We’ve all been traumatized, and though he is back to normal in the sense that the curse was reversed, what he witnessed with regards to Henry was horrific, not to mention how he might feel about blasting another man in the face with a gun. Granted, he knows how the Brethren are and that he probably didn’t kill Ed Smith, but even so it had to have been a gruesome sight.

He nods again, giving me a quick, reassuring smile.Yep, he seems to be saying.No worse than the last time you asked me that.

I take that as a hint to stop asking.

“Can I tell you a secret?” I then say. “Even though I know you’ve probably made some guesses already since we were held together on the cursed ship.”

He nods eagerly as he puts the beans in the grinder and turns the handle.

I look around the galley. It’s quiet and I know it’s just the two of us here.

“I’m not one of the Brethren,” I begin quietly. “But I’m not a human like you either. I’m actually a Syren, or a mermaid, as you come to know it.”

His eyes widen though he doesn’t seem too surprised nor scared.

And so I launch into the story of my life, how I was once a little mermaid under the sea and how I traded it all for the heart of a prince. Other than Ramsay, I’ve never had the chance to tell anyone else this story without fear of reprisal, and I have to say it feels terribly good to let it all out like this. I’ve wanted to tell the rest of the crew this too but I know it probably won’t go over very well, considering what mermaid blood does, but Sedge seems to be a good place to start.