Page 11 of Lore of the Tides

Lore’s childhood had been spent exploring the thicket of woods within the borders of Duskmere. Catching frogs on the lake’s edge.Rolling down the grassy hill until her skirts were green, her hair filled with leaves and twigs and petals. She wasn’t meant to be locked in a room all day, only brought out at night to stare into a bowl of water.

Then again, she didn’t think anyone was made for this life. It was unnatural. Terrible.

Please take her above. Let her feel the sun on her face, the breeze in her hair.

“All right, but if the crew starts to grumble, back to your quarters right away; I don’t want to cause any trouble.”

“Won’t be any trouble; right back down as soon as you say the word.”

The guard nodded more to herself than to Lore and absently adjusted the belt on her waist.

Lore sighed with relief when Cecil turned away from the room with the lock and toward the stairs leading to the rising sun.

The sound of flapping sails met Lore on deck, and her breath caught in her throat. Stepping onto the deck... she didn’t see how she could ever get used to it. It set her heart racing, her fingertips tingling. Falling off the ship, she’d realized... well, the fright of it would kill her before she drowned.

Lore surveyed the deck, pushing her feardown,down,downso that she could enjoy this time outdoors. Mist surrounded the ship as dawn broke across the horizon. Damp, languid air played with Lore’s curls listlessly.

Two sailors were cleaning the deck with seawater, but when Lore passed them, they both halted their mops mid-swab to glower, their eyes shooting hateful daggers at her. Even the watch, a lanky male at the top of the foremast with a wide jaw and thick, chin-length locs, took his eyes off the horizon to watch her, his body language sending signals of revulsion from his great height.

Lore avoided looking too long at them because, as she’d discovered, a single glance from her would have them muttering prayers and hurriedly making signs to their preferred gods to ward againstevil, corruption, or whatever they thought a look from her would do to them.

And that would alarm Cecil, who would make her turn around and return to that locked door.

So, Lore passed by them, trying to make herself small, and pretended not to see their glares.

Lore squeezed in between barrels tied down to the deck, stepped over coiled ropes and carefully stowed netting, and braced her elbows upon the thick railing. She leaned over the rail, still amazed by how elevated from the water they really were. This ship was massive and artfully designed. It required a crew she guessed of at least twenty-five or thirty, but she hadn’t had a chance to count, what with not being able to look directly at the sailors.

Lore eyed the water.

This stretch of sea was rightly called the Dread Abyss. The water, no longer the cerulean she’d grown used to, resembled a wine so dark it appeared almost black. A sea of bloodred glass, the only ripples created by the ship itself as the prow cut through the sea.

The water was as red as Queen Riella’s poisoned wine.

Lore shivered, averting her gaze.

She chose to look at one puffy cloud instead. At least then, she could pretend she was lying on her back in Duskmere, the familiar press of trees surrounding her. Though they had come to be a prison as she’d gotten older, the trees were all she’d known, and as a child, they were a comfort.

Here she was exposed for miles and miles to emptiness.

And if she were back in Duskmere, there wouldn’t possibly be a sea beast called Takuma swimming beneath her, waiting to swallow the ship whole.

Lore could hear the crew growing restless.

It was only a matter of moments before Cecil would heed the sailors’ grumbling, the whispers ofwitchthat circled Lore like a flock of vultures trailing an injured animal belowdecks.

She dropped her eyes back down from the too-big sky. It made her feet tingle in fright. It was so big that she felt she was going to tumble off the ship, but instead of landing in the water, she would fall up toward the sky, and it would swallow her whole. She closed her eyes to its vastness and tried to ignore the hateful whispers of the sailors, pretending to be anywhere but here.

She felt Cecil’s presence behind her.

Lore opened her eyes. Plucking damp curls from her cheeks, she pushed them behind her ears.

It would rain soon.

Lore wished the dawn had brought with it burnished orange and apple pink. But it had turned now into a gray morning, and even with the rising sun, it wasn’t likely to allow much color.

Lore pushed back from the ship’s railing and walked back toward the entrance belowdecks before Cecil gave the order.

Chapter 3