Page 76

“Fine,” Oraik mumbled quietly. “Just leave me here. That’s alright. I can’t do anything, anyways.”

“I won’t be long,” I promised him. I moved behind Oraik’s line of sight, peeled off my filthy clothing, and slid off the edge of the boat into the Etegen sea.

It was warm despite the cooling night. Inside the sheltered cove the swells were small, and the water shallow enough that I could just brush the sandy bottom with my toes, if I stretched. Suspended in weightlessness, I closed my eyes and tried to take a moment of peace.

“...Meda?” Kalcedon asked from the other side of the boat.

“Hm?” I swam his way and peered around the corner of the ship. Kalcedon was a shadow in the dying evening light, the sea lapping an inch below his collarbone.

“Do I have blood on my face?” he asked.

I studied his wet skin in the day’s last light and found him staring back at me just as hard. The wet slopes and angles of his body were at once familiar and foreign. He felt weak, no longer dead-cold but even more human than Eudoria had been.

“On your chin,” I whispered. It was hard to get the words out, hard to bring myself to speak. I wasn’t sure why. He sank below the surface for a moment, all the way under and not just his chin, and then rose up and pushed his dark, shaggy hair out of his face.

“Now?” Saltwater ran in rivulets down his face, glistening on his jaw and dripping from his chin.

He had killed. Savagely, and without hesitation. Kalcedon, who could not even bring himself to remove rabbits from the garden or to pluck snails from their shells. A smear of darkness on his face was too warm to match the rest of his gray skin. Blood.

“Not quite.”

He scrubbed again with his hand, missing the spot. Silently I reached up and touched the dark stain. His skin was warm, pooled heat beneath the surface. Kalcedon replaced my hand with his own and scraped it over his skin. I let my hand fall. We were staring at each other as if we’d never seen each other before.

“What about me?” I asked softly.

“Unsullied.”

“If you hadn’t been there,” I said quietly. “If you hadn’t come, when you did.”

“Are you trying to say thank you?” he asked. His voice sounded low, a half-whisper. “I’ll always come for you. You know that, don’t you?”

“Yes,” I admitted. “But…”

“But?” The cove’s gentle waves lapped against him, swallowing his shoulders for a moment before baring them again.

How was I supposed to say this: that I owed him my life; that there was nobody I would rather owe it to? That I was glad for his safety; that I never wanted him to burn so cold again?

And that I might never get the sight of what he’d done out of my head?

“All those people.”

“They were Colynes. They locked you in the bottom of ship.”

True enough. And yet.

“I think you might have overreacted,” I said. Kalcedon’s eyebrows rose.

He reached forward, lifting a hand from the water. I didn’t move as his fingers brushed against my cheek. I froze, and my heart froze with me for a beat, as a scouring warmth dragged across my flesh.

“Don’t you understand yet?” Kalcedon whispered harshly. “I’d rip this world apart at the seams for you.”

“What are you two talking about?” Oraik called.

“Nothing,” I snapped.

“I’m bored,” Oraik said. “Meda, come back and sit with me? Or at least catch a fish if you’re staying in the water?”

Kalcedon snorted. His fingers were still on my face, and I didn’t dare move. I was very conscious of the fact that we were both naked. The ocean lifted and dropped my body, making me feel nearly like I didn’t have control over it. It would be all too easy for the two of us to collide. And even though I felt sick to my bones, I wanted to; I wanted him to hold me, to make me forget that we’d both almost died.