Page 126 of Daughter of the Dark Sea

She scoffed at the wordfamily, and his brown eyes saddened. For a moment they stood in the large, suffocating silence of the council chamber. Every second that passed, the more her fiery rage withered. Doubt filled her mind, and the only thing she knew in this moment was that this war waswrong.

She didn’t want to be admiral if it meant sentencing everyone else to the Locker.

“I don’t know who to trust anymore,” she admitted.

“You can trust—” Erick stopped short, his stare narrowing behind her, and she turned to face a tall, dark figure approaching from a tunnel connected to the ground floor. Erick stepped closer as Blake emerged from the shadows, his face taut.

“Kora.” His voice was distant, cold.

“Blake.”

His eyes flickered to her bleeding hands, but the blank expression remained. “I need to talk to you. Outside.”

“Marwood, not now. We’re in the middle of something.” Erick placed a hand on her arm.

She glanced between the two males, as they stared each other down. Forest green against the brown of tree bark during a sunset.

“I’m going with him.” She peeled away from Erick, and something close to pain and worry flashed across his face.

Blake’s mouth twitched as he gestured to the tunnelled darkness. Between Erick and Blake, Kora knew she’d rather face the despair of her broken relationship with Blake than face the lies and secrets between her and Erick.

Because if she ever lost Erick—her only family—or discovered he’d lied to her all this time, she wasn’t sure if she would ever recover.

She had already lost one father. She couldn’t lose another.

50

They strolled in silence all the way to the Emerald Forest surrounding the Citadel. As if some fresh air would somehow rectify everything between them. Kora had heard legends of the forest’s mysterious nature. People would go missing here, and when their friends and families searched for them, they’d hear their screams echo from the trees instead.

As they walked, breathing in this supposedly requiredfresh air, the forest expanded, thickening from a mix of light greenery into dark pine trees and weeping willows. Shadows between trees darkened, and the bark became twisted, roots breaking through the ground like hands reaching for saviours.

She shuddered, carefully navigating the claw-shaped roots.

“Natives buried the dead here,” Blake broke the silence. “This stretch of forest was barren land the Devanians used as a burial ground. After some time, trees grew from the buried bodies . . . creating life.”

Kora peered at him curiously. He never cared for tales from the Devanian era, yet here he was, speaking so casually, as if he knew all about it.

“I can’t tell if that’s beautiful, or horrific,” she murmured.

Keeping her bandaged hands clasped at her front, she jumped over a log, following his charging presence through the winding forest. Her palms stung from the shards of her dagger, and she wished they were out at sea, surrounded by the only environment she thrived in. If her magic still worked, she could heal herself with water. But they were so far from the ocean now, she couldn’t hear the waves, or see the glistening, blue horizon.

“Sometimes, the most beautiful things are also the deadliest. Despite this land once being barren, used as a dumping ground for death, it took what it’d been given, and turned it into something . . .more.”

Her mind flickered to the Galen moonstone chest, full of beautiful yet deadly weapons. Those recovered chests were locked deep in Stormkeep Fortress’ vaults. Never to be seen again.

Blake stopped by a tree. Its branches hung down, cascading around them like a clawed, green hand. He gently brushed a leaf, rubbing it between his thumb and forefinger. The tree groaned and she jerked beside him.

“It’s just the wind.” He almost chuckled.

“Are you sure it’s not the dead?” She knewthe sound of the wind, and that wasn’t it.

Their eyes met. His smile dropped. “Do you think we can do the same?”

“Groan like trees? I don’t have the lung capacity.” She hoped the joke would ease the trepidation cresting within her, but looming shadows writhed in the corner of her eye and her pulse raced.

“We’ve been dealt a shitty hand, just like this land.” He took a step forward and she retreated one. “Can we . . . can we salvage this? Turn it into something more, something great?”

She swallowed. Hard. “You tell me.”