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The sky turned violet as the countdown in my head reached its end.
Two.
One.
Zero.
The countdown had been running for sixteen years, ever since my father hid his wife and newborn upon this sequestered island with the last of his coins and a promise to return for us.
Tonight he would make good on that promise.
On the eve of my sixteenth birthday, as the sun left the sea, he would return and reveal his wife and daughter to the world—or so his letters claimed.
We would join his fleet and he’d officially announce me as his heir.
With one word from him, our lives would begin.
The sun had left the sea. It was time.
I perched on the rocky bank beside Mama, our eyes trained upon the horizon. The seas were restless tonight, almost like they felt the tumbling of my heart, or the roaring of blood in my veins. I didn’t want to blink for fear that I’d miss Father’s coming ship.
“With every ripple, I think it’s his green flags.”
I had to squint to see in the dying light.
“The wind is against him tonight, so his sails will need to be dropped to make it through the pass, but the flag will be up.”
“The seas were against us the night we arrived.”
In Mama’s voice, I heard a thousand memories. She wrapped her arms around her knees while her silky blue scarf trailed in the northbound wind, her gaze pinned to the water. As desperately as I wished to meet my father, she’d been waiting an equally long time to see her husband again. She shivered against the night, but her voice remained strong as she said.
“We had to dump everything and row with all our might to make it past the rocks.”
Father was a stronger sailor now.
Back then, he’d been an up-and-coming merchant with dreams of an empire.
Now he controlled the most renowned fleet, the Silver Wings, and held exclusive rights to the coveted trade route between the islands, nicknamed the Shallows.
The Shallows passed through the more populated areas in the Hundred Islands, where markets were busiest and fares were highest, and one-tenth of all coin went into Father’s pockets because he was the only one with rights to sail there.
The waters between islands were too narrow to allow many ships through, so all who didn’t hold the rights to that route had to take a longer path around the outer islands and dock at different ports.
It was an honor to hold the Shallows.
According to Father’s letters that I kept in a trunk beneath my bed, the Shallows and the Silver Wings fleet would one day be mine.
“Just think. By sunrise, we will be dining with the rest of the fleet, and I’ll stay at the helm by Father’s side, showing him all I have learned.”
I’d replayed the image in my head so many times, it almost felt like a memory instead of a wish.
Father had never publicly declared an heir. Tonight, he would.
A voice shouted in the distance, but not from the sea. Clark came running down the rocky shore, his long legs tripping along every rock as he aimed for us. He crossed the wet stones, almost slipping twice, until finally making it to the jetty.
Clark crouched beside me and dug his fingers into whatever purchase they could find while his knuckles turned white.
“Did I miss it?”
“I’d be gone if you missed it.”
He quieted at that. Mother shot me a look.
Be kind, her eyes seemed to say.
Fine.
“I would have said goodbye before I left,” I added.
She nodded in approval, while Clark grinned. It was probably the truth, anyway. Clark had been my closest friend on this island, and the only one to know who my father was. All others got some sad story about a wayward sailor who’d abandoned us without a care, but Clark knew the truth. My father was Gerald Montclair, wealthiest merchant in the Hundred Islands, and he hid us for our protection against those who would seek to undermine his business by stealing us away. They’d already tried once. It’s why we had to be so secretive now, and why we were left on an island surrounded by sharp rocks and uncertain waters, and why we couldn’t tell anyone who we belonged to.
Only Clark had earned our trust enough to tell him our secret.
I’d only told him so he understood my leaving was inevitable. While I’d been counting down until I could leave, he’d been counting down how many days we had left.
“You’re really going to go,”
Clark whispered.
I clutched Father’s note in my hand, the one with his promise to return.
“My place in the world is out there.”
I refocused on the horizon, at the slip of sea running between jagged rocks where we’d first come to this forsaken place. To protect our relation to Father, we couldn’t send letters. But coded notes from him came as often as he could post them.
The days of hoarding his letters were over. Our relationship would be counted in memories now, not words.
“I’m meant to be at his side.”
I gave Clark a sidelong glance, enough to see the tight draw of his shoulders and the way his lip pulled between his teeth. He was like the ocean mist, a stumbling thing disrupted by any wind, but beautiful in a certain light, and a constant I could depend on. My heart had no right to be sorry to leave Clark, not when I’d always known what my path would be. I never let myself fall in love with him. I’d stuffed my head so thoroughly with dreams of a life with my father that it had no room for anything else.
I tried to forget the heartbroken boy beside me that would soon watch his best friend leave. My heart might be protected, but he’d been foolish enough to open his when we both knew how this ended.
The waves crashed against the island with a vengeance tonight, while the skies continued to tip toward black. Father was late. And with each coming wave that didn’t bring him, I thought less of Clark and grew more and more anxious.
Father would come. His skiff would make it past the rocks. Soon, he would be here. I’d repeated those words to myself all morning as Mother and I packed our belongings into bags. My Father was coming for me. He’d given his word, and he wouldn’t let us down.
He loved me.
He loved Mother.
He would be here.
Except…
It’d been two years since his notes stopped coming. Mother and I didn’t speak of it, but worry ebbed at our confidence, leaving us frayed at the edges. We were living on blind hope at this point, and a great deal of stubborn determination that all would be well.
Clark said nothing, but I knew that for Mother and me, the air grew shallower by the minute.
It didn’t help that I had no memory of Father to make Mother’s stories real, nor did she have any proof of her word. We had letters signed with an alias, and for two years, we hadn’t even had that.
I am the heir to the Shallows and the future captain of the Silver Wings, I reminded myself. By tomorrow morning, the world would know that. Then the flicker of doubt in my head could slumber.
“Rough winds tonight,”
Clark finally commented.
“I’m sure that’s it.”
I tightened my grip on Father’s last note and willed the storm in my belly to be still.
The breeze howled against pale rocks, the air pitching colder as constellations came out. I teetered on the thin line between excitement and unease, leaning further to one side as time snuck by. The muscles in Mother’s cheek feathered, but she only took her eyes off the sea for a brief moment to tie back her sandy-blonde hair, then refocused herself, her eyes almost silver as they pinned themselves on the distance.
I didn’t acquire any of her light coloring. My skin came in a dull shade of tan, my hair the hue of imported chocolate, my eyes dark green like murky waters. Exactly like my father, according to her.
It pleased me to think that Father would spot me and know I had his blood in my veins. I wouldn’t have to say anything. He’d just know.
But first, he had to appear.
I’ll come for you, Serenity, on the eve of your sixteenth birthday. Wait for me as the sun sets.
The sun had set all across the Hundred Islands by now, the skies painted indigo and waters stained black. Moonlight flickered off seas that sparkled like shattered glass. And still, no sign of my Father. Where was he?
“Ren, look!”
Clark grabbed my arm. My gaze whipped to the left as my heartbeat ratcheted.
“No,”
Mother said before my hope could soar.
“That’s not him. Gerald doesn’t have any caravels in his fleet.”
The narrow caravel sliced through the pass, its single-masted triangular sail bearing the sigil of Callahan. A wolf with verdant eyes. It aimed for the docks in the gulf of the island, while men rowed out to meet it. This time of year was the only time one of Callahan’s ships came as far as Haven, but everyone always wanted a glimpse of the ships belonging to the richest man in all the Hundred Islands.
We all knew what it journeyed for. The caravel brought no cargo and no passengers for us. Only a message about the coming Quarter Labyrinth.
“I almost wish I could be here to watch the island go crazy when that scroll is opened at midnight.”
I squinted to try to see as the scroll was passed from the caravel to the rowboat. Someone received it, and they’d guard it until it was opened in the square tonight.
Clark brushed his scarlet hair away from his forehead. He might be a year older, but the smattering of red freckles across his cheeks kept him looking boyish, even as his hands grew calloused from working with the blacksmith. He always smelled like a fire while I reeked of the sea.
“I’ll write to you about everything that happens,”
he said.
“I hear Bjorn already packed his bags to find the labyrinth.”
Bjorn would have a beastly time finding it without a clue to the location, which I knew he couldn’t afford. But if he happened to find it, he had the grit to get in—and maybe get out.
“Think you’ll ever attempt the Quarter Labyrinth?”
As I asked the question, the crowd by the gulf cheered. The rowboat must have reached the shore. A few more hours, and they could read about what reward awaited whoever reached the center of the labyrinth first. An hour later, those who had paid for clues would receive theirs, and the race would be off to find the labyrinth before its gates closed.
Clark shook his head, his brown eyes almost black in the scant light.
“Unless it appears here on Haven—not my ocean, not my tide.”
A saying we had that meant I couldn’t care less.
I peeked at him.
“You don’t plan to ever leave these shores?”
“You might be meant for the seas, but I was made for a steady home, assurance of food on the table, and a cotton bed each night.”
Any joy in the air guttered out. The words mimicked the ones he’d spoken a year ago to convince me to stay.
“I can give you a steady home, food on the table, and a warm bed each night. Stay with me, Ren. Make a life here, by my side.”
A thousand storms could tip my boat and toss me into the freezing sea, and I still wouldn’t feel as wretched as I did when I’d replied, “No.”
I swallowed hard, digging my toes into the rocks to replant myself in that spot, forcing all my focus back to the slip of sea that ships could pass through. The caravel had gone and the night fell silent once more, save for the bonfire raging in the village square.
Any moment, Father would come, and Clark could untangle his heart from me.
We waited as the night darkened further, shadows melting until half of the island lay behind a veil of black. The other half—the village and the pier—remained alive as almost every islander waited for the scroll to be revealed. Everyone except us. As the night continued to set in, we remained unmoving.
“He’s going to be here,”
I whispered against the sea.
“I have full faith of that,”
Mother replied.
Clark nodded.
“Any moment.”
Within the hour, I couldn’t see the horizon anymore.
“He’s going to be here,”
I spoke again.
“I know he’ll return,”
Mother said.
Clark had no reply.
An hour later, I could hardly see the narrow pass.
“He’s going to be here.”
I was repeating the words to convince myself. This time, no one replied.
Another painfully slow hour passed, and the only water easy to see was the tear that slipped down Mother’s cheek. She stood, pulling her threadbare shawl tighter around her lithe frame, turning her back on the waters.
“I’m going to wait in the hut where it’s warmer.”
I nodded, my throat too tight to risk speaking.
“Goodnight, Miss Allison,”
Clark whispered.
She crossed the jetty and moved up the shore to where she’d built our small hut—a stone’s throw away from where she and Father landed when they first came to this island.
I’ll come for you and Serenity on the eve of her sixteenth birthday. Wait for me as the sun sets.
The note was cold in my hand. I slipped it into my pocket, then stared back to the empty seas.
“Ren…”
Clark’s voice came like a soothing breeze, and I hated that. It sounded like giving up.
“He will be here.”
“I believe you, but there’s no shame in waiting in the hut.”
“I’m not going to miss the moment my father returns. It’s probably safer for him to sail in the dark of night anyway.”
That was it. He had to be careful about who might see. His enemies still lurked, searching for how to steal the Shallows, and they could try to use his wife and daughter against him. Just as they had seventeen years ago when they kidnapped Mother. Father was being cautious, that was all.
Clark’s gaze cut between me and the sea.
“Those rocks are notoriously dangerous to travel through. He’d be a mad man to attempt it at night.”
I spoke through my teeth.
“He’s Gerald Montclair. He can sail through anything, and he’s going to come tonight.”
He released a long sigh before resuming his vigil.
I tried to be like Mother—made of deep waters and gentle currents. But I’d always been a storm. With each passing minute, that storm churned darker, until it was a typhoon that whipped against my bones, pulling me apart at the seams.
“He promised he’d come,”
I whispered.
Clark’s hand flickered, then stilled.
“He will. He’s only a bit late.”
He stood, checking the moon.
“It’s almost time for the scroll to be opened. Want to get your mind off things by watching the island scramble over themselves for a few pounds of gold?”
No. I wanted to stay here forever until barnacles grew along my toes and I was made of salt. But I forced myself to stand and not shed a tear.
“Just for a moment, then I’ll come back.”
With a final glance toward the sea, I trailed after Clark.
You better come, I begged Father. Because I’ve been counting on getting off this island, and I have nothing if I don’t have you.
Table of Contents
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