Page 31 of Whispers of the Starlit Sea (Avalore Chronicles #1)

Chapter nineteen

T he sun’s early rays did little to disperse the fog that clung to the harbor.

Gray light stole across the water, turning dark shadows to hazy shapes.

The harbor rocks loomed out of the mist like grave markers.

The air was thick with the damp scent of seaweed and salt.

In the distance, circling gulls called to each other.

Sorcha paid little mind to the arrival of the day. Her red-rimmed eyes remained fixed on the damp rocks where her father had lain, her throat raw.

The Watchers had taken his body back to Muirin along with the freed merfolk. The king would be given the traditional parting ceremony, and she wouldn’t be there for it. She wouldn’t get to say goodbye to her father, nor apologize to her mother for not being able to save him.

“What day is it?” she asked suddenly, lifting her head from her folded arms.

Arick started a reply, but he hadn’t understood her. He’d appeared beside her sometime in the last hours, silently offering her support.

“The moon. Was it full last night?” This time, she signed as she spoke.

“No, tonight.” His hands bore the marks of the night, covered in scrapes and bruises.

She’d been wrong. Last night hadn’t been her last. The moon’s betrayal stung like saltwater in an open wound. She should have been sea-foam by now — washed away by the waves as the sun kissed the shore.

Now she had to live one more day. A day full of pain knowing her father was gone. A day knowing Arick would never be able to break the curse.

Because it was unbreakable.

She’d held out hope. As much as she’d tried not to, her traitorous heart had refused not to wish it were possible.

But he had risked himself for her. Had helped her at every turn. Had nearly died helping her.

And he’d come back to her.

Yet she was still here. On land, with two feet and no tail.

She stood, unsteady as always, as the shards of glass pierced her feet. Arick joined her, dusting the dirt from his trousers.

If she only had one day left to live, she would spend it finding a way to stop Rona. Whatever she was trying to accomplish wouldn’t save the merfolk. It would only hurt the humans.

And the humans would continue to blame the mer. They’d start a war the mer could not hope to win.

And the rest of her family would die.

Rona’s power came from that strange bracer she wore.

But Sorcha couldn’t hope to get it from her — she couldn’t go in the water, and Rona would never come close enough to land to let her take it.

Her best option would be to get help. But with Ewan and the other prisoners back in the grotto, Ciara and Maeve would be too busy to come to the surface.

They wouldn’t anyway. Not with Father’s funeral to prepare for. She shivered, the sea’s soft mourning echoing in each retreating wave.

A warm arm wrapped around her, and she sank against Arick’s chest. His heart beat a steady rhythm, and she clung to him lest he vanish like everything else in her life.

“My sister, Rona, is responsible for everything,” she finally confessed. She signed the words with one hand, the other buried in Arick’s shirt, stiff with the dried saltwater. Her eyes burned, her tears locked away.

“I know.” He turned them toward the cliff door, away from the tunnel.

Rona, not Maeve. She couldn’t help but feel a wave of relief that her aunt wasn’t the one trying to kill the humans Sorcha had grown to care for.

But her stomach churned. She should have known it was Rona, with the way she despised humans and called them weak.

Where had that hatred come from? The mer generally had no ill will toward the land-dwellers and preferred to keep their presence a secret.

And until a few months ago, Rona had been no different.

Something had changed. Where had Rona gotten the bracer? Contained magic like that was a human creation. Had she found it on the seafloor the same way Sorcha had found many of her own treasures? Or in one of the shipwrecks? But none of her curios had ever held hidden magic.

“I’m worried she’s not going to stop,” she signed, her footsteps slowing. “I think she wants something.”

Arick nodded, his arm firm around her. She waited for him to elaborate, the deep lines between his brows indicating he was thinking of something, but he stayed silent.

Sorcha buried her head against him once more. She needed to stop Rona from starting a war with the humans. But she didn’t know how. She wasn’t a Watcher or trained in any sort of battle magic. She was only a Healer.

A poor excuse for a Healer at that. She couldn’t even heal herself from this curse.

And it had led to her father’s death.

A rick wanted nothing more than to scoop Sorcha into his arms and carry her over the rocks, to protect her from pain, to shield her from all he could.

But though she leaned into him, frail and trembling, he sensed a deep brittleness in her.

One wrong word, one wrong move, and she’d shatter like glass.

And so he supported her quietly, swallowing the words he longed to shout from the foremast. Telling her how much he loved her would have to wait. First, he would have to face the fallout from releasing the merfolk. And tonight was Thomas’s coronation ball. He would be there for his cousin.

And after the ball, before the moon set, he would bring Sorcha back to the water and hold her until the tide took her from his arms.

He hadn’t found a way to break her curse. The knowledge of his failure was a knife through his heart. He couldn’t lose her. He’d already lost Daniel, and this would be so much worse.

Tucking her closer under his arm, he lifted her other hand with his free one, clinging to whatever part of her he could. She glanced up at him, her sapphire-blue eyes wide and shimmering in the early summer sun. How had she claimed his heart so completely in only a few short weeks?

No, he corrected himself. His heart had been hers from the moment she’d first looked at him and trusted him.

They drew near the castle entrance, and he took a steadying breath. As much as he wanted to, they couldn’t hide on the shore all day. Time to face up to what he had done.

The guard nodded to them as she let them pass, and they were immediately enveloped in the bustle of the castle.

Despite the early hour, the staff were alight with the preparations for the evening’s festivities.

They dodged past a pair of servants juggling a ladder and several table-lengths of fabric, maids scrubbing the floors, and a harried footman struggling to balance a tray of goblets.

The sharp scent of vinegar warred with the delicious aromas wafting from the kitchens.

They found no sign of Thomas or his father in the small sitting room nor in the family’s dining room, so they continued toward the bedchambers.

Sorcha leaned more heavily on him as they went, and if it weren’t for his own exhaustion, he would have carried her up the steps, but he feared dropping her.

The stairs led to a quieter hall, with only a few maids slipping in and out of the guest rooms. A door creaked open behind them, and Arick barely had time to turn before Ailsa descended upon them.

“There you are!” She squeezed Arick before turning to Sorcha, her hands flying as she spoke.

“I was so worried about you both! After I convinced the guard to leave his post, he was so concerned about me, he followed me all the way back here, but Mother was waiting and I couldn’t get back.

” She swatted Arick’s arm. “Where were you? I expected you to send word hours ago!”

She paused long enough to take in their appearance, her eyes narrowing as she noted their torn and filthy clothing, the dried blood on Arick’s hand, the weariness etched on them both. “What happened? Were you harmed?”

Arick shook his head, his tongue heavy as he sought how to tell her. “We weren’t anticipating the storm to be as bad as it was. Sorcha’s…one of the merfolk was killed.”

Ailsa froze, her hands stilling for once. “Oh.” Her hands moved first, a fist circling tightly against her chest. “I’m so sorry.”

She took a deep breath, meeting Arick’s gaze once more.

“You must both be exhausted. Arick, your room by Thomas’s is still free, and Sorcha can come with me. I’ll order a bath, and you can rest.” With that, she whisked Sorcha back through the door whence she had appeared, supporting the red-haired woman despite being several inches shorter.

They were gone before he could say anything, and his side was suddenly cold where Sorcha had stood for so long. Funny how perfectly she fit against him.

A yawn cracked Arick’s jaw as he contemplated Ailsa’s offer.

A bath and a nap would both be sorely welcome, but he ought to first find the king and speak to him.

He swayed, undecided, as another door opened, and a noble he recognized from the Edelish court passed by, wrinkling his nose.

Although such an expression wasn’t uncommon for the Edelish, Arick surmised his own appearance had much to do with the current derision.

Perhaps today was not the day to look like he’d been pulled out of the sea in a fisher’s net.

He hurried down the hall, passing his room long enough to rap an almost-forgotten rhythm on Thomas’s door, before returning to the bedchamber Ailsa had said was free. If Thomas were there, he’d come.

Arick stumbled through the door and collapsed in a chair, where he forced his boots off. The scent of the sea mingled with his own sweat.

Yes. A bath, then he would tackle the consequences of doing what was right.