Page 33 of I Summon the Sea

“I’ve seen how you look at me,” he goes on. “Do you like what you see?”

By now, I’m spitting mad, because I do, damn him, and his little exchange with the darakin crushed my defenses. It takes a lot to keep his beauty from destroying me.

He nods as if confirming something to himself, and turns to go. He tosses over his shoulder, “I’m Jaien, by the way. My friends call me Jai.”

But we’re not friends.

And now is not the time to be anything other than enemies.

Jaien.Another word for obsidian. A name as dark as the black of his hair and eyes, like the black swirls staining his cheekbones and the skin under his eyes.

Jai.

“I can’t wait to see you get thrown into some dungeon to die.”

“You, a human, bedraggled and infested with lice and worms. With death.”

He said those things to me. And meant them.

Remember the coldness in his gaze, I tell myself,the disgust and disdain, remember the bite of his voice. Remember what he has done to this world.

So what if he gave you his cloak and his name later?

Patchwork has never fixed a hole in the weave. It simply covers it. He has been violent and aggressive, and I’m not falling for this act of feigned remorse. I’ve seen it before. It’s what gets girls into loveless, violent marriages and ends with their deaths.

A man—a fae—like Athdara can’t be trusted. Especially a fae who obviously has no heart. No conscience. No real feelings.

And I don’t want friends. Don’t need friends. This isn’t what I’m here for.

I rattle the pearls in my hidden pouch and pat my dagger. These are the tools I need.

If I manage to pass off as a highborn lady, a lady with a steel edge, and get into the palace, then I’ll stab deep and hard.

Not all ladies are made of cotton clouds and sugar.

The oarsmen take their places on the benches, and the captain shouts out orders. The guards line the barge once more, hefting their spears. Some, I realize, hold crossbows.

This is the last stretch, and our convoy separates from the carved, tall boats of the fae aristocracy quickly.

They are headed for the palace, while we are headed for the Temple Island that is connected to the palace with the arching bridge, the place where the human sacrifices are supposed to make their last landfall before the trials.

I hadn’t known that we’d be separated from the rest, though I should have seen it coming. Yes, I shouldn’t be on this barge, in this convoy, if I wanted to pass off as a lady and go directly to the palace.

But there’s still the bridge to the palace. So there’s still a chance to cross.

Follow the plan.

Don’t overthink it.

No watersprights attack us on the way, and we finally dock at the island, the tall boats rowing past us, the fae onboard them sneering as they overtake us.

A foretaste of what’s to come.

I think it, and yet don’t fully realize what it means—a foretaste—until our barge bumps against the dock, and the guards rush to get off.

As I gather myself together and step off the barge, I see that the guards are hurrying to form a circle on the paved ground.

And before I figure out what’s happening, before the formation sinks in, I’m swept along by a sudden, noisy little crowd—grabbing hands, jamming elbows, kicking feet. I find myself yards away from the boat already when I realize what happened: the cages were opened, and the human prisoners surged out onto the shore with cries and sobs.

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