Page 5 of The Ocean's Heart
“We have a princess,” Berand snapped. “One that can be traded or ransomed. Do you not think the news of the alliance has spread?”
We’d done our utmost to keep it quiet, but… “They can board us, but they won’t find her here. Berand, Finnius, you’ll take the rowboat and sail ahead. Use the mist to the east to hide you.”
“They’ll go searching when they don’t find her on board,” Berand warned.
I rose slowly. “No, they won’t, because shewillbe on board. At least they’ll think she is.”
“You’re going to pretend to be her?” Tomas said. “Thalia, that’s insane. We should go, all of us. There are two row boats, and if we?—”
“Enough!” How he ever made it on to the guard was beyond me. “If the ship is empty, then they will search the seas for certain. Bryony is our people’s hope. Shemustbe protected at all costs.”
“Then let me go with her,” Tomas implored.
How had I ever deigned to sleep with this weasel? “You? A man who was ready to run just now? No. You’ll stay here and prove your worth as a guard.” I strode to the exit. “Grab your weapons and prepare for battle.”
The sea looters wouldn’t know what hit them.
ChapterThree
VAARIN
Waves crash against the cliffside below me like an angry lover demanding my attention. I step forward and tip back my head to bathe in the mist that rises to kiss my skin.
The transition from sea to land is never easy. The burn of air in my lungs, its alien touch on my skin, and its invasive fingers raking through my hair. I hate it, and yet it is a necessary evil.
This island was a necessary evil, the humans who once inhabited it a desperate concession that my father was forced to make, and for some time, the Northern Sea Kingdom thrived, but the agreement my father forged with the land dwellers ended, and our numbers eventually waned once again.
This new alliance with King Bronan of Faircaster Isle is a permanent solution. The gift that the royal female will bring will filter into my bloodline and to my people through the power that binds my kingdom to me. Although, when the deal was first brought to me, I did wonder what kind of king would name his isle after himself. I wondered at his arrogance, and in other circumstances, given the luxury, I might have turned down his offer.
But the circumstances were dire.
His offer our only hope.
And so, arrogant or not, our bloodlines would soon be united by marriage.
“We were lucky,” Lyam says beside me. “If the Faircasters had gone to the eastern kingdom, or even the west…”
“I know. But I doubt that the news has escaped the other sea kings’ ears.”
“Our ocean guard have reported no breaches on our territory, and the blue coral route is a no conflict zone.”
“The oaths that make it so do not apply to all, Lyam, and you know that well.”
“Then we must hope that news of this alliance has not reached the wrong ears,” Lyam replies.
I don’t need to look at him to know that he wears a frown. It is a favored expression of his of late. His cobalt blue hair is beginning to gray, and there are lines of exhaustion around his eyes that were not there a summer ago. My adviser is beginning to show his age. I’m not sure why I’m surprised by this. He isn’t a royal, and his lifespan will be that of any other sea fae, and yet the thought of losing him evokes a sense of unsettlement inside me.
He has been my confidant and closest friend for the last one hundred years. Losing him will be unpleasant.
The wind howls, a message from the sea, begging me to return.
Soon, I promise it.
Once the deal is sealed.
My attention moves to the dark skies in the distance where a storm races across the horizon, into the path of my most precious cargo.
I suspect it is no ordinary storm, that it is a conjuring, and my suspicions are confirmed as it shifts trajectory too suddenly to be elemental in nature.
