Page 107 of Dagger in the Sea

A sudden brisk wind kicked up, groaning through the stones, whipping her hair between us. The Aegean winds wanted their sea goddess on their cliff rocks.

“Please, Turo, I want to show it to you.”

That coil of warmth unspooled in my chest at the gentle yet urgent tone in her voice.“I want to see it,” I said, and her face split into a grin. A red hot little ping pong ball shuffled through my insides at the sight.

She went on ahead of me, making her way up the steps made of stacked long, flat island stones. Her fingers gripped the smaller rocks that made up the base of the arch as she dug the toes of her feet in and pulled herself up. I followed her.

Up, up, up.

The bridge was small, the arch very steep, and there were no railings. I imagined there had to have been other bridges here to serve the Venetian Lord and his army who’d built this castle fortress, but only this one had survived.

We made it to the top, gulping in deep breaths as we straightened our bodies, which almost felt awkward and unstable there up high, the winds blowing, the bridge narrow. I took in the immensity of the sea. Everything seemed grander from up here.

“Quickly now,” Adri said as she stepped lightly going down the other side of the arch. She reached the stone platform at the base and held a hand out to me, and my pulse skittered. I took her in like a breath of sea air—hair flying, muscles of her legs flexed, shoulders tense, eagerness stamped on her face, and that long arm stretched out to take me with her.

Our escape, our adventure. Together.

I clapped my hand in hers and she firmly pulled me toward her. “Ready?”

Yes, yes, yes.

“Ready,” I replied.

We climbed up a steeper series of rock piles that were the fragments of the old castle wall and reached a tall metal pole where the Greek flag flapped persistently in the violent wind. Ambling over patches of thorny bushes and stones, we finally made it to the castle ruins. I took her hand in mine and we went inside. I wanted to feel her excitement, the urge to be connected to it physically, to her, was overwhelming.

Blasted high in one wall was a huge hole, an open window to the sky. We climbed up to a ledge just under it and swallowed in the view of the entire town laid out before us in one long expanse of whitewashed houses, accents of blue and terra-cotta, domed churches, the whitecaps of the turbulent water on either side.

Adri scrambled down off the ledge and up to another on the opposite wall. A tiny white lighthouse stood proudly on a slim chunk of broken rock, looking as if a huge axe had fallen upon it and sliced off large hunks of its foundation, narrowly missing the lighthouse itself.

“Another family donated the money to have it rebuilt after it was destroyed in the war. The rock was much larger before, this big chip was all that was left.”

“It’s a humble little thing, but noble.”

“And it does its job very well.”

I turned toward the horizon. The infinite Aegean stretched out before us, a never-ending sweep of churning cerulean blue filled my vision. The ancient sea of fables and epic tales.

“Must have been something to live up here all year round,” I said.

“The Venetians built three castles on the island. This one was built by the governing Lord, the Doge’s nephew.”

“If the Doge of Venice gave it to his own nephew, Andros was important to him.”

“Marino Dandolo,” she said in a perfect Italian accent.

“There’s a colorful name.”

“He was a colorful character. Mean. Didn’t last long. Decades of infighting followed his demise.”

“Fool.”

The wind howled softly through the stones. We sat down next to each other in the ruins. The ruins of so many battles and wars. Now, for us, this castle was a refuge of raw tranquility. A temple.

We sat close, our arms pressed against each other’s, our legs. Like children spellbound by the sea. Up here, I was a million miles away from everything I’d built around me over the years. Like this castle fort, all my twisted truths, my white lies, the blood staining my hands, were stones piled high, creating walls. Walls with gaps, holes, the wind tearing through. Walls that were subject to assault, walls that crumbled, walls that had not withstood the truths of time and the ravages of war. So many wars.

“Turo?”

“Hmm?”

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