“Well?” he demanded. “Can you not say in front of the boy? What is wrong?”
“ZABIJEM T’A!”came from below deck, so loud I felt the wood rattle under my feet.
“Moon deprivation,” I murmured. “Lunar deficiency. I need to sit under the full moon.”
The pirate captain narrowed his eyes. “The full moon came and went two days ago.”
“I know.” Blinking, I stared ahead, hollow. The snarled mass of my hair hung limp on my back, my waves coarse and mangled. My dress had yellowed, stained by dried salt and sweat.
The scent of anger rose from him, hot metal in a forge. Though it likely added to his temper, I couldn’t hide a perverse smile at the thought of infuriating him.
“Why didn’t you mention you needed the full moon?” he asked, accent thickening.
I squinted an eye at him, silhouetted under the sun. It burned my retinas, but I forced myself to glare. “First time catching a siren?”
The question rolled off my tongue, and I blinked in surprise. Apparently, if someone already knew I was a Naiad, my blood didn’t obstruct my words.
He only glared, though I could smell his outrage. I rested the base of my skull on the side of an oar bench. “Would you have believed me if I said I needed to spend three nights on the main deck?”
He paced to the next bench and back. “Would it help to spend a night under the moon now?”
“Probably.”
“It better.” He waved a hand flippantly at me. “You’re worth nothing to me like this.”
“ZABIJEM T'A!”
“What’s he saying?” I asked, rolling the back of my head over the bench to peer at the pirate captain.
Kriska’s mouth curled in humor. “He’s promising to kill us.”
Amusement danced in his voice, and heat seared through me. “If he doesn’t, I will.”
He chuckled, motioning to Burian to chain me to the bench.
Dimly, I spent the day watching the pirates perform their duties aboard the sea. They flew from fore to aft like dragonflies over a pond, whizzing between the rigging and the masts, hauling the gaff and boom across the deck.
Water sloshed mildly over the walls of the hull, spreading across the floor and draining through the scuppers. The seat of my dress became wet, but I ignored it.
Exhaustion took hold. The ship climbed and dropped. I fell asleep.
70
“They laugh when you threaten them,” I whispered.
After only one night under the moon, I already felt improved. Strength returned to my fingers; I could sense water in the air again. “Don’t react to them. They’re not going to hurt me.”
Kye ignored me, eyes thrust hard into the wall as he clenched and unclenched his jaw.
His black eye had faded to pale green, the swelling in his face eased away. The cut over his cheek bone had healed into a shining pink line and would surely scar.
But a new split in his lip had appeared overnight while I’d been chained to the oar bench, and he refused to talk about it.
“Kye.”
“What?”
I glared at him until he looked at me. “Whoever hired Kriska ordered them not to harm me. He frowns when he sees the bruises around my wrists from the cuffs. They haven't laid a hand on me since we boarded. If they were going to injure me,they would have by now. They just want a rise out of you so they can attack you. It’s all a game to them.”
