“Did Akamai buy mint leaves?”
His mouth parted, his brow lifting as though—of all the things I might say—he’d expected that least. “I don’t know.”
Chest bare, his dark-gold waves tousling around his face, he looked like a warrior of the sun, some ancient deity clothed in ancestral ink and gleaming skin. I tried not to stare at the hardened muscle that coated his abdomen, my gaze lingering instead on an image tattooed onto the inner side of his forearm. A circle of elegant leaves around an imperial helmet, with a plume of hair fastened in a narrow strip that ran from crown to base.
“My mother’s family crest,” he explained, rotating his arm for a better view. “She was from Cressi.” I took his wrist, tilting it so I could see without the bright sun reflecting off the waves. The tendons in his arm tightened as he stretched his fingers. “How did your mother die?” he asked softly. “Was she killed by an islander?”
“No.” I dropped his wrist and crossed my arms, though a tingling spread through my fingertips, a sudden desire for his smooth skin against mine.
He wrapped his other hand around the wrist I’d just held, and he rotated his arm under his own grip, wiping my touch away. “So. Why is this island said to be cursed?”
“Nahli.” I gestured to the dormant volcano, the highest point of the island, blanketed by emerald ferns, moss and lichen. “Athousand years ago, this was the biggest island. The islanders of Leihani lived here until it erupted.”
“It’s cursed because the volcano erupted?” He cocked his head at the sleepy mound in the distance.
“It’s cursed because Nahli was the goddess of liquid fire. She longed for children, so she took a mortal man to her bed, but he burned alive before he could impregnate her.”
Kye’s brows jumped to the center of his forehead, blinking slowly as he stared at the distant landscape. “That’s the best way to go, I suppose.”
I crouched in my herb garden, not in the mood for humor. “And after several failed lovers, she gave up, heartbroken at the needless death and the personal failure that came with it. But she was approached by Inaina, a pregnant island woman, who promised to give Nahli her unborn child if she could save Inaina’s husband, who had fallen to the bottom of the sea.”
Kye gazed down at me, the mischievousness fading from his eyes. Wind danced with his hair, and I forced my eyes from him.
“Nahli agreed, and she left her volcanic house, venturing to the depths. But Inaina’s husband wasn't there. He was alive and well, in the arms of another woman. With Nahli off the island, Inaina threw herself into the chimney of Nahli’s volcano, knowing she’d awaken the sleeping chamber of magma below.
“Nahli’s volcano was a part of her body, as your heart is a part of yours. Miles away, deep under the water, Nahli felt something stir within her. She coughed, smoke billowed out of her mouth, and she knew she’d been tricked.”
I picked an errant weed among my turmeric starts, inspecting to see how long its roots had grown.
“She raced back to her island, but it was too late. Covered in lava, the island perished, and the people with it. All because of Inaina’s scorn and Nahli’s desire. In her grief, Nahli buried herself and her island under the water, until only the tip wasvisible. She promised if men walked her island, she would drown them. If women walked the island, she would bury them under molten rock. And if a child were to set foot on her beach, she would steal it and raise it as her own.”
The leaves of my turmeric brushed my hands. I sat back on my heels, numb as I watched them sway in the wind, long and glossy.
Kye sucked his teeth. “Such a comfort, these island stories.”
“It's a myth,” I deadpanned. “I've been coming here since I was a child. I should either be buried or stolen, and you should be drowned.”
He crooked a small smile. “I almost did.”
His tone was playful, but I didn’t laugh. Gazing at my hands through the leaves, my arms covered in damp soil and scores of red, the distant thud in my head returned, blood rushing in and out of my ears. I held my arms out, staring at the angry tracks Naheso had carved into me.
Kye’s lips parted as though he read my thoughts, and he crossed the sand to fold his fingers around the raised welts in my skin.
“Why—” I breathed, unable to form any solid thought other than the single word.
He shook his head, shoulders softening as he gazed at me. “Because the biggest threat anyone will ever face is their own fear,” he said, hands firm around my marred flesh. “And the biggest fear anyone will face is their own demons.” His eyes flickered over mine, as if there were more—as if he himself had once chased the threat of fear away.
Or been hunted because of it.
“He said he knew Iwasn’ta witch,” I murmured.
Kye’s mouth tightened. He lifted a hand into the hairline under my ear, his thumb sweeping across the corner of my jaw,sending a nervous warmth through my face and neck. “No,” he said. “You’re something else entirely.”
“I think I hate them all.” I waited for his judgement, but he licked his lips and swallowed.
“You have the right.” His thumb glided along the groove under my neck and across my throat, eyes dropping to the bruises beginning to bloom there, and he exhaled slowly.
A static washed over me, buzzing in my head, vibrating in my belly. I swayed, caught under the power of his warmth, his hands, his eyes.
