Kai looks up at me with those piercing eyes and a soft smile. “You’re unforgettable, treasure. She remembers you.” His words wash over me like warmth sinking into frozen skin. “She probably couldn’t come near you. It would’ve put you in danger,” he says softly. “Look how many are after you already. If sherevealed herself too soon, you’d be dead. Watching from afar, that might’ve been the only way she could keep you safe. And if you’d never stepped foot on my ship…” He trails off, his jaw tight. “I don’t even want to think about it.”
His emotions shift like he’s been pulled under ice. His jaw tightens and ticks. The thought of losing me makes him feel sick. But he’s right, without Kai and the crew, I wouldn’t have survived. I’d be a ghost drifting through the sea.
“What happens if I die?” I ask softly, the question trembling out of me. “What happens to the ocean? Its soul?”
Kai’s expression changes to a look I haven’t seen yet, heartbroken and confused at the same time. “I ask myself this question every day. I don’t want to find out.” He sits up, to look in my eyes. “It looks like we have a clear path to the fountain, but we have to turn the witch in…” He stops to take a breath and gather his thoughts. “Have you thought about what you’re going to wish for?”
The thought hasn’t left my mind since we set out to find the fountain. “I’m still trying to figure it out. I know that's bad, but a lot has changed in my life. My original wish was to bring my parents back but that’s changed. Now you’re sick, that’s the number one reason why wehaveto get to the fountain.”
He smiles at me, caressing my face with his hand “I can wish for my own health. Don’t waste your wish on me,” Kai says.
“It’s not a waste of a wish if it saves your life.” I smile down at him. “Which, as you know, saves mine too.” He lets out a soft laugh.
“You can pick your own wish at your own pace, treasure, there’s no pressure for you. I pulled out two more siren claws from my arm, so we have four wishes now.” He moves to reach for his neck and pulls out a necklace with four siren claws on it. “Whatever your heart desires, you’ll get.”
“What’s your wish?” I ask quietly. “Your scar?”
He nods. “To be cured of this siren curse,” he says, sighing. “Originally it was for your safety, but now I think saving me is what is going to keep you alive longer.”
My heart sinks. I hate that this scar has poisoned him. My eyes find the black veins trailing down his arm, slowly starting to take over his chest.
He watches me look at the curse, a smile playing on his lips. “Don’t worry,” he says with reassurance.
“How could I not be worried? It’s spreading.”
He brushes a strand of hair behind my ear. “Because we will get there. It will be okay, even if I’m sick for a little while.” He’s just so sure and confident all the time that it bothers me. If I had a dark curse running through my veins, I would be worried sick every second of every day.
“Okay, do you promise we’ll make it there?” I ask, knowing that he can’t promise me that fully, but it helps take away some of the unsettling feelings arising.
“I promise, Mira. I won’t let us die.” His words linger, suspended between us. “There is no world without you in it,” he finishes, his gaze locked with mine. “We will make it through this.”
“I love you.” It’s all I can get out.
He smiles, then sits up, and kisses me. “I love you, my treasure.” And then he takes me, again and again, until sleep finally claims us, tangled in each other’s arms. Naked beneath the moonlight, the soft flicker of the lantern painting golden fire across our skin.
Just us against the world and everything that stands in our way. But together, we’ll take it all on.
Because together, we are everything. In a world so vast, we’ve become the center of it, our bond eternal, beyond any end we could ever fathom.
Chapter thirty-three
Mira
Shell of Secrets
When I wake, my thoughts are razor sharp. We’re inching closer to facing the most powerful witch the sea has ever known.
The memory of my mother still clings to me, her body drifting lifeless in the tide, the ocean wrapping around her like a grave. I remember the exact moment my father’s soul shattered. The blade touched her skin, and something in him fractured, never to return. He carried that grief like an anchor with every wave hesailed. But even in all that sorrow, he was unbreakable, his love for her so fierce, so consuming, it cracked the world open.
I think I knew then that’s what I wanted. That rare kind of love. The kind that ruins you and rebuilds you. The kind that scars and saves in the same breath. Now that I know what they both sacrificed for one another, I know what they had was pure, unrelenting love.
And now, I have it. In the quiet moments, when the storm stills, he calls me treasure, like I’m the rarest thing that’s ever drifted through his world. He’s the rhythm in my tide. The fire in my blood. The calm in my chaos. He’s the map I never knew I was following.
My mother evidently knows I’m alive and thriving. The commands she’s sent through others are evidence enough. Telling me to bring her the witch means she’s either confident in my ability to make it happen or reliant on Kai to do the heavy lifting. She must know who he is to me and who he is to the witch.
My father’s journal said she’s the Queen of the Sirens. That means she and Veyra must know each other, two forces born from the same source: Mother Nature herself. But Mother Nature isn’t all rainbows and blossoms. She’s also storms and fire. Veyra is the gentle beauty in all things. My mother is the tsunami you pray never finds your shore. But who is the corrupted Soul? What physical form does she hide in? And what has she done to take the skins she’s been living in?
Kai is already gone when I stir, but he leaves behind a hot coffee, a glass of water, and extra blankets in case I miss the warmth of his body beside me. A small smile creeps across my lips at that.
