I press my face into my hands, but it’s not pain this time. It’s a realization so deep my stomach rebels and I barely swallow it down. Something my brain hasn’t let me consider for more than a fragment of a second.
Harfor sank the Governor’s ship, and the people on it weren’t witches. So, maybe…
“Couldn’t my parents be normal?”
“Normal?”
“I mean, couldn’t they be…”
“There is nothing unnatural about our people.” His back is to me.
“But couldn’t it just be me who—?” I wipe my eyes.
“Your parents were witches, Caiteven. Just like you. That may be the one thing about you I can say for certain. Come into the water.”
I shake my head in refusal, then chew my lower lip.
Were my parents really witches? AmI?The War-Father must have rescued me from the sea knowing exactly who and what I was, which makes no sense. He should have killed me. Is that why the War-Father never came to free me from exile? But then why take me into his household in the first place? Why train me how to fight?
My head’s supposed to hurt when I think about things like this.Why? That can’t be normal, but I’ve never been able to sit with it long enough to realize. A jolt of unbearable pain every time a thought crosses your head does wonders to keep you fromthinking at all. Every time I’ve started to wonder, I’ve been swiftly turned away from the idea.
I feel so abysmally stupid.
“If my parents were from the Wild Seas, do you…? Would somebody know, who…?” The words come out thin and reedy, more hollow than a bird’s bones. Fragile. A hope I gave up long ago, when the War-Father told me we’d never know who they were, and that he was all that mattered now.
Roiven doesn’t turn around to look at me. The water washes around his calves, around the lines of crystal inked into his flesh. The magic that is killing him, wounding him, controlling him. I close my eyes against the sick feeling swirling through my gut.
“A lot of ships went missing,” Roiven says. “Nobody sails anymore. We lost the sea.”
“Would someone else remember?”
There’s a long pause. I watch his shoulder roll in a shrug. The sea-wind tugs at his black hair, unfurling it like a sail.
“Maybe. Come in the water.”
The familiar gut-punch of revulsion smashes through me at just the idea.
“No.”
Roiven turns and slowly walks back toward me. His feet leave wet, glistening prints on the black stone between the waves and the safe, dry space where I stand.
“What are you afraid of, Cai?”
I don’t look up to meet his gaze. Instead I stare at Roiven’s chest. It’s easier. Today’s shirt is open just wide enough that I can see his clavicle.
“There are things in there. Reapers. That creature.”
“Nothing that will hurt you. Not in these shallows.”
“I don’t go in the sea.” I take a step back from him. Roiven takes one forward, not letting me get distance from him.
“Why not? You seem fearless enough about everything else.”
“I just don’t. I told you.”
“Same reason your head was hurting?”
He takes another step forward and I scramble back. My muscles were exhausted after pulling the magic from him, but I feel wide awake now as panic pumps through me. If he thinks for a moment he’s going to pick me up and toss me into the sea, he has another thing coming. I don’t need my sword in order to fight. I have hands, knees, feet, elbows. I have teeth.
