She couldn’t say no to them. How could she? Yes, they were admittedly a bit much sometimes. It was possible that her younger self had used the word “smothering” once or twice. But they loved her unconditionally and wholeheartedly. Even before Iovar, they had supported her dreams. When she was a chubby toddler drawn to the seashore, they’d taught her to swim. When she’d spent hours at theharbor watching the boats, they’d taught her to sail. Whenever she’d wax on for hours about her dream of being a sailor, the best sailor the Crescent Islands Empire had ever seen, and visit every island she could reach, they’d told her they believed in her, and she could do anything and be anyone she ever wanted. They were, in short, the best parents anyone could ever wish for, and it was impossible to repay them for any of it. She certainly couldn’t say no to them over what should be a simple request, not when they were looking at her with such naked wide-eyed hope in their eyes.
Wishing she knew how to disappoint them without disappointing them, Marin summoned up a smile she didn’t feel and said, “And I’m looking forward to watching you win at the End-of-Harvest Festival.” She managed not to wince after she said it.
Both her parents smiled at her as if she’d gifted them the sun and the moon. She supposed she had almost three weeks to figure out how she was going to manage that.A future problem, she thought as she ate another bite of pie.
“So, discover any new wonders out there on the big blue?” Pa asked.
As they ate the best pie in all the islands, she launched into a mostly true tale of one of her supply runs, to an island populated predominantly by penguins and one old man who insisted on knitting them all sweaters, and she tried not to think about any problems at all—present, future, or past.
No worrying about the revolution, about imperial retaliation, about Rijes Velk, about the statue and the gardener, about the sorcerer and her family’s debt, or any of it. Still, in between bites and stories, for no particular reason that she could name… she couldn’t help wondering if Dax had ever tasted peach pie.
CHAPTER SIX
The kelp forest was one of Marin’s favorite stops. She navigated to the buoy at the edge of the forest and tied off. Perri bobbed a distance away—it was too dense for him to venture in. Holding her fingers to her lips, she whistled sharply.
She didn’t have to wait long.
The caretaker of the forest surfaced off her port side. He was human from the waist up, bare-chested, with seaweed instead of hair. His lower half was a sea lion, wide and powerful. “You have our delivery?” His voice was deep and burred.
“I do. May I distribute it myself?”
“You may.” He handed her payment, coins gleaned from shipwrecks. Crusted with minerals, they worked as well as any other coins. She tucked them into one of her pockets.
As the kelp caretaker gestured to her to proceed, Marin kicked off her boots and then dove into the water. She opened her eyes and felt the sting of the salt. Ahead of her, the world was murky green. The kelp forest was made of thousands upon thousands of ropelike strands of green that swayed in the current. Sunlight, filtered, sparkled between them, bits shining through like between the branches of a tree. Holding her breath, she kicked her feet as slowly as she could, trying to disturb the water as little as possible. She wanted to see all of it before she needed to surface.
Her visits here never became part of the stories she’d tell at the docks. Not since Iovar. He hadn’t believed that this forest existed and refused to sail with her to see it—I should have known then.But she’d still been in so deep.
After that… this place felt too special, too… sacred… to be doubted ever again.
A little voice inside whispered that Dax would have liked to hear about it. She hushed the voice. She didn’t even know if she’d ever see him again. Her parents had seemed so sure that the revolutionaries had won and all would eventually be well, but had they? Her gut said no, but she knew full well her gut wasn’t trustworthy. Regardless, was Dax okay?
She told herself firmly to stop worrying about him.
What happened to him wasn’t her business. He had friends, colleagues, mentors, whatever to keep him safe. She had her own worries and responsibilities. She didn’t know why she couldn’t get him out of her head.
Thinking of him, specifically of his smile as he fed squid to Perri, she opened the bag at her waist, and the acorns, pecans, walnuts, and beechnuts floated out.
And the kelp creatures came.
Made of seaweed, the green rabbits came first, running through the water as if over grass. They caught the nuts as they tumbled through the water, and they danced around her in a fishlike school. They were followed by the other kelp creatures: squirrels and badgers, chipmunks and ferrets, all shaped out of the same green seaweed as the underwater forest itself.
Her lungs began to burn. Marin knew she needed to return to the surface. Still, she lingered a moment more. She was hoping for a glimpse…
Ahh, there you are.
A kelp deer. Shy. Gentle. Rare.
It slipped around the ropes of kelp. She glimpsed its eyes, astunning blue like the sea on the clearest of days. And then she had to kick to the surface. The deer fled as soon as her legs pumped and Marin shot upward.
She burst through the surface and inhaled.
Marin swam back to her boat and Perri. She hauled herself up and flopped onto the deck. This was her world: with Perri, out in the wonders of the ocean. Whatever was going on in Alyssium, it didn’t have anything to do with her.
Why was it, then, that she couldn’t stop thinking about a certain oblivious composer with so little sense of self-preservation that all his friends and mentors chose to lie to him in hopes of keeping him safe?He’d better be okay.More sternly this time, she shoved her worry aside. They had more deliveries to make.
It was five more days before their route brought them back near Belde.
Marin didn’t expect to see the flag raised requesting supplies—it wasn’t the usual time for that—but maybe she could think of an excuse to stop anyway?I might not know if Dax is okay or Rijes Velk, but I can check on the librarian statue.It might make her feel better. Not that it was her business. She didn’twantit to be her business. However, if she could think of an excuse to dock and just peek around…
