Page 9 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

“When isn’t it?” Brando smacked his back, humor in his voice.

Kit stumbled, whether from the ship or from Brando, but he didn’t care. His tender gaze settled on Jina. Jina’s eyes lifted to meet his, and for a moment she forgot to count.

“Snap out of it.” Brando’s tone turned sharp. “You don’t get to keep this one. But one night, yeah?” He winked at Kit, then turned to Minha. “And I just might take that one for myself.”

“Touch me and I’ll gut your fat belly like a fish.” Jina’s voice came out low and flat.

Brando snarled, the leather patch over his eye doing nothing to soften the ugliness of his twisted features.

Protectiveness shifted in Kit’s expression. He stepped forward, putting himself between Brando and Jina. “Don’t touch any of them.”

Brando studied him a beat, then glared and threw up his hands. “Get cleaning, Seaborns!” he barked, and walked away.

Seaborn. The word landed strange. An insult maybe? I didn’t ask. The less I engaged with Brando the better.

We spent the rest of the afternoon on our knees, dunking rags into buckets of seawater and wringing them out, scrubbing the deck in long strokes until our hands went raw. This was no better than prying the oysters.

When the deck satisfied Brando’s inspection, he let out a grunt and waved a hand, then sent us below to the kitchen, a low-ceilinged room that smelled of woodsmoke and grease, where a stout man with a gray beard handed us knives and pointed to potatoes and carrots.

Jina held her knife the wrong way. Minha nearly took off her own finger. I did no better. The cook corrected us each time, then went back to pulling mussels from the bucket.

The lobsters were another matter. None of us had ever seen one, nor cooked. The sound they made in the pots stopped us cold.

While the crew ate together on the deck, the three of us took our bowls and sat in the kitchen doorway, backs against the frame, looking out at the open water, watching the sun go down the horizon streaked with pink and purple.

I had never seen a sunset over the sea before. In the cavern, color had meant the pink of a rare pearl, the gray of stone, the dull brown of the guards’ uniforms. But nothing like this.

After dinner we washed the dishes the way we had learned everything else that day, by watching the cook first, then doing it ourselves. When the last bowl was dried and stacked, he pointed to a small room by the kitchen, three thin blankets folded in a pile beside a table with a lantern burning low.

Jina spread one blanket on the floor. Minha dropped onto it and we took our places the way we always had in the cavern. Jina on one side, Minha on the other, me in the middle.

I stared at the low ceiling and listened to the ocean on the other side of the wood. The same sound I had fallen asleep to my entire life.

Jina sniffed. “Do you remember when we were little, we used to fight over who got to sleep next to Sis?”

Minha snorted. “I always won.”

“You grabbed her leg and wouldn’t let go.” Jina snickered, her hand covering her mouth.

“That’s called staking your claim.” Minha shrugged. “If you don’t fight for what you want, you don’t get it.”

“Why me?” I asked.

“You always watched out for us.” Jina snuggled closer. “We feel safe with you.”

“Not me.” Minha waved a hand. “I just wanted to win.”

We shared a small laugh. The silence that followed sat heavier than the one before.

“Do you think our sisters are… well?” Jina wiped her eyes.

She couldn’t say the word she meant. Neither could I.

“The king needs them.” I kept my voice steady. The reassurance was as much for me as it was for her. “Don’t worry yourself.”

Easier said than believed. I couldn’t stop thinking about Nam, Bora, Sohee, and all our sisters left behind in that cavern. The absence of them settled over me like a thick cloud.

I swore one day I would set them free. I didn’t know how. I didn’t know when. But I would if it was the last thing I did on this earth.