Page 35 of Heart’s Rescue

I turn away as I try to decide if I’ve just been insulted or complimented. Something tugs at the inside of my mind, something I’d rather not think about. Sunlight sparkling off the ocean. The dull roar of waves. It moves, Rowan had said. You can’t map the void because it moves.

“Like the ocean,” I whisper.

I take a few steps away from Rowan until I’m standing on the edge of the bluff. The gloomy, dead forest spreads out beneath me. My hair flutters against my cheeks, and for a moment I’m back at the ocean, at the royal summer estate, watching the waves as they tumble over themselves to reach the shore.

You can’t map the ocean. It moves. So, instead—

“You use a chart,” I whisper.

I turn back to Rowan. A cold gust of wind ruffles the parchment in my hands. “It’s a chart, isn’t it?” I ask. “Like a star chart?”

“Star chart?”

There’s a sharp edge of interest in Rowan's voice. He comes to his feet, watching me warily.

“For ships,” I say. “You can’t map the ocean, so ship captains use the stars to find their way.”

Rowan narrows his eyes like he’s trying to decide if I’m lying to him.

“Funny,” he says. “You don’t look much like a ship’s captain.”

“I had a tutor,” I snap.

I hadn’t had that particular tutor for long, unfortunately. Learning how to navigate on the open ocean was not very ladylike, for all that I’d loved every minute of it.

The ocean. That memory tugs at the edges of my mind, the slap of water against sand. The hungry, lonely cries of the gulls.

I shove it away and turn back to the parchment. The pattern of overlapping circles seems more methodical, now. There’s a ring of outer circles, almost all touching one or two of the strange little sketches. Those outer circles in turn overlap a series of larger, inner circles, which overlap yet another series of circles.

Wind tugs at the parchment, flipping back the top fold. I frown and hunch my shoulders against the breeze. Funny how it hasn’t bothered me all day, not until—

“Wait,” I say.

Rowan is watching me like a cat watches a mouse. I don’t care. It’s unladylike, but I glare right back at him. He wanted to play with me, didn’t he? He wanted to watch me fumble around in the dark so he could feel superior? He wanted to—

And suddenly all I can picture is blood spilled across the sand. The memory floods my mind, overwhelming me. I didn’t want to think about this, didn’t want to remember, but now I can’t stop the tumble of images, scents, and sounds.

Now I’m back on the beach, and I’m just a child, maybe four or five, barely old enough to be granted the small freedom of running without constant supervision. Prince Folwynn was older, wiser. Mother said to follow him, and I had, but I’d tired of his games with sticks as swords and I’d wandered off on my own to a little stretch of sand hidden by stones.

That’s where I’d found the turtle, the huge creature swarming with flies, her great flat back thick with sand and seaweed, stranded on the beach as the tide receded. She’d looked up at me with enormous, black eyes, eyes that had crossed oceans. I’d felt her pain, seen her desperate, feral loneliness.

I’d called Folwynn and the mess of boys who followed him like, well, like he was their prince. Folwynn laughed and said I’d found a dragon. Then he grabbed a piece of driftwood and beat the massive beast over the head, beat her even after she’d died, after the sand was a mess of blood and broken bits of shell. He’d beaten her to death while I’d screamed hysterically, even while I’d thrown myself on him, a fury of tiny fists and feet.

And then he’d hit me with the driftwood too, casually, almost like you’d toss a discarded apple core into the refuse pile. I knew enough to stay down after I’d been hit, to remain flat on the sand, my blood mingling with the turtle’s, numb with shock and the feeling that I’d somehow slipped, fallen, from the world I knew into a different place where the rules did not apply.

Folwynn’s a murderer, I’d told Mother that night, after accepting my punishment for ruining my dress with sand and blood.

Call him beloved, Mother had replied.

He’s not!I’d screamed. He’s not my beloved!

I lift my hand to brush my cheek. Even now, a lifetime later, I can still feel the sting of Mother’s slap across my face.

You will call him beloved, she’d said, and her tone was ice slicing through the hot night, as strong and fast as the hand that had just slapped me. No matter what he does to you, no matter what he does to anyone around you, you will call him beloved. Do you understand?

“Lady?”

I blink at Rowan. There’s something that might almost be concern in his expression. Guilt twists inside my chest, that suffocatingly familiar weight, as ancient and immovable as a beached sea turtle.