Page 37 of Pearls of Salt and Sacrifice

“So what? You’re just going to hand yourself over to them for execution?” Isla asked, disbelief twisting her words. She stepped around Jareth and Rency and grabbed Reva by the arm. “Have you gone mad?”

“No.” Reva ground her teeth together and willed someone to support her in this. Anyone. “They don’t know that I suspect them, or that we know about the dark magic. And as loath as I am to say it, I still need Felix. I need his trade routes. I need food. And if a war is coming, I need to make alliances that will protect Etthan.”

“So you’re just going to roll over and give up?” Rency asked. “Sell your freedom for a loaf of bread?”

That blade dug deep into her heart.

Oh no, she thought hopelessly. I’ll be selling much more than that.

“I need more information,” she said, her voice hitching. She cleared her throat before continuing. “And I can’t get that here. Maybe I can turn Felix to my side—or Cassandra. One of them might be coerced to see reason.”

Rency snorted.

“And if not,” Reva continued, glaring at him, “then I’ll do what I have to do. For Etthan.”

Jareth must have seen something in her eyes because his face went slack. “You’ll marry Felix,” he rasped, “even knowing what he is. What he’s done.”

Her traitorous heart rose in her throat, and a part of her hated him for entering her life just to make this decision harder. “Yes.”

“But you can’t!”

“It’s my choice. When the time comes…it will be my sacrifice to make for my people.”

Rency barked a laugh, but it wasn’t one of mirth. Instead, it was filled with derision. “No, you misunderstand, love. You can’t marry Felix, not truly. Don’t you know why sailors are so afraid of being lured into the water by the lovely lasses beneath the waves?” He pursed his lips and made kissing noises.

Reva had too much pride to admit that she didn’t, nor did she understand what this had to do with Felix.

“Because,” Rency said without pity, “there is power in a siren’s kiss.”

“I know that: I didn’t drown, now, did I?” Impatience made her words sharp and angry.

Jareth turned his back on them. She didn’t like the way he ran his hand over the back of his head, the way he let it linger on his neck as if he were in pain, as if something were bothering him.

“Oh, aye,” Rency said. “It does that. But it does a whole lot more as well. Tell her, Magic Lips. Tell her what you did when you plucked her from the waves so heroically.”

Jareth’s spine stiffened, his shoulders going taut beneath the leathers and bits of silver armor. He turned his face so she could see the curve of his cheek, the flutter of his eyelashes as he stared down at the deck. “I saved her life,” he said quietly.

“Not that bit, mate. Tell her the rest of it.”

What else was there for her to know?

Still Jareth didn’t answer. He wouldn’t look at her, and that more than anything made her realize her fears had proven true. There was more to this elvish prince—secrets he hadn’t told her, secrets that would probably only cause her pain.

“What is he talking about?” she asked around the lump in the back of her throat. “What did you do to me, Jareth?”

“I saved your life.”

“No. What did you do to me?”

He turned just enough so that he could look at her, but his posture reminded her of a wild animal cornered by a predator. Was his secret so terrible?

“I bound you to the sea, Reva Morrigan,” he said, each syllable laced with pain. “I bound you to me.”

Her heartbeat stuttered and then pounded more quickly.

But what does that mean? She wanted to hurl the words at him, but she kept her face expressionless, waiting for him to continue.

“There is a reason sailors fear the siren’s kiss.” He shifted to face her head on. “Because those who experience it are never the same. If they try to return to their homes, they go mad with longing for the sea. And for the woman they left behind in the waters.”

---