Page 3 of A Promise of Peridot
I missed my mother.
I wanted to go home.
I wanted to sleep for a long, long time.
“Why won’t anyone tell us what awaits us in Citrine?” I hadn’t talked to many people the last ten days, but the lieutenants and nobles who were on the ship with us had been very tight-lipped about the secretive kingdom. All we were told was that it was impossible to breach, and therefore about as safe from Lazarus as we could get.
Mari shrugged. “All the texts I’ve come across just say it’s hard to access. On most maps it’s either floating in the middle of the Mineral Sea or left off altogether.”
I let the ocean’s swell rock me while Mari tightened her grip on the wet steel.
“Could it be an island? Like Jade?” The Jade Islands were an equally mysterious kingdom, but at least Mari knew some people who had traveled there and said it was uninhabited.
“Possibly. I guess we’ll find out soon enough.” Her eyes shone with anticipation. The discovery of something still unknown. “Do you want to go down to the mess? Have some dinner?”
I looked up at the furious sky, purple and blue and gray. Like a bruise, or a mottled pigeon’s wing. Heavy, rhythmless droplets landed on my face. “No, I think I’ll stay out here for a while.” When she frowned, I amended my voice to sound warmer. “But I’ll meet you in there.” I was doing the best I could, and Mari knew it.
She flitted off with the same spritely energy she always had, rain or shine. The girl was resilient—it seemed nothing, not even the recent battle, pounding storm, or pitching ship could break her spirit.
Heavy footfalls dragged my gaze over to a group crossing the scarred deck.
I knew those boots. That walk.
Kane strode toward the galley alongside Griffin, with Leigh in tow behind them.
The weakest flame of fury, barely a spark, lit in my chest at the sight of him.
His sable hair was wet and plastered against his forehead and the back of his neck. His eyes were ringed in gray from an obvious lack of sleep. A scratchy-looking beard covered his jaw, and he had a swollen face from days and nights of too much drink.
The man was a disheveled mess.
Often I’d hear him, Griffin, and Amelia drinking together into the late hours of the night through the thin walls of my cabin. Laughing, playing cards, singing poorly—any part of me that flared up in vague jealousy at Kane and Amelia’s drunken joy I attributed to muscle memory. Sometimes, Mari and Ryder would join them out of boredom. That hurt even more.
I told myself it was a benefit, to feel anything at all.
But Leigh... her newly developed bond with Kane had proven to be the most irritating. I would catch them sneaking into restricted sections of the ship, returning with pilfered treats and rusted treasures. I’d hear him tell her of twisted, snarling creatures from lands beyond her wildest imagination. She seemed more than a little enamored of him.
I understood the feeling.
I had been naive and gullible, too, once.
I motioned over to her with a wave. Leigh’s curls bobbed against her too-large gray cloak as she said something to the hulking men who walked beside her. They looked like her guard dogs—tall and imposing and powerful. Soaked in rain and scowling. When she strode over to me and they descended down the galley steps, I exhaled.
“What are you doing with those two? They’re dangerous Fae, Leigh. Not playmates.”
She rolled her eyes.
My skin itched. “What?”
“You’re being so hard on him.”
She was colder, more serious these days. I understood her pain, and I was trying to be patient, but all her rage seemed directed only at me.
I crouched down to meet her eyeline. “I know you’re going through an impossible time. I miss her too.”
“This isn’t about Mother.”
“But your anger...” I reached for her, grasping her arm. “I think it may be coming from—”
