Page 24 of The Withering Dawn
“Of what?”
“I have not seen the open ocean since I was a child. When you said I was free to leave… I didn’t know what to do. I have known only men and cages and chains.”
“You don’t have a people to go back to?”
She shook her head against my chest. “I have no people. They were all slaughtered long ago by another clan. The Kroans. They are who attack ships and kill and devour men. They are the ones all your stories warn you about. But not all sirens are Kroans. Yri dislike confrontation. We do not even like the taste of men.”
“Yri?”
Her fingers began to play in the loose laces along the neckline of my blouse.
“That’s what I am, but there are none left. I will be alone in the ocean, at the mercy of monsters like the one you saw on the other ship. The ocean is not what it used to be, and I have no idea how to navigate it.”
“But you’ve suffered at the hands of your captors. How is that better than a solitary life at sea?”
She slowly lifted her head, looking up at me through her long lashes. “I thought death would be better… until I saw you. You did not look at me like others do. I wish I could have hidden what I was much longer only so you would keep looking at me like that.”
“Like what?”
“Like you cared for me. But the way you looked at me when you realized what I am…” Her eyelids fluttered like she was fighting tears.
She closed her eyes and tucked her head under my chin, cupping a hand over her ear as if shielding herself from noises only she could hear. She remained like that for a while and then slowly relaxed again, her fingers returning to toying with my laces and then the leatherstrings of my necklaces. Then, slowly, her fingers crept over to my shoulder, gently prodding the bloodied flesh around the torn stitches.
“Your doctor stitched you up,” she muttered. “He will not mend you again after what happened.”
“No, certainly not. He’s dead.”
Her fingers stopped for a moment, but she said nothing.
“I don’t need mending anyways. It will heal.”
“He was not a good man,” she whispered.
“None of us are.”
“No, he disguised himself as one, but he was foul. I could feel it.”
“You could feel it?”
“His presence had a stench. Like a rotting animal. You do not feel like that. Neither does your friend, Cathal.”
“Tell me. What is my presence like, muñequita?” I continued.
“Warm. And I came to your warmth like a fish to a hook.”
I leaned my head against the wall. “I am not warm. I am cold.”
“The dead are cold. You are not cold. You are quite beautiful, Nazario.”
Her words were getting stranger. After a while, they were barely words at all and she seemed to be mumbling to herself until her fingers stopped toying with my jewelry again and she went completely lax against me. I realized then that she had fallen to sleep. The broken siren had fallen to sleep in my lap, her head pressed against my chest. I couldn’t fathom how she’d done it. Sleeping next to anyone had proven stressful in my years growing up. It was hard to trust anyone enough to surrender to that helpless state in their presence.
I couldn’t imagine she trusted me that much, but if she did, I did not want to break that trust, despite what she was. I barely knew her, but I knew her pain. Knowing she’d let her guard down enough to close her eyes made me responsible. She’d put her life fully in my hands. I felt as if she’d given me something precious and fragile and now I had to try not to drop it.
Fuck.
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, staring up at the ceiling, unsure what to do. Eventually, my heart acted for me, and I wrapped her gently in my arms again, making sure that she would not roll if the ship took any hard turns. She seemed like she hadn’t slept well in years and I understood how that felt. She deserved a good night’s rest to heal her tattered soul. No matter what the next day brought, at least I could give her that.
And if it was all her plan to leave me unguarded and vulnerable, then perhaps I would not wake at all, but that would be my last mistake and dead mencouldn’t regret anything.
