Page 19 of A Curse of Salt

‘I had nothing to do with that.’ His reply was abrupt, but he spoke again after a beat, voice rumbling right through me. ‘Why did you come out here, then? I thought I told you to stay away from me.’

I hovered on the brink of another step closer. His question stumped me. I hadn’t meant to approach him at all, to be risking everything for nothing. Yet there I stood, a meagre few paces from the Heartless King himself.

Not afraid, I reminded myself.

‘I don’t know,’ I answered truthfully. What did it matter? ‘Are you going to kill me?’

The King laughed, cold and dark as the coming night. ‘Not tonight.’

I swallowed, my throat constricting as he turned, the top half of his face still cast in shadow. His invisible gaze traced my hollow features, like a cool sweep of sea mist that withstood the wind.

His words came out stilted, icy. ‘You haven’t been eating.’

I looked up into the infinite blackness of his hood. It took all the strength I had just to face him, my heart feeble and frantic inside the vacuum of my chest. Still, I didn’t blink.

‘I won’t eat that which a tyrant steals from hungry people.’ My traitorous voice trembled, giving me away.

‘I steal riches,’ the Heartless King retorted. ‘I steal gold and weapons and ships. I don’t steal food; there are some things the sea provides me that I don’t need to take for myself.’

It took me a moment to understand what he meant. I’d seen it: the way the ship reacted to his presence, the candles that blinked awake each night, the doors that had burst open without a touch of his hand. Apparently the lavish meals that appeared before me twice a day were the products of no cook.

The ship was magic. Was its King, too?

I stared up at him, wondering. Remembering stories of his twisted countenance, of tentacles and gleaming eyes and gills. Were those gifts from the sea – bestowed upon him by some divinity of the waves?

But with all the mouths that keened in hunger, what god would decide him worthy of their gifts?

The quiet anger in me swelled, tamping down my fear.

‘You’d feed your ego over innocent people, then,’ I said, summoning strength from somewhere deep inside me. If he really did have magic on his side, there was no limit to the good he could do. Instead, he chose destruction. ‘People are starving across the continent. Don’t you know how bad the famine is? And the villagers will hardly touch the fish in the sea for fear of your wrath!’

‘They should fear me,’ the King bit out, taking a step towards me.

Shadows slid across my skin, making my body beg to curl into itself. I was a fool for provoking him, but I couldn’t back down now. He might not have robbed food directly from anyone’s mouth, but there wasn’t a soul in Northbay who didn’t live in fear of the tides for the simple fact that he reigned them.

‘Is that what it means to be powerful?’ I challenged. My cheeks felt hot, flushed with rage. ‘Having everything you could possibly need and still taking from others? Does it make you feel bigger?’

The King exhaled sharply, a huff of frustration that only made me angrier. But when he spoke, his voice was a menacing kind of calm. ‘If you won’t eat alone, then eat with me.’

‘Eat with you?’ I echoed. He phrased it like an offer, but his tone was a command.

Why in the gods’ names would I ever eat with him? I almost laughed at the absurdity. That he was even capable of caring whether I starved, his crew’s scheming about Bane aside. He’d been so adamant I stay out of his sight – now this?

He said nothing, so I added, ‘I don’t want or need your concern, Your Majesty.’ The title was bitter on my tongue. Unearned.

The King folded his arms, leaning back against the railing. ‘Then what do you want?’

Once again, he’d caught me off guard. What game is he playing? I wanted nothing from him. Nothing, except maybe the truth.

‘Answers,’ I said eventually. ‘I want to know what’s going to happen to me. Why I’m here. All of it.’

He nodded slowly. ‘Very well. One dinner in exchange for one answer.’

I arched a brow at him. I couldn’t imagine a single question worth an entire evening of his company. Nor a single reason why he’d want mine. He was a murderer, a tyrant, a monster – did he honestly expect me to dine with him?

‘That hardly seems fair,’ I said.

‘Then don’t come,’ he retorted.

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