Page 39 of A Curse of Salt

‘You know as well as I do why Mors gave you that book.’

His answer surprised me. I hadn’t expected him to have read it, much less to acknowledge the parallel the story bore to his past. Unless . . .

‘I just want to know how it ends,’ I said.

‘Everybody dies,’ Sebastien grunted. He stepped past me, grabbing the heavy fabric at my feet and draping it back over the mirror in a swift motion, his hood never once turning toward the mirror’s reflective surface.

‘Do they?’

The words slipped out before I could stop them, before I even knew where they’d come from. It hadn’t been until that moment that I’d suspected there could be any truth in those stories. That the end I was searching for could be standing right in front of me, cloaked in darkness.

The King turned slowly back to look at me. ‘You want to start asking questions? You can tell me what the hell you’re doing in my room.’

I opened my mouth to respond, then closed it again, making a mental note to curse Aron out for failing me so miserably.

‘Tell me you didn’t burn it,’ I said quietly, unable to even summon my anger. Mors had entrusted me with those stories, with the magic in them. I’d felt it: the swell of adventure that had called to me my whole life, the same feeling that had sent him out on to the waves, captured right between those pages. Now it was gone.

‘You don’t need a book to explain what I am, blackbird. I might have magic, but I’m still a monster.’

Chills crept down my spine. On his lips, the word magic sounded so much deadlier than anything I knew.

When we were young and the world outside was dark, my sisters and I had whispered stories under the bedcovers about witches who shifted shapes and cast spells, about creatures that roamed the deep and crumbled from cliffsides. But Sebastien wasn’t like those things.

I’d seen potions and enchantments advertised on the streets of Bray, but I’d never truly believed magic was more than the call of the sea until I’d seen it – shattered windows and roses blooming without soil and monsters roiling in the waves. Here, with him, magic was something different. Something deep and dark. Monstrous, maybe. But even the admission on his lips felt like a step in the right direction. Towards what, I wasn’t sure.

‘How does it work?’ I asked. ‘The shadows, the magic? Explain it to me.’

I listened to the swell of his indrawn breath like it was a tide. The room grew warmer, darker, as I waited for it to break.

‘Call it a gift,’ the King said at last, but the word came out bitter. ‘Nerida blessed me with this . . . this power. It keeps me young, or whatever it is I am.’

Nerida. The goddess. Hearing her name aloud made my heart beat faster. ‘Why you?’

He grunted. ‘Maybe I deserved it.’

I scoffed. ‘Because you’re so benevolent?’

‘No,’ he said, sounding irritated. ‘Because I messed up. I was supposed to prove her wrong and . . . it doesn’t matter. I don’t expect you to believe me when I say this curse was made to punish me more than anyone else.’

‘Curse?’ I echoed.

‘Think about how cold and empty the night is; imagine living with a piece of that inside you.’

I hardly knew what he was saying, and I knew it was wrong to feel anything but hate for him, but fool that I was, I said, ‘Empty? Have you never seen the stars?’

The shadows in the room swelled. ‘Stars can’t reach you down here, blackbird. You think something in that damn book is going to save you from what’s coming?’

‘And what is coming?’ I hissed, suddenly regretting my softness. ‘Because I’m having an awfully hard time getting an answer out of anyone.’

‘Have you considered that we might not know?’

His grumbled reply made me pause. Because perhaps a part of me had believed Una when she’d said I’d be all right. Maybe some part of me had trusted in some part of them; that after all the dust settled and the blood dried, I, of all people, would still be standing.

‘You’d really die for this?’ I whispered. ‘Let your crew die for it, too?’

His answer was hardly more than a growl. Fierce, fraught, bordering on afraid. ‘I don’t know.’

‘For a king, you don’t seem to know much.’

---