Page 56 of A Curse of Salt

I understood, somehow. Knowledge was one of the few things that couldn’t be rebuilt.

Una pulled a dry nightgown over my head and I collapsed into bed, my eyes closing before I hit the pillow. But even after the door clicked shut and I pulled the furs around myself, I couldn’t find rest. Words echoed through my weary mind, circling in a sleepless cloud over my head.

. . . the sea is growing impatient . . . won’t be long . . .

To our deaths . . .

After hours of delirium, sleep finally found me. But it wasn’t peace that awaited me behind the shroud of darkness. It was the clash of battle, loud and violent as the destruction I’d witnessed that day. Bane’s promise echoed through the din. If they don’t hand you over, they’re dead.

Rest came in scraps, for every time I managed to break free from the chaos, an inhuman scream would throw me back to the waking world.

Daylight sank in, cold and harsh, and my limbs ached as I pulled myself upright. The room around me felt oddly distant and when my eyes fell to my shaking hands, I understood what had changed.

The memory of what I’d done dripped through my fingers like blood. The sea monster’s beastly form reared in my mind’s eye and I shuddered, visions of smoke and brandished swords flitting before me.

I slunk outside in search of an escape from my mind, drinking in the fresh air and daylight. But the sight that met me was no respite from my brutal dreams.

The deck was a ruin of its previous glory. A line of figures lay beside the railing, wrapped in white shrouds. A handful of pirates moved about, dragging charred remains from the wreckage and crouching over the fallen. They walked with heavy steps and downcast eyes, stooped beneath the weight of their grief.

The ship was undergoing her own slow reparation process. Scorched rose briars wound steadily back up splintered masts which seemed to be piecing themselves back together as I picked my way across the deck, marvelling at the devastation wreaked by a single creature.

I ambled through the navigation room and inched open the door at the end.

Sebastien lay at the centre of the four-poster, his chest bound with thick white bandages. I stepped cautiously into the bedchamber, surprised to find it otherwise empty. Wet footprints encircled the bed, an echo of the previous day’s flurry of activity.

I crept forward, peering through the hanging drapes at the face he’d concealed for so long. His burnished gold skin looked pale and I wondered when light had last caressed the skin of his brow and the curls of his ebony hair. I reached out to lay a hand on his forearm and a jolt pierced through my body. His skin burned.

Sebastien’s eyes blinked open, sliding over to me. ‘Can I help you?’

‘I think you might have a fever.’

He stared at me with derision in his moonless gaze. ‘I was scorched by fire, remember?’

I remembered.

He seemed awfully calm for a man who’d almost been scoured from the world. A man who’d thrown his body between the flames and . . . me.

I swallowed thickly. ‘Is there anything I can do?’

‘You can start by making better decisions,’ he muttered, his voice gravelly. ‘I don’t know how you’re alive right now, but you shouldn’t be.’

I arched a brow at him, tucking my trembling fingers behind my back, wishing I could hold them still. ‘Are you saying I shouldn’t have saved you?’

There was a hard smile on his lips when he answered, ‘Can’t blame a man for wanting an easy way out.’

My eyes narrowed. A way out of what? Living? I stepped back from the bed. I wouldn’t try to help him if he didn’t care to help himself.

But long fingers snared around my forearm, pulling me back. Sebastien moved towards me with a grunt of pain, face twisting as he drew himself up, his gaze fixed intently on mine. ‘Golde told me what you did,’ he said.

I snatched my arm from his grasp. ‘If I’d known you had a death wish, believe me, I wouldn’t have bothered.’

‘That’s not what I meant.’ Sebastien sounded almost as tired as I felt. Burned and drowned, we’d both emerged from the same kind of hell. He tried again, softer. ‘You shouldn’t have risked yourself like that.’

‘You did the same for me,’ I pointed out. Memories of fire flashed around me, his sturdy arms, his chest against mine.

‘Drowning would’ve been no way to thank me.’ Sebastien winced again, shifting to the edge of the mattress, agony flashing in his eyes.

‘Don’t—’ I began, but he was already swinging his legs over the side of the bed, sitting up in front of me.

---