Sea Witch(37)

“She’s gone, Nik. She’s gone. And you were going to be too.”

“No! She’s down there. I saw her. You had to have seen her too. She’s right there, right down—”

“Don’t be a hero, Nik.” Boat-strong biceps pinned the prince in a hug—his arms stuck at his sides, his only recourse to kick, but that just propelled them closer to the beach. Farther from her.

“Iker, please. She needs us. Anna needs us. We can rescue her. We can—”

“We can’t.” His cousin’s newly deepened voice cracked as he said it, and there was a hitch in his kick. “We can’t.”

“We can! We can get her!” He was yelling, even though his voice was rough and sloppy.

His cousin only squeezed harder. His lips came to the prince’s ear, his voice smaller than seemed possible. “If you die rescuing her, it won’t give solace to your parents or your people. It will only give Havnestad another body.”

“But she’s not a body. She’s not. She’s there. Right there.” But even as he said the words, he knew it had been too long now. Ten minutes, though it felt like a hundred.

And then he started to cry. Salty tears running down his cheeks and into the harbor. He didn’t wipe them. He let them run. Let them join Anna at sea.





17


THE ANNUAL LITHASBLOT GAMES BEGIN IN THE SWELTER of noon. Havnestad citizens and onlookers from across the ?resund Strait spill onto the main beach, ready for games of skill and sport to take place from the mountains above to the seas below.

It’s the first time in days the boys aren’t properly gussied up in public. To be sure, they’re both clean-shaven—the easier to show off their game faces—but they are also wearing simple cotton work pants and shirts rolled at the sleeves. This change of dress is tradition too.

Today is about demonstrating skill. I wasn’t lying when I told Iker our games were useful—they were indeed born out of utility. Rock climbing and trail running in the mountains. Log running in the stream that feeds into the harbor. Swimming in the mouth of the sea. Vital to life, every one of them. Useful—right down to the rock carry along the beach, which mimics laboring to bring cargo ashore.

And each citizen in Havnestad has an equal shot to compete. Be you ninety-five or still flush with baby fat, if you can walk, you are allowed to have a go—with the royal family cheering you on, or possibly acting as your competition.

After plates of sams?, rye bread, and peaches, Nik is instructed by his father to oversee the mountain events first. Those sports have the fewest competitors, and King Asger would much rather view the action on the beach.

And King Asger gets what King Asger wants—even from his son.

True to his nature, Nik bows—no crown atop his head—before grabbing another peach and a flask of water and tugging Annemette toward Lille Bjerg Pass.

I side-eye Iker when he doesn’t make a move to follow.

His strong hand gently cuffs my wrist and pulls me close. In a breath, I’m an inch away from his lips. The depths of his eyes are striking in the high sun, clear and merry after a good night’s rest in a real bed and not a ship’s dank quarters. “Let’s just stay here alone.”

I shift my eyes to the beach. “Alone—with five thousand of our closest friends, including your aunt and uncle.”

Iker laughs and gently fingers the curls that have blown forward over my shoulder. “So many people that not a one of them is watching . . .”

No, they’re watching. I can feel it. He’s just used to it.

I pull away, shifting the arm he’s snagged so I’m grabbing his wrist as he clutches mine. I tug him toward Lille Bjerg Pass. “There are many side trails along the pass, thick with brush.”

He raises a brow and finally takes a step forward. “It would be a shame if we were to get lost.”

“Such a shame. Nik would be so disappointed.”

“Only if he’s lost in the same brush we are.”

It’s true. Nik returned a different person after our early morning conversation, focusing on Annemette with a renewed intensity.

With tangled hands, we march up Market Street. We are several lengths behind Annemette and Nik, though they are moving at a snail’s pace—Annemette has yet to see much of the town outside of the festival, and she’s poking in every doorway and picture window to see the wares. The sweetshop man already handed her a lollipop, which proceeded to turn her tongue a grisly shade of red. She dared to show us a block back, sticking out her tongue nearly down to her chin. It was quite the picture, a bloody maw beneath the face of an angel. Of course, she thought it was the funniest thing. I thanked Urda that Malvina wasn’t around to see it.

Nik laughed too, endearment written all over his face. He has no idea how far she’s traveled to see these things we walk past every day, to stroll down the street with him.

“I have been to Odense,” Iker starts, sun lines crinkling around his eyes, “and it isn’t Copenhagen, but it isn’t a one-horse village either. By the way she responded to the sucker, you’d suppose she’d never had a candy in all her life.”

“Showing delight isn’t a crime, Iker.” And it isn’t, though I know that answer won’t atone for Annemette’s fierce sense of wonder. Thus, I turn it back on him. “Not everyone is as difficult to amuse as the salt-worn prince of Rigeby Bay.”