All the Stars and Teeth(99)

I toss my head back and a vicious laugh escapes me. “Because it will be that easy? Because someone who hasn’t had magic since they were a child can take on someone who’s mastered it? Whose curse magic goes beyond anything we’ve ever seen?”

“Kaven won’t be in great shape after that fight,” Bastian argues. “We can use that to our advantage, to overpower him, or—”

“It doesn’t matter what shape he’s in!” The harshness of my words causes both boys to tense in surprise. “He won’t give us time to prepare. He’ll strike the second he’s able to.”

Bastian starts to say something, but Ferrick grabs his shoulder. “There’s no point talking to her like this.” There’s a cold judgment in his words that snags my skin and caves my insides. Even bundled in the sheets and curled into the warmth of a bed, I shudder.

“I have no idea who you are, right now.” Ferrick’s glare traps me. “I don’t know who this fearful, empty thing is, but you’re better than this. You were cursed, not killed. You made a promise back in Zudoh, and those people are trusting you not to give up. We can still do this.”

When I turn my head away, Ferrick brushes past Bastian and grabs hold of my hands, ignoring the blood on my palms. He ducks his head until he’s staring at me, face stony and impassive.

“You are Amora Montara,” he says, awakening something inside me. A tiny match still waiting for its flame. “Now it’s time you stopped hiding down here, and start acting like the ruler you are. Tell me what you want us to do.”

I reach for that flame, but it snuffs out the moment it’s in my grasp. I rip my hands away from him.

“Without my magic, I’m useless.” The words tear through me. “I have nothing. I am nothing.”

These boys want me to stand tall and proud with the belief that we’ll win. But they don’t see how badly I’ve already failed. How I fled my home to save my people from the lie of practicing multiple magics, but am returning only with their destruction.

I’ve nothing to offer, and no way to save Visidia. I should have stayed home and accepted my death. Perhaps then, Kaven never would have had a chance to assemble a fleet.

“I can’t be the girl you two want me to be.” I push myself from the bed, hands stinging with a sharp pain as they brush against the sheets. “Not anymore.”

I make my way to the stairs, far away from the pressure of their fantasies, because I can’t take it.

One more look from them is all it would take for me to crumble.





CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO


I find no solace in the early fall breeze that snakes around me, seeping salt into my pores. The end of summer has finally arrived.

I’ve cleaned my hands, but the briny air bites into my palms and stings. It’s a sharp reminder of the darkness I can’t seem to claw my way out of. The sea may be helping, but when I clamp my eyes shut and breathe, there’s still emptiness where my magic should be coiled, waiting to spring.

A presence stirs behind me, and though I know I’m safe on Keel Haul, instinctively I reach for the satchel and dagger I keep at my waist. But my hands come up empty and the hollowness in my belly inflates. I suck in a breath and shove my fisted hands into my sides.

Casem is beside me. He keeps his head low and his shoulders slouched forward, as if he’s already being scolded. Over two weeks have passed since we were in Arida, but it’s as though, instead of providing him with life, the sun has leached it all from his body. His once-large frame has thinned and withered with the exhaustion he carries on his slumped shoulders. He wears the pain of it in his cool blue eyes.

“I’m sorry,” he says without prompting. He grips the ledge of Keel Haul to support himself, knuckles turning white from the pressure of his grip. “When my father suggested I come with him, I was doing it because I wanted to find you and make sure you were safe.” He turns to me, but I keep my focus on the sea, watching as turquoise waves crash against the ship and morph into a soft white foam as they recede. Casem draws his hands closer together on the ledge and scrapes at the cuticles of his right thumb, worrying at the skin.

“What good would that have done?” I huff. “I could have been executed if I stayed.”

Casem’s face twists. “You never heard? Amora, they were going to give you another chance. We all pleaded your case, including your aunt; she told everyone she wasn’t fit to be Animancer. They were planning to bring another prisoner up, for you to try again. But none of us could find you.”

I expect his words to gut me. To shred me and destroy any light I had left, because what’s one more knife when you’ve already been stabbed by a dozen?

Instead, the words make me pause as realization strikes—my people were going to give me another chance.

The weight of that knowledge sears hot in my chest. I dig my fingers into the ledge of the ship, steadying myself.

Not all of them wanted me dead, or thought me too dangerous. They were going to give me another chance.

“I had no idea what my father’s real plan was when I left to look for you, I swear,” Casem continues when I say nothing. “I found out on the way to Ikae. If I’d known sooner, I would’ve never gone with them. I would have told the king. I care too much about you to do something this cruel. And not only you, but Mira. I would never want to put her in danger. You know this, Amora. I just … I need you to believe me.”