Grace and Fury (Grace and Fury #1)(30)
After that, they’d be required to fulfill their full duties as Graces. Nomi shivered.
They sat in silence for a long time, neither of them eager to move on to the next task. Nomi had almost drifted to sleep, exhausted by her own thoughts, when Maris stood up with a jerk. “I’m covered in this oil, and the smell is making me sick. I’m going to take a bath.”
“I should probably wash up too,” Nomi said. The trade winds had died the night before, and her skin was sticky from the warm, humid air, her mind thick with fears of Malachi’s birthday and what she’d be expected to do.
Nomi and Maris strolled through the quiet, opulent rooms, their handmaidens following silently. Even Angeline was quiet when they were in the common areas. The Superior’s men dotted each room, part of the furniture and yet not—Nomi could never forget that they reported everything to the Superior.
When they reached the pool, Nomi and Maris removed their clothes with the help of their handmaidens. At Nomi’s nod, Angeline slipped outside, with Maris’s handmaiden following suit. Even the male servant stepped outside the room, though he lingered just beyond the doorway. Maris plopped into the water with a little groan, sending ripples across its surface. Nomi joined her.
“Do you like it here?” Maris asked. Her black hair shone against the surface of the water like an oil slick.
Nomi hugged herself, the movement causing ripples to fan out across the bathing pool’s surface. She watched them hit the curved marble edge until the last one died. If Cassia had asked, Nomi would have said yes. But for some reason, with Maris, she felt safe telling the truth. “I hate it,” she whispered so the man outside wouldn’t hear her. “I miss my sister, my family.… My brother and I were born minutes apart. We’d never spent more than a day without each other in seventeen years. And my sister—” Her voice broke. She couldn’t talk about Serina.
Maris stared for a long time at the shadow of the man in the doorway. “My mother used to tell me that raging against a life you can’t change only hurts you.” Her voice hitched. “But she was lucky. She died young.”
“I’m so sorry,” Nomi said. Something about Maris’s fixed glare made her heart beat too fast. Nomi realized she was scared. Scared Maris would say something she shouldn’t. Scared she herself might too.
Maris’s voice flowed across the water, inexorable. “I could have been happy here. But my father, he… he ruined everything.” Her mouth snapped shut.
Before Nomi could ask what she meant, a handful of the Superior’s Graces entered the bathing room. Maris pasted a smile on her face, and it was as if the girl she’d been only a moment before had evaporated.
Nomi wasn’t the only one with a secret here, she realized. Maris had one too.
FIFTEEN
SERINA
SERINA SPENT EVERY day for a week sparring with Petrel. She was getting better at keeping her feet and faster at avoiding the fists and elbows, but her arms were still weak, her punches ineffectual. Her body didn’t feel like her own when Ember ordered her into the makeshift ring, over and over again. Her muscles screamed as angrily as the gulls that screeched overhead.
“You’re coming along just fine,” Petrel said cheerfully, patting Serina on the shoulder.
Serina bent over, hands on her knees, and tried to catch her breath.
Petrel laughed. “Go take a walk. It’ll stretch out your legs, keep them from cramping.” She headed over to watch Mirror spar with Jacana.
“What do you want, Grace?” Oracle asked when Serina approached her. The crew chief was sitting just outside the cave entrance, sharpening sticks into spears for boar hunting.
Serina bristled. She hated the name she’d earned. She’d never even been a Grace.
Serina certainly didn’t look like one anymore. She hadn’t cut her hair, but she’d have to soon; it hung in a limp, dirty braid down her back and was constantly getting in her way. Her hands were coated with fine black volcanic dust. No matter how many times she scrubbed them, they never seemed to come clean. And her once-luminous olive skin was now red and chapped by the sun.
“The volcano,” she said, glancing up at the cloud of smoke that hung above the hills behind Oracle. “What if it erupts? Why do you stay so close? Isn’t it dangerous?”
Oracle paused, hands poised over her spear. “If the volcano wakes again, everyone on this island will die. Would you prefer to go first, and quickly, or have time to panic and pray?”
“I don’t think I’d accept death so easily,” Serina shot back.
“Death comes, whether you accept it or not,” Oracle stated. She bent over her work again, an obvious dismissal.
“Can I go for a hike?” Serina addressed the top of the woman’s head.
Oracle laughed but didn’t bother looking up. “Why are you asking me? Do what you like. Just stay away from the guards.”
Serina stomped away. Was it so strange that she had asked? She was in a prison.
She hiked north, around the rim of the caldera. The ragged terrain tore at her flimsy shoes. A narrow guard tower loomed in the distance; as she approached it, she noted the one silent guard standing watch, his hand on his firearm. She walked faster until he was out of sight.
Eventually, she reached the far rim of the massive crater, the gray and white rock smoking in places. No plants grew here, not even the hardy golden grass. Her head ached from sun glare and dehydration.