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I’m far more pirate than prince, anyway.
Same, i mean princess…
I’m still not quite cold enough for the ocean that birthed me.
Could it really be such a bad thing, to become a story whispered to children in the dead of night? A song they sing to one another while they play.
That hits different
“It’s you.” My eyes shoot upward. The Prince of Midas stares down at us, horrified and awestruck. His lips tilt a little to the left. “Look at you,” he whispers. “My monster, come to find me.”
Whenever I try to recall a single moment, all I see are her eyes. One like sunset and the other like the ocean I love so much. The Princes’ Bane.
In my heart, I’m as wild as the ocean that raised me.
THE OCEAN DIDNT RAISE ME BUT SAME GURLIE
“That’s the thing about risks,” Kye says. “It’s impossible to know which ones are worth it until it’s too late.”
Did the prince save me from drowning? The thought makes me furious.
The audacity
“Do you always tie women to your ship?” “Only the pretty ones.”
“You were a lot more charming when you were unconscious.”
“It’s your lucky day, Lira,” he says. “You’re about to meet your first siren.”
Ha lol
I’m about to break free, but the second Elian releases his grip on my waist, his hands clamp down on my shoulders. He twists me around and I’m thrown against the door of the lower deck. When he leans over me, the scent of black sweets is fragrant on his breath.
“Will you kill her?” Lira asks. There’s no more sweet pretense as she tries to speak my language. I’m not sure where she’s from, but whatever kingdom it is clearly has no love for mine. “Yes.” “Will it be quick?” “Yes.” She scoffs. “Shame.”
“Lira,” I say. “I don’t suppose you’d be kind enough to translate?” “I’ve never been accused of kindness before.”
Savage
dimple
DIMPLEEEEEEE
Never the queen, always the minion.
Banana?
Elian takes a bite from the apple. “She also threatened to break your fingers,” he says. “You should grab her again and find out if she was bluffing.”
“You’re uniquely idiotic.”
Sammmmmmmme
there are few things that can’t be solved with both sleep and rum.
Maybe chocolate (I’m a minor😭)
“Did you make a wish?” “Maybe I stole one instead.”
“Ever the cynic.” “Ever the pirate,” she retorts. “You say that like it’s an insult.” “You should assume,” she says, “that everything I say to you is an insult. One day the world is going to run out of luck to give to you.”
I roll my eyes and look over to the upper deck, where Torik is currently steering the ship. Elian leans on the railings beside his first mate. The same railings I was tied to. His hat hangs low over the shadows of his eyes, stance loose and casual. His left foot is hooked behind his right and his arms crisscross over his chest, but even I can recognize the difference between appearing relaxed and actually being so. It’s the mark of a true killer, to never show the fire within.
HIS STANCE?
HOT
“The captain doesn’t get bored,” she says. “It’s not in his bones.”
“Wars aren’t won by running,” she says. “You can’t win a war,” I tell her. “Someone else just loses.”
We continue on that way, swords arcing through the air, our breath ragged. Soon there’s sun in the distance, or perhaps even moonlight. Everything is muted and as Lira swoops her blade down on mine once more, I let it all fall away. My mission, my kingdom. The world. They exist somewhere other than in this moment, and now there is only this. Me, my ship, and a girl with oceans in her eyes.
💙💛🩵🤍
And then there’s Elian, who gave me a blade instead of stabbing me with it, standing behind me now. The mercy he practices and the loyalty he has earned are both ideals that my mother would sooner burn out of me—because mercy is never an option, and loyalty is always taken—but those very emotions my mother said made me weak seem to make him strong. He’s a warrior who is my opposite in every way and yet, in some ways, maybe fierceness alone, we seem to be the same.
Some people burn so brightly, it’s impossible to put the flames out. Thankfully, that’s just what I need.
Never a pirate, always a prince.
“You think that was clever?” Rycroft wipes his eyes with the back of his sleeve. “Maybe not,” Lira says. “But it was funny.”
Yeah basically my thought process
Elian is different. He has courage, or recklessness masked as something like it. And he also has mercy.
“You can’t just kill everyone you don’t like.” “I know that. Otherwise you’d be dead already.”
Elian surveys the massacre of wood around him. And then slowly, almost wickedly, he smiles.
I say the first thing I can think of, mirroring his words to me from Eidýllio. “I’m pretty sure I got rid of you already.” Elian’s cheeks dimple and he casts a look over his shoulder. Kye, Madrid, and Torik are gathered in a tightly grouped line behind him. They came. Not just for their captain, but for the stowaway. The strange girl they found floating in the middle of the ocean. They came for me.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. He shrugs. “What I do best.” “Getting on my last nerve?” “Saving you,” he replies, picking up his sword. “This is the second time. Not that I’m counting.”
Love and madness are two stars in the same sky.
THAT NIGHT I DREAM of death.
Therapy is advised…
“So many tricks,” she whispers. “You’ll need sturdier sleeves to hold them all.”
We are not naïve little heirs to be molded as they wish. We are warriors. We are rulers.
When the door unzips, I’m not at all surprised to see Elian crouching beside it. “Come with me,” he says, and so I do.
I’ve never seen the stars. Not the way Elian has. There are so many things I haven’t done. Experiences Elian seems to have that nobody else, especially me, could dream of. The stars are one of them. They’re Elian’s in a way that they’re no one else’s. Elian doesn’t just look at the stars, but he imagines them too. He draws pictures of them in his mind, creating stories about gods and wars and the souls of explorers. He thinks about where his soul will go when he dies and if he will become part of the night. All of this he tells me at the height of the Cloud Mountain, with the moon and the wind
...more
“I’ve never shown this to anybody,” Elian says. He doesn’t mean the stars, but the way he sees them. They are his secret just like the ocean is mine, and when he speaks of them, his smile is as bright as they are. I wonder if I’ve ever had that look. If it glittered in my eyes when I thought of home, washing over me like a wave and transforming me as I was so easily transformed before. “I think there are a lot of things you haven’t shown anybody.”
“Do you really believe killers can stop being killers?” “I want to.”
“People don’t tell secrets because someone needs to know them. They do it because they need someone to tell.”
That hits different
“Are you ever going to kiss me?” Slowly, Elian says, “That’s not a favor.” His hand moves from beside mine, and I feel a sudden absence. And then it’s on my cheek, cupping my face, thumb stroking my lip. It feels like the worst thing I’ve ever done and the best thing I could ever do and how strange that the two are suddenly the same.
How strange that instead of taking his heart, I’m hoping he takes mine.
“Do you remember when we first met?” he asks. “You said I was more charming when I was unconscious.” Elian laughs, and he’s so close that I feel his body shake against mine. I can see every scar and freckle of his skin. Every streak of color in his eyes. I lick my lips. I can almost taste him. “Ask me again,” he says. His forehead presses against mine, breath ragged on my lips. I close my eyes and breathe him in. Licorice and ocean salt and if I move, if I brea...
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“Sorry.” I rub a hand over my throat. “I don’t speak bitch.”
I DONT SUPPORT BAD WORDS BUT
SAVAGEEEEEE
Then Lira opens her eyes, and I see that only one is the blue I remember. And the other is pure hellfire.
