Fable (Fable, #1)

by Adrienne Young

“What happened with the merchant in Sowan?” I took a chance in asking it. Willa stared out the window, her voice hollow as she answered. “West did a bad thing to a good man because he had to. And now, he gets to live with it.”

“I’m thinking I’ll burn this city to the ground until I find him.”

“If I don’t find West by sundown, I’m coming back. And before I set this tavern on fire, I’ll stake your body to that counter.”

It hit me, then, the look on her face giving her away. “Is he … is West your brother?” She didn’t blink. She didn’t breathe. Never, under any circumstances, reveal what or who matters to you. “Do the others know?” I whispered. She dropped her eyes. They’d kept it a secret even from their own crew. “You tell a soul and I’ll kill you,” she said, suddenly desperate. “I won’t want to, but I will.” I nodded once. I understood this kind of secret. It was the kind of information that could take everything from you.

Ok didnt see that coming

I didn’t like seeing him covered in blood. The sight made an ache curl tight in my stomach.

“I have business you’re getting in the way of.” The hem of his coat circled his boots as he turned, but he stopped, his hand on the latch of the door. “And if I find out a single soul knows about the cargo you brought back from Jeval, you’ll be finding the pieces of your crew all over this city.”

“No!” I recoiled, stepping back. The others looked to one another, confused.

“Saint is my father.”

“Isolde was my mother. That’s why I can do what I do with the gems.” “You’re a gem sage.” I nodded.

Dern. “All this time, I thought I was making my own way. I thought I’d found a way to survive,” I whispered. “You did.” “No, I didn’t. The only reason I didn’t starve to death on that island is because of you.” The words seemed to embarrass him. His eyes dropped to the ground between us.

or orders like the ones you had in Sowan.” He stiffened, and I could see the words hurt him. He didn’t want me knowing about whatever happened in Sowan.

Did he kill her dads right hand man so no one else would know about the lark?

“You don’t trust me, but I trust you.” My voice lowered. “You have no reason to trust me.” I crossed my arms, looking away from him. “You came back.” “What are you talking about?” “I sat on the cliffs above the beach on Jeval every night, imagining the sails of my father’s ship on the horizon. Hoping he’d come back for me.” I paused. “He didn’t—you did.” He looked up then, his eyes meeting mine.

“I took you off Jeval because I didn’t want to leave you there,” he breathed. “I couldn’t leave you there.” It was the first thing he’d said to me that had the heavy weight of truth in the words. I tried to read him, studying the shadows that moved over his face, but only fragments of him were visible, as always. He was only pieces, never a whole. He was quiet for a long moment before he took a step toward me. “I’ll cast my vote to bring you on as our dredger.” The heat of him coiled around me. “If you tell me that you understand something.” “What is it?” His eyes ran over my face. “I can’t care about anyone else, Fable.” His meaning filled the small bit of space between us, making me feel like the walls were creeping in. Because I knew why he’d said it. It was in the way his eyes dropped to my mouth sometimes when he looked at me. It was in the way his voice deepened just a little when he said my name. West was taking a different kind of risk by voting me onto his crew, and in this moment, he was letting me see it. “Tell me you understand.” He held his hand out between us, waiting. This wasn’t just an admission. This was a contract. So, I met his eyes, not a single hitch in my voice as I took his hand into mine. “I understand.”

Ooo a fun twist on what is normally a set trope

I thought I’d stood on the decks of the Marigold for the last time, but now, this ship would become my home. This crew would become my family. And like the turn of the wind before the most unpredictable of storms, I could feel that everything was about to change.

The Narrows was the edge of a blade. You couldn’t live here and not get cut.

But in the years since I first set foot on Jeval, I’d never been given anything. Ever. I didn’t bother trying to hold back my tears. They streamed down my face one after the other as I hugged the hat to me. Like a weary bird flying out over the most desolate sea, I finally had a place to land.

“You’ve got trouble with him too?” “Your mother did,” he said, and my hands froze on the pot. “So, yes. I have trouble with him.”

I pushed down the ache in the center of my chest that just wanted him to reach across the table and take my hand. The small, broken part of me that wished his eyes would lift from the parchments and look at me. Really look at me.

“You ever try to shake me down using your mother again, and I’ll forget you ever existed.”

“He doesn’t do business with Saltbloods.”

The only people who did were running from something.

So what was her mom running from?

I’m sorry for what happened to the Marigold.” His eyes lifted, running over Willa’s face. “And I’m sorry about what happened to you and West.

She was afraid. And for a fleeting moment, I found that I liked the feeling.

I reached up, touching the fraying edge of unrolled white silk, dotted with tiny yellow flowers, curling my fingers into my fist when I realized how dirty my hand looked next to it.

When I was alone on Jeval, I’d thought many times that love was no more than folklore. And that my mother had only been able to give it flesh and bone because she wasn’t like the rest of us. She was mythic. Otherworldly. Isolde seemed connected to the sea in a way that no one else was, as if she belonged beneath the surface of it instead of up here, with us. But in the next breath, I thought of West.

And though West had said again and again that he didn’t do favors and that he didn’t take chances, he’d done both. Over and over. For me.

West’s eyes moved back and forth on mine, his jaw ticking like he was working up the courage to say something. But just as he opened his mouth, footsteps pounded on the deck, coming into the breezeway.

“Are you all right?” West reached through the ropes, pushing my hair back from my face and checking me over.

But the flash of something on shore made me look up to the shadows of Waterside, where the deep blue of a coat almost glowed in the dark. Saint.

I didn’t know if they’d heard stories about that night, but I wasn’t going to be the one to tell them. It was a tale I was afraid would come alive within me if I spoke it aloud. There was a distance between the girl I was, standing on the deck of the Marigold, and the one who’d jumped from the Lark in Clove’s arms.

“Do you think they really bring luck?” I asked. He looked amused by the question. “They’ve worked so far.” The set of his mouth changed, pulling up on one side, and I could hear an unspoken answer in the words, but I didn’t know what it was.

I picked up the white stone at the corner of his desk. “What is this?” “It’s from Waterside.” “Oh.” I set it back down, feeling suddenly embarrassed. His eyes flickered up to me. “Saint gave it to me when I got the Marigold. To remind me where I came from.”

I tried to read him, looking for any trace of the anger that was usually lit on his face. But he still looked up at me with eyes that were full of words he wasn’t saying.

I was taking a risk when I jumped into the water. I was showing my hand. That I didn’t just care about the Lark or joining a crew. I cared about West. And I was becoming less and less afraid of what he might do if he knew it.

My heart ticked unevenly in my chest

The thought of her pulled at the pit of my stomach, the feel of her like breath on my skin.

“You never told me you dredge,” I said, staring at him. “There are a lot of things I haven’t told you.” He grinned, a crooked smile turning one side of his mouth up, where a dimple appeared. I dropped my eyes, the sudden flush in my cheeks warming my skin. I didn’t think I had ever seen him smile. Not ever. And I didn’t like the way seeing him like that made me feel. Or I did. I didn’t want to disentangle the difference between the two.

West waited for me to give him a nod before he tilted his head back to take in the air, and I did the same, filling my belly first, then my chest, and taking a last hissing sip into my throat.

The Lark. The place where my mother’s story ended. The place where mine began.

His arms slid around me, and I folded myself into him, finding the place beneath his jaw, and he held me. So tight. Like he was keeping me from unraveling. And he was. Because that kiss broke open some dark night sky within me filled with stars and moons and flaming comets. That darkness was replaced by the blazing fire of the sun racing under my skin.

Because the most deeply buried truth, hidden beneath everything my father taught me, was that I had wanted to touch West a thousand times.

Since we’d come back up onto the ship, I hadn’t dared to even look in his direction, not wanting the memory to fade from exactly as it was still living in my mind. I wanted to remember it the way I remembered the gleam of my father’s rye glass in the candlelight or the shape of my mother’s silhouette in the dark. I wanted to remember him kissing me in the deep. Forever. I’d keep my end of the deal we made when I came onto the crew. I wouldn’t bring the moment up here, to this world, where it would be crushed beneath the weight of the Narrows. But I also wouldn’t forget it. Not ever.

“I’m on the Marigold to crew.” “No, you’re not.” She sighed, getting to her feet. “You’re on the Marigold to find a family.”

I wanted to stop time and stay there, with the sound of Hamish singing and the sight of Willa smiling. Auster wound his pale fingers into Paj’s before he brought his hand to his lips and kissed it.

“Marigold was my sister,” he said suddenly, picking up the white stone that sat at the corner of his desk.

He wasn’t just telling me about his sister. There was something else beneath the words.

“The last time we were in Sowan, I set fire to a merchant’s warehouse on Saint’s orders. He was a good man, but he was making another trading outfit rich, so Saint needed him to stop supplying. He lost everything.”

Ok better than killing clove

“Don’t.” I shook my head. “The moment you tell me anything, you’re going to be afraid of me.” “I’m already afraid of you.” He took a step toward me. “The first helmsman I ever crewed for used to beat me in the hull of the ship. I caught and ate rats to survive because he didn’t feed Waterside strays who worked for him. The ring you traded for the dagger belonged to my mother. She gave it to me the first time I went to sea. I stole bread from a dying man for Willa when we were starving on Waterside and told her that a baker gave it to me because I was scared she wouldn’t eat it. The guilt of it has never left me even though I would do it again. And again. The only thing I know about my father is that his name might be Henrik. I’ve killed sixteen men, protecting myself or my family, or my crew.” “West, stop.” “And I think I’ve loved you since the first time we anchored in Jeval.”

Ahhhhhhhhh such a good reveal

“I have thought about you every single day since that day. Maybe every hour. I’ve counted down the days to go back to the island, and I pushed us into storms I shouldn’t have because I didn’t want to not be there when you woke up. I didn’t want you to wait for me. Ever. Or to think I wasn’t coming back.” He paused. “I struck the deal with Saint because I wanted the ship, but I kept it because of you. When you got off the Marigold in Ceros and I didn’t know if I would ever see you again, I thought … I felt like I couldn’t breathe.” I bit down on my bottom lip so hard that my eyes watered and the vision of him wavered before me. “The only thing I feel truly afraid of is something happening to you.”

This wasn’t just enough of the truth to be believable. It was whole and naked, a first spring bloom waiting to wither in the sun.