Namesake (Fable, #2)

by Adrienne Young

I’d been a fool. I’d let myself believe, even if it was just for a moment, that I was safe. That I’d found a home and a family. And in the time it took to draw a single breath, it was all torn away.

I remembered I wasn’t the girl who’d leapt for the ladder of the Marigold anymore. The one who’d begged and scraped to survive the years on Jeval so she could go searching for the man who didn’t want her. Now I was the girl who’d found her own way. And I also had something to lose.

The cities of the Unnamed Sea prided themselves on their opulence, and none more than Bastian. My mother had never carried the same air, but it was still there in little things. Like the way she kept her dredging tools pristine on her belt or the way her fingernails seemed to always be clean. There are some things that can’t be carved from a person, no matter how far from home they’ve sailed.

“I’m saying that when I helped Holland’s daughter escape Bastian, I fell out of her good graces.”

WHAT

I don’t know what I had expected him to say or what explanations he would have for the past. But West had none. More than that, he didn’t even have regrets. I don’t know what that makes me. His words whispered back to life in my mind as I touched his face and his arms tightened around me. But I didn’t feel afraid of him the way I thought I would. I felt safe. I didn’t know if I could love someone like my father, but I did. With a love that was deep and pleading. With a love that was terrifying. And I didn’t know what that made me.

Saint was a bastard, but he was mine. He belonged to me. And even more unbelievable, I really did love him.

“She was there one moment, and then…” He breathed. “A squall came over the ship and Isolde was just gone.” I didn’t miss that he said her name. I didn’t miss the way it sounded on his voice. Like prayer. It threaded through my heart, the stitches pulling tight.

“I didn’t leave you on Jeval because I don’t love you.” “Saint.” I tried to stop him. But he ignored me. “I left you there because—” “It doesn’t matter.” “It does.” He looked up then, the blue in his eyes rimmed in red. “I left you there because I have never loved anything in my life like I love you. Not Isolde. Not the trade. Nothing.”

It was one long series of tragically beautiful knots that bound us together.

West was standing on the deck, watching me. He was swallowed in gold, squinting against the light, and the wind tugged the shirt around his form in a way that made me want to disappear into his candlelit cabin with him.

When I turned to look at West, that same starlight glinted in his eyes. I found his hand and held it to my cheek, remembering the first time I’d seen him on the docks. The first time I’d seen him smile. The first time I’d seen his darkness and every time he’d seen mine. We were salt and sand and sea and storm. We were made in the Narrows.

SCREAMING CRYING THROWING UP

Then I could hear the sound of his footsteps again, like a heartbeat that brought my own back in line. I curled into his arms, pressing my face into his neck, and I cried. I wept, a deep, ragged sound breaking me in places I didn’t think could crack. His arms tightened around me, holding me to him, and his words were hot against my ear, the only thing I could feel. “I’ve got you.”

omg.

“Say it.” I smirked through my tears. When he caught my meaning, he smiled sadly. “You were right.” “I’ve never heard you say that before.”