Page 25 of Beneath the Haunting Sea
For the first time since fleeing the house, she glanced down at her right hand. In the moody gray light, the pale gem looked like a drop of the sea, caught just before dawn and bound in silver. She fought the urge to fling it into the ocean and went back to clawing at the vines, managing at last to pull enough foliage away to squeeze inside.
She stepped into a cavethat burrowed deep into the cliff. It was much bigger than she had imagined: tall enough for her to stand upright, with room to spare, and wide enough to house two carriages. Fragments of light filtered through the vines and the hole she’d made, and Talia saw that she wasn’t the cave’s first visitor.
Something was half-buried in the center of the cavern, a curve of old wood poking up from thesand. She went to investigate, dropping to her knees and digging around the wooden thing until she could see what it was—the hull of a small boat, obviously old, but not rotten.
She stared at it awhile, rubbing off the dirt to try and make out what had once been written in red letters across the front. But the words were too faded. She felt a pang of ancient sorrow and loss, and she suddenlywished she hadn’t come into this place. It was beginning to feel like a tomb.
Water lapped at her heels as the sea crept into the cove, and she pushed her way back through the tangle of vines before it was flooded entirely.
A thin line of shore was still visible between the cliff and the sea.
She ran back the way she’d come, racing against the rising tide.
The cliff fell gradually away asthe shoreline rose to meet the bluff, and then she was dashing once more onto the white rock-strewn sand.
Her breath came shorter and cramps stabbed her sides. She dropped back to a walk.
The rain still held off, the clouds parting in places to show bits of ragged sky turning slowly orange and gold and scarlet. Away behind her, the sun was beginning to set.
She’d come a long way from the house.The gown was ruined, her shoes lost, her hair tumbled loose from its careful arrangement.
The ocean crashed beside her, and she stopped and stared out over the waves. She didn’t let herself hear the distant strain of a song, shivering out there on the horizon, where sky met sea.
She tore her gaze away and saw someone running toward her across the sand.
It was Wen.
She clenched her hands intofists, the pale ring pressing into her palm, and strode forward to meet him.
He pulled up short five feet from her, breathing hard, his cravat flapping loose and his hair windblown. He stared at her. “You’re—you’re all right.”
She thought of the cave and the boat, the sea creeping in, how she could have been trapped. The fear made her angry. “Are you following me?”
“Talia, I—”
“It’s Miss Dahl-Saida!”she screeched at him.
He watched her guardedly and stuffed his hands in his pockets. “Miss Dahl-Saida,” he amended. “You’re not allowed to walk down here. The Bar—my father has forbidden it.”
Talia folded her arms across her chest. Wen’s pale face glinted orange in the fractured light of the setting sun. “Forbidden it? Why?”
He shifted his feet, but didn’t avert his gaze. “The sea is dangerous,Miss Dahl-Saida.”
Distant music echoed in her ears. “What are you talking about?”
“Just come back to the house with me. I won’t tell my father.”
He reached to take her arm but she shook him off. The wind tore between them, whipping her dark hair into her eyes.
“I’ll walk where I like, when I like. You can’t tell me what to do. You don’t own me.”
His shoulders tensed. “Of course I don’t. Whywould you think that?”
“Why would you go along withthis?” she demanded, shoving the ring into his face. “No hesitation, no objection, not even asking me how I feel about it?”
Over their heads, the light was beginning to fade, the last drops of gold swallowed up by the regathering clouds. The wind blew stronger, and she smelled rain.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said, eyes serious. “I thoughtyou knew. I thought you’d already agreed.”
