“I can’t go back in,” I said shakily, ignoring the question in his eyes. “All I see are wooden walls. Ship walls.”
His chin tilted back in slow motion. Then he shifted, drawing his long legs in front of him, stretching the thin cotton of his pants. “Ship walls.”
I closed my eyes. “Ship walls.”
He exhaled, long and slow, casting his gaze over the distant town, to the setting sun. “Talk to me, Leihani. You don’t have to deal with what happened on the ship in private. I’m right here. You don’t have to be alone.”
My stomach lurched. “It’s not just what happened. What Burian did. Or—tried to do.” I stared into the shifting grass. It was the fear of being bound to the pirate. The thought of my bloodcordaeingwith his. That he’d force himself on me, and I’d never be free of him after. That the choice would be taken from me, not in a bed with a man I trusted, but in a room so small the sound of my own breath had bounced off the wooden walls. And I'd never escape. I'd become prisoner to my blood once again, locked in a cage of wood, isolated from the sea.
That would be it.
And Burian was dead. Dead, dead,dead. Aleksei and Demyan were dead. Kriska was dead.Darkness's Hourglasssat at the bottom of a distant ocean, sunk by my own call, its wooden walls far away. But that didn’t stop the rushing fear that grabbed me by the throat and choked me until I was blind with terror.
“Leihani.” Kye watched me, a sadness in his eyes. But I said nothing, staring down at my legs. His head drifted to the side, cutting into view. “I hope you heal from the fears you pretend you’re too strong to feel.”
His words burned a hole in the back of my throat. I gave him a stiff nod, unable to look at him.
Kye rubbed the side of his neck. “The sun is almost down. Could you go back in after dark? When you can’t see the walls?”
My pulse jumped at the thought alone. I bit my lip. “I’m not sure.”
Kye nodded. I finally glanced around us, rearranging myself in the long grass. A modest garden sat to our left, just before trees stole into the hills. Most of its vegetables had abdicated their homes in the months before, but pumpkins graced the corner, fat and bright on their vines like golden little crowns.
Cool wind nipped down my quilt, sending my hair in my eyes. Across the dirt driveway, Sero and Kolibri watched us from under a roof on wooden stilts, Kolibri’s tail swishing as her ears twitched.
“Where is the ocean?” I asked. I couldn’t see it, but I could hear it. Smell it.
“Behind the inn and a few more houses.” He exhaled through his nose, tucking my hair behind an ear. “The mountain pass is closed.”
My eyes shot to his. A twinge of nerves rippled in my belly, though I didn’t say a word.
“An avalanche took out the trail.” His mouth pursed as he feigned nonchalance, but his gaze trickled over me, hunting every detail he could find. “The Rivean army is camped just above us, working to dig the snow out. But it might take them weeks.”
“No,” I said before he could utter another word. Kye released a long, controlled breath—which only sent waves of icy panic into my gut. He’d anticipated my response. Had given himself time to build his arguments, to afford himself command of his own emotions.
The thought sent me twirling down a tunnel of anxiety—into a room with a low ceiling and wooden walls that shrank and squeezed and leaked with ice cold water. Oxygen evaded my lungs for the second time in mere minutes, and I gripped my own arms hard enough to turn my knuckles white.
I shoved to my feet, shucking a stray leaf violently from my shoulder. It spiraled artfully to the ground, ignoring the sense of anger I’d launched it with.
Kye shot up to join me, his stupid voice smooth and cautious. “We’ve come as far as we can on horseback—”
Blood rushed to my ears, overwhelming the sound of his words. It thudded in my head, wave after wave surging higher and louder, the surface of the sea pounding against a wooden keel.
Wood. Groaning. Chains. Rattling. Rope. Dragging. Walls closing in.I waited for them to burst under the weight of water. For the ship to implode. To carry me into the black depths of the sea, where Darkness would bury me in a grave of broken wood and scattered bones.
There was no air to breathe. It was gone, leaving me to suffocate on nothing at all. I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t breathe.
Icouldn’tbreathecouldn’tbreathecouldn’tbreathe—
“Leihani,” Kye said placatingly. He opened his mouth to continue, and I drew myself to my full height—a hand’s length below his chin—and rounded on him.
“I can’t,” I growled, willing my lungs to inflate. Finding oxygen was suddenly like trying to capture moonlight with a glass jar. The air too thin. Fleeting. There and then not. “I can’t. I can’t.”
Kye cocked his head, drawing a long-suffering breath altogether too easily. The sound of it sent daggers into my skin.
“I am never—never—stepping foot on another ship,” I vowed. “Youcan take a ship back.I’mgoing through the mountains.”
His fingers twitched, the cool resolve of his demeanor too patient. Too gentle. Too tolerant and understanding.
