The Jerian Sea.
Between Erydia and Pellarmus.
Voyage – Day nine.

The next few days were tinged with illness and an ache in my chest I couldn't seem to shake. It was like my mind was cloaked in a mist I couldn't seem to think through. All I wanted to do was curl up in my bunk and sleep away the rest of the trip, but I fought that urge. I'd wanted freedom for so long and now that I had some semblance of it, I'd be damned if I spent it laying in bed.

I'd initially chalked my illness up to being some sort of seasickness, but that proved unlikely when both Nadia and Heidi began exhibiting similar symptoms. On the third day of all three of us vomiting consistently and running low fevers, even with Nadia's healing, we began to suspect it might actually be something more. Something a bit more sinister.

Goddess, I hated Caine.

Even though I loathed tacet, my body had grown accustomed to it. And now that it was gone, my system was in overdrive. I couldn't focus my ability, couldn't get myself to calm down. I was burning all the time, always a fraying thread away from losing control. I'd never felt so at odds with my body, with my ability.

Suddenly, something that had always been a part of me, was foreign. That sleeping power had grown stronger in the silence. It was ready to burn the world and I was too weak, too inexperienced, to know what to do with it. My days were spent siphoning small bits of power. I walked the ships decks, fiddling with any flame I came across.

I was restless. A spirit unanchored.

I could barely sleep and when I did, I woke to find my ability too full, too large, too pressing. It pushed against my ribs, paced the underside of my skin. It fought for control and there were moments when I felt less like myself and more like something else. Something darker. Sometimes my mouth was so dry, my ability burning so hot within me, I could taste the ash on my tongue.

It needed out.

I wanted it out.

But that was only what was happening on the inside. That was something no one else could see. Unfortunartely, there were visible symptoms too. I coudn't hide how sick I was, even I'd wanted to. Everyone on board the ship knew there was something wrong.

My hands shook constantly and I couldn't keep food down. All three of us were experiencing hot flashes and chills from fever. But the worst was the headaches. They were near blinding. My eyes would hurt so badly that all I could do was lay down and close them. Every sway of the boat was painful, every shift of shadow or light, every sound was agony.

Stuck in the middle of the ocean, there was very little that could be done for us.

We chewed ginger and drank water. We took whatever tonic the ship's medic could provide, but nothing really helped. And poor Nadia was ill herself and trying to heal us. It was wearing on her, especially since her ability was as unwieldy as my own.

She split her time between our small cabin, which we shared with Anna, and the top deck where Cohen spent most of his time. Nadia had never been very good at healing herself and dealing with the tacet withdrawals was no different. She claimed that the sea air helped her feel less dizzy—but I suspected that the real comfort came from Cohen's proximity.

It wasn't like I could blame her from seeking comfort in the presence of someone else, especially someone who cared about her the way I knew Cohen did. But it didn't stop me from being jealous—not jealous of her relationship with Cohen, but just of the fact that she had the person she loved with her.

Each day that passed took me farther away from Kai. The distance loomed and I struggled to accept that he'd sent me away. He'd bargained with Darragh to get me here. This, me leaving Erydia, was his choice. He'd asked for my protection and for my rescue.

He'd done the same thing for Anna.

She was dealing with her own drug withdrawals. Where my symptoms were mild nausea and a splitting headache, Anna's was more mental. If she wasn't as insane as Caine had claimed she was, the years of being treated that way had taken their toll. She was anxious and jumpy. Most nights she woke screaming, covered in sweat.

We kept her on one of the bottom bunks in our cabin and I intentionally slept in the cot across the aisle from her's. It was often a gamble as to who would go to comfort her—Nadia or me. Often, it would be the two of us, our hair matted to our faces with our own fever, our hands clammy as we gripped hers and tried to soothe the terror that seemed to ensnare her fraigile mind.

Sometimes I thought she dreamt of Kai. But mostly, I think Anna's nightmares were full of the children she didn't get to keep. She would curl up against the metal wall of the ship and cry—begging for her baby back. A baby that was either long dead or had never breathed at all.

We would stay there, sitting on the edge of her bed, listening to her weep. Heidi never joined us, but I knew she was awake. Through all of this, she'd been quiet. Dangerously so. She'd also refused to let Nadia help her, even when it might have staved off the worst of the withdrawal symptoms.

During the day, we kept separate. Cohen spent most of his time with Darragh, who had remained silent about his intentions now that he'd stolen us away. While Cohen assured me that we weren't prisoners here, I couldn't shake the feeling that we may have left one prison to enter another.

But what was worse than the constant sickness and Darragh's secrets was my heartbreak over Kai.

Goddess.

I was stupid and lovesick over him.

I missed him more than I wanted to admit. Initially, I hadn't wanted that ring. I'd considered hurling it into the sea. It would have served him right. I'd given it back to him on Sauenmyde. Things weren't fixed between us and I still wasn't even sure that the young man who had given it to me all those months ago was even real.

Real or fake. Truth or lies.

When I'd seen the ring glistening there in the moonlight, I'd been so mad, so damn hurt that he'd cast me aside.

I was still hurting.

But I also understood that he'd done this to save me. His words to me during the Commencement Ball hadn't been hypothetical—they'd been literal. When he'd said that I was worth losing, he'd been in the midst of letting me go. I hadn't know it. I hadn't realized that he was losing me. He was giving me up. And when he'd kissed me—

It hadn't been for show.

It had been a goodbye.

Don't come back.

Goddess, it pissed me off. I wanted to go back and scream at him. I wanted to kiss him again. I wanted answers. I wanted to know why he thought one betrayal could be fixed by another. I wanted to know how he thought this—sending me away—would fix anything.

But I knew the answer to that last question. Everyone knew the answer.

Because without me, Caine's hold on Kai loosened even further. As it stood, the only thing keeping him under his uncle's thumb was Third Corps and possibly Ruthie Finchum. If my brothers really could infiltrate the rebel camp and save our people, Kai would have very little reason not to push back. He could begin to fight his uncle.

Yes, he would have Caine's men to contend with—but Kai was smart and I knew he could win. And it would help him to know that Caine's days of using me as a punishment were long gone. The weakness that Kai believed love was, would be taken out of the equation. Now, he wouldn't have to worry.

He could stop loving me.

And what could I really say? I was the one who had asked him for action. I'd wanted him to do something—but sending me away wasn't what I'd planned. I'd planned to stay with him—to become queen and fight Caine. I'd planned to ruin Erydia and try to rebuild it.

But Kai had had other plans. While Cohen had schemed for Nadia and Heidi, Kai had been thinking long-game. He knew what had to be done in order for him to have a chance at really ruling. Unfortunately, that had meant I needed to leave Erydia.

Leave him.

Don't come back.

I understood it, but I hated it. I didn't know what it meant for me or for my relationship with Kai. I wished he'd written more. Those three words seemed so absolute, so terribly final. They left no room for questions and yet I was awash with questions and demands.

As the days passed, I kept the ring and the note in my pocket, unsure what to do with them. They were still hidden there when my withdrawal symptoms finally began to ebb and my mind grew clearer. On the ninth morning, I woke before dawn. The moon was still high and I could see the silver light of it through the small port window between the bunks of our cabin. I rolled over to find that Anna's bed was empty—her blankets thrown aside and her sweater missing from where she always folded it across the end of the bed.

I'd become accustomed to waking up and sitting with her through the darkest part of the night—usually soon after midnight. She would scream and thrash and cry. It wouldn't last very long, no more than a half hour or so. Then she would sleep, and Nadia and I would return to our own beds. But Anna had woken up less in the last few days, a sign that her withdrawal from Caine's drug was getting better too.

For a moment, I considered that she'd woken up and I hadn't realized. Maybe Nadia had taken her on a walk. Nadia's bunk was above mine, so I couldn't see if she was still there, but I doubted she'd have been able to climb down without me noticing. I'd gotten good at drowning out the loud noises of the boat, but I was fairly attuned to my surroundings.

Unsure what to do, I waited in the dark for a long time, listening to the creaking of the boat and the calls of the crew on the deck above. I was still tired and would've liked to have fallen back asleep, but just then my mind was too full of thoughts of Kai and worry over Anna's disappearance. I stayed laying on my side staring at her empty bed for what felt like a long time. If she'd gone to the latrine, she would've already returned.

I gave it another few minutes.

Then two more.

Finally, I gave up and got out of bed. I dressed in a pair of loose pants and a thick sweater, tugging on my boots before I grabbed my coat from a hook by the door and turned to leave the cabin. I'd just opened the door when a voice called to me.

Nadia had woken up and was peering over the edge of her bed, her eyes bleary with sleep. "What—Monroe? Where are you going?" Her voice was low and gravelly, her exhaustion from being sick and constantly healing others was beginning to take its toll.

I shut the door just enough to block the stream of light coming in from the hall outside. "Everything's fine," I whispered. "I'm just going for a walk."

She turned to look out the small window before she squinted at me again. "It's the middle of the night."

"I know." I wrapped my coat tighter around myself, already feeling the chill sweeping through the corridor outside. "Go back to sleep."

She looked half there already, her brown eyes were heavy-lidded and she'd already tucked her face back into the crook of her elbow. She groaned, an annoyed little sound, but didn't argue with me as I slipped from the room and shut the door again. The narrow passageway was lined with closed doors, all of the leading to other cabins. Half the crew would be asleep right now while the other sailors were pulling the night shift and working above deck.

Isla and Darragh had cabins to themselves, but those were on the other side of the boat—the rest of us been given crew cabins. Smaller, hallway-like rooms with rows of bunks. Somewhere down this walkway was the cabin Cohen, Leighton, and Tavin shared. Since they were guys, they'd been put in with some of the crew and had even managed to make friends.

I'd barely seen them aside from the occasional meal, but I knew that Tavin had all but taken over a position on the ship. He was a fast learner and the crew of The Drogala been more than willing to teach him how to tie ropes and tend to the massive boiler. They'd been less inclined to even speak to me or the other women on board.

"It's superstition," Isla had said over breakfast one morning. "They don't like new people, especially women. They think we are bad luck."

They especially didn't like me, since I'd been nothing but a nuisance to them since I'd woken up. Most of the fires I'd set had been put out by a frantic crew member, his voice sharp and angry—his high-pitched words in a language I couldn't even begin to understand. But fear and annoyance tend to transcend all barriers, so it didn't take me very long to realize that the sailors on Darragh's ship would rather me stay below decks and keep my ability to myself.

I was thinking of this as I climbed the wooden stairs and emerged above deck. The kitchen, which was located at the end of our hall, had been dark, telling me that Anna wasn't there and that the cook was still asleep. There were no fires down below either, save for the boiler and the few lanterns the crew used to see by. So, either Anna was up on deck or she was on the other side of the ship where the royal's compartments were located. Aside from the captain and medic's cabins, there was nothing else over there.

As soon as I made it on deck, I received a good number of glares. I held up my hands to the nearest sailor and offered him a smile, hoping that he understood the universal sign for I'm not here to make any trouble. He muttered something under his breath and shook his head. Like Darragh had said, many Pellarmi knew Erydi and could speak it at least a little. It was considered a trade language and taught in most schools.

I hoped this was the case for this particular sailor as I said, "I'm looking for my friend. She's—"

He grunted and pointed to the deck above us. Perfect. I nodded my thanks and left him.

The crew gave me a wide berth as I headed up a set of stairs and onto a different level of the ship. This deck held the small mess hall and the viewing room—which was mostly being used as storage space for this voyage. The walkway was hung with lanterns, but none were lit. I paused at the top of the stairs and grabbed one.

I was aware of the eyes on me as I lit the wick without even touching it. A sailor standing guard nearby cursed at the sight and made some sort of sign with his hands as if he were warding off evil. I smiled and lifted the lantern, trying to see where Anna could possibly have gone to.

The soldier who had cursed said something else in Pellarsh and nodded to the far end of the ship. It was dark down there, but in the light of the moon I could just barely make out a figure sitting at the front of the ship.

Her shoulders were slumped and her head was down. For a moment, I thought maybe Anna had come up here and fallen asleep, but it was so cold, I doubted that was even possible. The wind was whipping, burning against my cheeks and making my ears hurt. Dread as ice-cold as any winter wind pooled in the pit on my stomach.

Still, I tugged up the hood of my jacket and headed her way.

***

On to part two.

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