Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Perhaps my humanity has decided to stick around.
“I will have my vengeance for you,” I tell him, holding the knife above his heart.
“Forget your vengeance,” he says. “You need only to escape. Be merciful, Princess Maren. Let me go. God will forgive us both.”
I take in a deep breath, hoping that whatever gods there are will indeed forgive me for this one, and plunge the knife down into his heart.
It sinks in to the hilt and kills him instantly and I feel the air calm with his passing.
But I don’t have time to mourn him or ponder the horrors that have happened in this hold. I have to save myself.
I leave the hold and run to the stairs and go up to the cannons at the gun deck. I pick one and swing my leg up over, straddling it, the metal cold on my inner thighs and not totally unpleasant.
I ignore the way my feminine urges keep springing up at inappropriate times and shift myself along the cannon barrel until I’m popping open the gun port at the end, fresh sea air meeting my face. I’m about to slide off into the sea that’s moving quickly below when I hear the crew start coming down the stairs and the voice of an unfamiliar woman.
I don’t want to stick around and find out who it belongs to.
I take in a deep breath and let go of the end of the cannon.
Wind rushes past me as I freefall, trying to move my body away from the edge of the giant ship so I don’t get sucked under the keel, which is much easier to do when you’re not wearing a weighty gown.
I hit the water feet-first, the impact rattling me, and immediately start swimming away from the ship as quick as I can. The water is cold at first but soon feels like a second skin and I’m swimming with my legs pressed together, hoping beyond hope that they’ll fuse together into a tail.
But before that might possibly happen, as I move through the dark water, I realize I’m actually breathing it in. It’s not coming through my nose or mouth, but my gills. I reach up to touch the side of my neck and the faint scars I once had there to symbolize them are now actual working gills.
I let out a cry of delight and look back at my legs. Even though my eyesight is excellent in the dark now, I still can’t make out every detail. What I do see is that my legs are just that—legs. There might be a pearlescent tinge to them that wasn’t there before, a faint impression of scales, but other than that they haven’t turned into a tail.
It doesn’t matter. I can swim fast with them together as one, and with working gills, I can stay under the water for as long as I like.
Still, I need to swim to land for now before I decide what to do next. I tilt my head up and back to look at the ship, its lantern lights growing fainter and fainter. Though we are both heading in the same direction, the Nightwind is so much faster than me. I just have to make sure that I don’t end up where they’re going.
My heart pangs a little at the thought, a tightness in my chest.
What if I don’t see Ramsay again? With this plan, I probably won’t. After all, not seeing him again was the plan. I hate to admit it, but I think I’ve grown some sort of attachment to him. The man is a mystery. A monster perhaps, but that only makes him a better match for me. Never in my life had I had someone that showed such a degree of possession and protectiveness over me, like I was a treasure to be guarded.
He killed your sister. He would have killed Daphne. And for all you know he killed your mother, too, a voice reminds me. You promised vengeance and nothing else.
I swallow the lump in my throat and strengthen my resolve before I twist around and keep swimming. I’m popping up my head above water every so often to make sure I’m headed for land and now that dawn is breaking it is easier to see.
Finally I spot the hazy silhouette of an island lit behind a violet sunrise and relief floods over me. I dive back down under the waves, not going too deep, when I see what seems like faint twinkling lights coming from the dark depths beneath me.
What is that? I think, slowing down as the lights get brighter and brighter.
I realize what I’m looking at are two angler fish rising toward me, a lit ball hanging from the protrusion at the front of their heads. Though their eyes are ghostly white, and their teeth are formidable, I know they aren’t that fast and they’re certainly a lot smaller than me.