The Crown of Embers

Chapter 25

I’M lying on my side, my cheek mashed into the planking. Hector’s body curls protectively around me.

Everything is still and bright, so bright that I blink against the pain of it. A soft breeze caresses my face, bringing the scent of hibiscus. A gull cries, a slide of sound from low to high.

A gull!

Gasping, I sit up.

Crewmen lie prone all around me. I worry they might be dead, but then my eye catches movement at the wheel. It’s Felix. His great beard twitches as he mutters and stirs from the place he fell. Others stir around us.

Alive. All of us, alive.

I look down at Hector. Sleep has softened his features. He seems so peaceful. So young. Before I realize what I’m doing, I’m tracing the line of his eyebrow with my fingertips, trailing down his cheek, to the shadow of his cheekbone, where a drop of blood has welled. It’s caused by a splinter; it must have speared into him when the tornado hit.

Alarmed, I look closer to make sure he breathes. Where there is one splinter, there could be more. There could be a whole plank, impaled in . . .

His eyelids flutter.

“Hector?”

When he sees me, he shudders with relief. “We’re alive,” he whispers.

“I did order you to live, after all.”

He sits up and looks around. “How?”

“I have no idea. Something to do with everyone’s prayers, I think, channeled by my Godstone. Be still. I have to pull this out.” I brace his chin with one hand and reach for the splinter with the other. Just enough protrudes for me to grip it with my fingertips. I pull gently but steadily, trying to keep to the exact angle of entry.

He gazes at me without flinching.

The splinter is longer than I thought—the length of the first joint of my forefinger—and a good bit of blood wells up after it. I toss it to the deck.

I’m about to wipe the blood away with my fingers but he traps them, lifts them to his mouth, kisses them. “I thought we were going to die after all,” he says. “Right there at the end.”

I think about the way he held me, the way we prayed. I remember his fingers on my Godstone, on my skin. And I remember what he said.

I blink hard against tears. “You might have saved me. Saved us all. I don’t know how the Godstone’s power works yet, or how we survived, but you kept me focused.”

His gaze drops to my lips. “I shouldn’t do this—”

“You really should.” And I close the distance between us.

His lips on mine are so sweet, so gentle, like he’s savoring me. Learning me. But he doesn’t linger there. Instead he kisses the corner of my mouth, my cheek, the tip of my nose. Then he leans back to regard me. His eyes are steady and frank when he says, “I don’t regret telling you what I did.”

“That’s good, because you did say it, and I can’t unknow it.”

He lifts an eyebrow, smugly amused, and I marvel that for all his usual stoicism, he seems unashamed to have exposed something so personal. “And I can’t unfeel it,” he says. “I won’t let it interfere with my work. Even though I expect things will be . . . difficult.”

“Oh, yes,” I agree. “Very difficult.”

“Land!” someone yells. “Dead ahead!”

We jump to our feet. People stir all around us. There is no sign of the storm. The sky is beautiful and clear, and the water dances lightly, teased by a breeze. I could almost convince myself I imagined the whole thing.

Except that the Aracely is a disaster, especially the port side, which has a huge, uneven gouge in the hull where planking was ripped away. Only one sail remains intact, and we sit much too low in the water. In the distance a bluish lump looms on the horizon, and the tug on my Godstone is stronger than ever, pulling me toward it. I just hope the ship holds together long enough to get there.

“We should check on everyone,” I say.

He nods. “See to Mara. I’ll look for Storm and Belén.”

We part, reluctantly, me for the captain’s quarters, Hector for the lower deck.

The quarters are in shambles. Paintings and bits of furniture litter the floor, water streaks the walls, and the glass in one of the portholes is shattered, its jagged edges sparking in the sunlight.

Mara huddles on her side in the middle of the bed, her knees curled to her chest.

She looks up when I enter but does not move. “You’re alive,” she says, and it’s almost like a sob.

Something is wrong. I rush over to her. “What is it, Mara? Are you hurt?” I brush the hair away from her face. “We hit a tornado, and—”

“Belén? Is he all right?”

“Hector is checking on him. Mara, tell me.”

“My scar. It split open again. The ship tipped so far that I had to hang from the side of the bed. . . .”

“Let me see.”

“I’m afraid to move. Elisa, I think it’s bad.” She lifts the hand cradling her stomach and shows it to me. It’s covered in blood.

My heart sinks. “I might be able to stitch it. I watched Cosmé do it often enough. Or Belén! He’s done it lots of times. Did you bring your salve?”

She nods. “In the satchel.”

I look around frantically for it. Who knows where it ended up after the storm, or if its contents are still intact? I note my own pack, lodged between the fallen chair and a broken shelf. I give a worried thought to the figurine, hoping it didn’t break.

“Do you remember where you saw it last? I can’t . . .” Then I get another idea.

I take a deep breath against the audacity of it. Could I heal her? The way I did Hector? That was sort of an accident. Actually, everything I’ve ever done with the Godstone has been sort of an accident. But I came here, put everyone to extraordinary risk, on the chance that I could figure out how to channel its power deliberately.

“Mara, give me your hands. I’m going to try something.”

She does, her gaze trusting. I grab them, trying to ignore how cold and slick they are with her blood.

“Er . . . close your eyes and relax. Hector was unconscious when I did it to him.”

She closes them.

Think, Elisa!

When I healed Hector, I felt the power stir inside me, sucked in from the world around us through my Godstone. I try to imagine it, the sensation of something flowing, filling me up. Please, God. Help me.

The power surges into me like a flood, and I gasp, delighted. So easy this time. So natural and right.

I say, “For the righteous right hand of God is a healing hand; blessed is he who seeks renewal, for he shall be restored.”

Nothing.

Last time, it happened out of desperation and need. Out of love. Maybe love is the trick.

I focus hard, thinking about what Mara means to me. I consider her brave acceptance of the danger we share, her determination to learn everything she needs to be a good lady’s maid. I’ve watched her edge away from the shy, broken girl whose village had just been destroyed to become a cheerful, laughing person, resolved to embrace her new life.

Mara is precious to me. I love her.

I whisper, “For love is more beautiful than rubies, sweeter than honey, finer than the king’s wine. And no one has greater love than he who gives his own life for a friend.”

The power is rushing out of me even before I finish. Mara stretches out her legs, arches her back as her face contorts in agony, and I lurch forward, worried that I’ve made things worse. But then her body goes limp. After a few panting breaths, her face relaxes into an easy smile.

“I think it worked,” she says. Gently she probes her stomach with her fingertips. “It hurt, but it worked.”

My breath catches with relief. So much easier this time. Maybe it’s my proximity to the zafira. Or maybe I am finally learning to channel my stone’s power. “That’s good,” I say. “That’s very . . .” My head swims. “Just need to lie . . .” I collapse onto the bed.

I wake to a sea of faces. I blink up at them, recognizing Hector, Felix, Mara, Belén. “Stop hovering,” I growl sleepily.

They lurch away, except for Hector, who says, “Are you all right?”

His hair is mussed, his eyes huge. He seems so young all of a sudden, so unsure. It’s definitely not a good idea to wrap my arms around his neck and force him to kiss me in front of the others. “I’m fine. Tired but fine.” I sit up and swing my legs over the side of the bed. “Mara?”

“The wound closed up perfectly,” she says, her voice breathy with wonder. “And my scar . . . it’s still there, but it’s softer. Healthier, I think.”

The relief is so powerful that my knees shake. Or maybe I’m just that fatigued.

The captain rubs at his beard and asks, “You think you could heal everyone on board? We have a broken leg, a few bad scrapes. One of my men can’t get the water out of his lungs.”

“Absolutely not,” Hector says. “You’ve seen how it exhausts her.”

“I’m not sure I could,” I admit. “I think it only works when . . . for people I . . .” For people I love. I hesitate to say it straight out, because returning his sentiment would just make it worse, in the end. “It only works for people who are very dear to me,” I finish lamely.

But hope flashes across Hector’s face, so raw and exquisite. Maybe I ought to tell him anyway. I could lie to him, tell him that our future has a happy ending.

Instead, I scoot off the bed and step away, putting distance between us. “How is Storm?” I ask, refusing to look in Hector’s direction.

“Uninjured,” Belén says. “More interestingly, I haven’t heard him complain in hours.”

Hours. “How long was I—”

“Hours,” Mara confirms. “We were very worried. We’re almost to the island.”

I rush out the double doors and take the steps to the beakhead two at a time.

The view makes my hands fly to my mouth in awe.

We approach a crescent harbor of aquamarine water, ringed with crystal-white sand. Beyond the sand is a forest of coconut palms, whipping in the breeze. And beyond them are impossibly steep mountains, or towers, or maybe the fingers of God, jutting into the sky, trapping clouds with their fingertips. They seem verdant and alive, smothered in green, veined by shimmering waterfalls. White birds with pointed wings dive and soar among them, giving scale to their vastness.

The tug at my navel is stronger than ever. I press my fingers to the Godstone, as if to keep it from leaping out of my body and into the sea.

“I’ve never seen this place before,” says a voice beside me, and I jump. It’s Felix. He rests his forearms on the rail. “No one has. It’s not on any of my charts. My best guess is that we are somewhere south and slightly west of Selvarica, but I’m not sure I could navigate here a second time.”

“Perhaps,” I say, “the only way to get here is through a sorcerous hurricane.”

“Perhaps. I just hope we don’t have the same trouble when we leave.”

I look down at the water, so clear and beautiful. Silvery fish dart away from the ship as we sail forward, and patches of dark green plants wave with the current. They seem to be just below the surface, but our draft is deep, so I know it is only an illusion.

“How is the Aracely?” I ask. “Can we repair her?”

“We’re not taking on any more water, so the bilge will empty soon enough. I’ll send divers down to inspect the hull when we anchor to be sure. The bowsprit is lost. We’ve only the main sail left. I’ve a small spare in the hold we could unroll and use as a mizzen. Looks like there’s timber to be found on the island, enough to patch the port side. It will take a couple of weeks, but I expect we’ll limp away from this place just fine, so long as the weather holds. Another storm and we’re done for, so pray for sunshine.”

A couple of weeks. That’s far too long. Ximena and Tristán can’t keep up a pretense with decoy Elisa forever. Our ruse is sure to be discovered, and a queen can only go missing for so long before everything degenerates into chaos, before ambitious condes—like Eduardo—begin wrestling for power in the wake of my disappearance.

“Our biggest problem,” Felix says, “is supplies. Looks like we’ll have plenty of fresh water, but we lost an entire barrel of salted pork, and one of the grain bins is soaked. We’ll have to forage and fish, not just for our stay here, but for the return journey.”

I’m about to ask after his wounded crewmen when Hector saunters up and leans against the railing. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” he says.

I nod, gazing at a sparkling stream pouring from the jungle and into the sea. From here it looks like a silver ribbon winding through green velvet. “All that water! The place looks alive. It’s unnatural.”

He laughs. “You’ve been in the desert too long.”

I grin up at him. “I look at those waterfalls and see the wealth of a thousand nations.”

“Maybe that’s exactly what they are. Do you sense anything? Is it still guiding you?” He glances toward my navel, and my stomach does a little flip to remember his hands on my skin.

“It’s very strong now,” I tell him. “And when I healed Mara, it was a lot easier. The power was right there when I called it, even though . . . even though . . . I . . .”

He studies me, letting me struggle for words. Then, “Even though the need was not as great?” he offers softly. “She wasn’t injured as badly.”

I nod.

A crewman’s head appears at the stair. “Captain!” he calls. “Eight and a half fathoms at last sounding.”

“Drop anchor!” Felix booms.

“Ready to go ashore?” Hector asks.

I stare at the island; it’s so wild and foreign and foreboding. “Ready,” I lie.