Sol drifted through the spring and perched herself on the stone bench, her fingers bone-white as she gripped the pool’s edge. Her braided hair floated through the water like rubies adrift at sea, the loose, unraveling strands curling as if unleashed from some daily concoction that kept them tamed into submission.
“I’ve never seen you wear your hair down,” Fynn noted. He would do anything to take her mind off what she’d done, to wipe away that dread still guttering in her eyes. “It’s always in a braid.”
Her chest heaved with a deep, steadying breath of air. Fynn stirred an icy breeze around her. “It’s naturally very curly,” Sol told him stiffly. “I brush it straight and braid it, otherwise I’ll look like a lion.”
“I like lions.” Fynn gave her a grin that the Princess did not return. She did not so much as even look at him. He sighed and combed his fingers through his own hair. “When I first discovered that I was a Wind-Wielder, I nearly blew away my home.”
She glanced at him from the corners of her eyes.
“I was very young, and scared, and I was afraid I would never learn to control it. But do you know what prompted that very first wind storm when I was a child?”
“What?”
“My brother.” Fynn took a breath of his own, one that was frigid and scorching all at once, drafted by the Magic in his veins. “Even as children, he was a monster, and he used to beat me relentlessly. Our healers grew fond of me. But one day, I’d finally had enough, and I screamed at him to leave me alone, to get away from me.”
He closed his eyes and silenced the wind inside him. He did not think of his brother often, but the memories of his abuse, the way he would beat Fynn into the dirt and leave him there broken and bleeding, were enough to still make his heart stall with fear.
“Only I didn’t scream,” Fynn continued, opening his eyes and blinking through the spring steam. “And it was a fierce wind that tore out of me instead.”
Sol turned to him then, angling herself towards the Captain with a frown. “No one stopped him from hurting you?”
“No,” Fynn said. “But my Magic did.”
“Where were your parents?” she demanded. “They allowed him to do this? My father nearly murdered my brother when he burned me, and that was an accident.” Sol gripped her wrist, the burn there still hidden beneath her bracelet. Fynn doubted she ever took it off.
“There was nothing my mother could do,” Fynn explained. “And my father didn’t care. My brother was the favorite, as I assume most first-born sons are, and got away with whatever he wanted.”
She was quiet for a moment, mulling over his words as she dropped her gaze to the water. Fynn wondered what her life had been like in Sonamire, a kingdom known for their palaces and temples and traditions. She was close with Silas, the Crown Prince that Fynn had seen on the battlefield all those years ago, burning until he’d had nothing left. But what of her father? There was nothing for Sol to inherit, no territories she could rule over as a woman. The King didn’t need her like Fynn’s father had not needed him. Had he treated her as such?
She had run away, after all.
“You weren’t trying to hurt me,” Sol said eventually. “I didn’t need protection.”
“I’m a stranger,” Fynn pointed out. “Your Magic doesn’t know me any more than you do. You’re both still learning to trust me, that I would never hurt you.”
Assisted by Fynn’s Magic, Sol breathed through her nose. “I didn’t know I could change the water’s temperature.”
“Correct me if I’m wrong,” Fynn said. “But it doesn’t seem as if you’ve experimented with the full extent of your power. You’re likely capable of many things you’re not aware of. Luca? He could freeze this entire spring, if he wanted to.”
Sol tilted her head and glanced at the water. “That must be draining.”
Fynn shrugged. “You’ve got a warm bed to sleep in for the next three nights if you’d like to try. I only ask that you wait until after I’ve gotten out of the water.”
“What about you?” Sol inquired. She fiddled with a silver chain around her neck. “What can you do beyond altering the wind for the sails of your ship?”
“I could bring down this mountain with a wind storm, if I wanted to. I could rip the air from someone’s lungs and suffocate them.”
Sol shuddered. “Have you done it before?” she asked. “Taken someone’s breath away?”
Fynn winked at her. “On several occasions.”
The Princess groaned, though her mouth stretched into a wide, toothy grin as she splashed a handful of water at him. “You can’t be serious for more than a few moments, can you? Is any of what you said even true?”
“Of course it is,” Fynn told her. “But my charm just bursts out of me with more force than this volcano will one day erupt with. I can’t help it.” Fynn dropped his tone to a soft, gentle rasp and added, “And it got you to smile.”
Her rose-colored cheeks darkened with a blush. She bashfully turned her head. “I appreciate the effort.”
“Good, though it wasn’t so hard.”
Sol angled herself towards him again, her bottom lip caught between her teeth. She studied him, her head tilted to one side and looking for all the world as if some long-held curiosity were finally starting to get the better of her. “Can I ask you something?”
Fynn raised an eyebrow. “Anything.”
“Earlier today, when we were booking the rooms for our stay… You told them that your name was Ezra. Why?”
The name speared through his heart like the blade of a sword freshly pulled from the forge. “It’s just an alias,” Fynn told her. “I never give anyone my real name. There are too many people searching for Fynn Cardinal.”
Sol frowned. “You’ll forgive me if I have a hard time believing that you’ve done anything so heinous that requires a bounty on your name.”
“My ship—my crew—is my life, Sol. I’ve done many things to keep them safe.”
Things that he would never apologize for.
He’d stolen food when they were starving, medicine when they were sick and Luca could not heal them. He had killed to ensure they lived, had left Arden’s keeper to rot in an alley in Valestorm after plunging a blade into his heart. There was nothing Fynn would not do for them—that he had not done already.
“Those things aren’t deserving of a bounty, then.”
Fynn chuckled. “I suppose it depends on the perspective.”
Sol watched him for a moment more. Her gaze dropped to what Fynn soon realized was his arm. “Your tattoos,” she said. “What do they mean? I’ve never seen such symbols.”
Removing his arm from the pool’s edge, Fynn held it between them to give her a better view of the ink. “My mother was a priestess in Thymis’ temple,” he told her. “She had access to their hidden archives and spent years learning the language of our ancestors.”
The Princess blinked at him in surprise. “These are runes.”
He nodded. “They are indeed.”
Sol slid closer, taking Fynn’s arm and absently tracing her fingers across his skin. Fynn tried his best not to shudder at the warmth left in their wake, and he prayed that she did not notice. “What does this one mean?” she asked. She brushed her thumb over a darkly inked line pointing like an upwards arrow.