“Our mother was a Water-Wielder,” Sol explained. “Not a powerful one, but I inherited my abilities from her. Silas got Fire from our father.”
Fynn hummed his acknowledgement. “I take it the King doesn’t know you’re a Wielder?”
Sol shook her head. “Apart from your crew, the only person who knows is Silas. He made me promise to keep it to myself because our father would have recruited me for his army.” Her cheeks reddened. “He said I wouldn’t make a good soldier.”
“I can’t say I disagree,” Fynn mused, dodging the hand Sol flailed at him. He chuckled quietly as she settled, her lips pursed with a pout. “I’m sure it was an honest sentiment. He just wanted to keep you safe.”
Her shoulders caved in around her, and Sol dropped her gaze to the planks. She held out her hand in silent offering, resting it palm up against her knee. Fynn laced his fingers between her shaking ones. “It was Silas who sent me away.”
The Captain frowned. “Why?”
Sol’s breathing hitched, and those were tears gathering in her eyes again. “I can’t tell you.”
Fynn scooted closer. “Sol, look at me,” he whispered, tracing his thumb across the back of her hand. Sol lifted her eyes, but she did not quite meet his gaze. Fynn reckoned that would have to be good enough. “There is nothing you could ever say to me that would make me cast you out. That I wouldn’t try to understand. Your title doesn’t mean anything to me.”
As far as Fynn was concerned, titles meant nothing at all.
Sol sniffed. “This is different,” she insisted weakly. “You’ll—you’ll hate me.”
Rising back up onto his knees, Fynn took Sol’s chin between his index finger and thumb. He lifted her head up, and before those tears could once again spill down her cheeks, Fynn kissed her. “No,” he said against her mouth. “I won’t.”
A whimper cracked out of Sol, one that Fynn felt echo in his chest. She gripped the sides of his face, her bottom lip quivering as she kept him held against her. “Promise that you won’t send me away.”
Fynn held her back, his fingers twisting into the curls at the nape of her neck. “I promise.”
Her breath mingled with his own, a warm brush of air that roused the Magic in his veins. Sol brushed her thumb along his cheek, tracing over the scruff that darkened his jaw. “It wasn’t my choice,” she said. Her voice broke. “I didn’t know until the night Silas sent me away.”
Fynn repeated, “I promise.”
Sol swallowed audibly. “As a condition of the Treaty,” she began. “To secure the alliance between Sonamire and Dyn, my father promised my hand to Thane Grayclaw.”
His blood ran cold. “What?”
The Princess winced. “The marriage was meant to ensure the peace between our kingdoms.” Sol’s fingers dug gently into his cheeks. “I didn’t know, and neither did Silas. They were waiting until I turned eighteen, but my father wanted to send me a few weeks early so that I might get to know him before we married. But Silas snuck me out of the castle, and he had the Captain of the Royal Guard take me to Valestorm.”
Fynn untangled himself from Sol, sinking onto the floor and staring at her with shattered disbelief. “You’re engaged.”
Sol rubbed at her eyes, brushing away her tears with the sleeve of her tunic. “Not by choice.”
Stupid—it was so utterly stupid for Fynn to have allowed himself to get close to her. He did not care about her title, would never have cared that Sol was the Princess of Sonamire. But to be betrothed to the Crown Prince of Dyn, to the notorious Thane Grayclaw who killed innocent men for sport… Fynn was a dead man, a very dead man, if the bounty hunters ever caught up to him.
Sol’s voice cracked as she said, “I told you. I told you that you’d hate me if you knew.”
Fynn dragged his fingers through his hair, tugging on the ends as fear and frustration gripped him. “I don’t hate you,” he sighed. “I’m just—I need a minute.”
He needed a godsdamned lifetime, but he would have to make do with a minute.
“I shouldn’t have told you,” Sol claimed. She picked at her fingernails, tearing at her cuticles until they bled and she healed them with her Magic. “Amael said you wouldn’t care, but—”
His eyes snapped to her face. “Amael knew?”
Sol nodded apprehensively, lifting her hand to further bite at her nails. “That night at the tavern in Arrowbrook, I left early.” Fynn didn’t need to ask why. “Amael followed me, and we argued, and I… I told him.”
The Captain blinked at her, his chest hollowing out at the betrayal. “You trusted Amael with this, but not me?”
Sol dropped her head into her hands. “I only told him so that he’d stop being so upset with me. He’d treated me like—like shit since the moment he found out I was a Wielder. I couldn’t take it anymore, and he was persistent.”
Fynn pushed himself onto his feet and took to pacing the cabin.
His Magic howled to be unleashed. An icy wind ripped through his quarters to sate it. “You’re the reason why the Dryuans were gone,” he said, the realization striking him with the force of a physical blow. “Amael wasn’t surprised to find them gone. Gutted, but not surprised, and I suppose that now I know why.”
Sol nodded and watched him carefully. “I didn’t show up in Dyn when I was supposed to,” she said. “Amael thinks that Caidem is preparing for war, that he called in the Dryuans to fight for him because my father didn’t keep his word.”
“Of course he did,” Fynn spat. “Because Caidem can’t fight his own battles.”
The Princess flinched at his tone. “I shouldn’t have told you.”
“You should have told me weeks ago!” Fynn cried. “I’ve always known that the bounty hunters were looking for you, Sol, but if you’d only told me why…” He rubbed at his temples, a dull ache beginning to build there. “I’d have never taken you into Arrowbrook. I’d have never let you leave this ship.”
Sol frowned at him. “I knew they were looking for me, but you said they were looking for you.”
“They are looking for me,” he replied. “And I’m worth my weight in gold. But you? You’re a far bigger prize than I am, especially if Thane is wanting to find you.”
Thane Grayclaw—Sol was betrothed to Thane Grayclaw. And of all the ships for the Princess of Sonamire to end up on, it was Fynn’s. He cursed the Gods for such luck.
She wrapped her arms around herself. “How far are we from Nedros?”
Fynn stopped his pacing to look at her. “Nearly three months, if the weather holds out.”
Her nostrils flared as she sniffled. “Is there somewhere else we can stop?”
“We’ll be in open waters for the next few weeks,” Fynn told her. “There are ports along the Taesean continent, but we’re not stopping until we reach Nedros.”
“Why not?” Sol inquired quietly. “You can drop me off, and I’ll—”
“I said I would take you to Nedros, and I will,” Fynn snapped, far more harshly than he’d intended. “This doesn’t change that. I won’t go back on my word.”