Chapter 11 The Sea Is Singing.
Everyone’s pretending to keep busy, but I can feel the shift, the unease crawling through the air. No one’s laughing anymore, no one’s calling out over the wind. They’re all stealing little side glances at the side of the ship, where the ice had formed before it shattered and sank.
Pike breaks the silence first. He’s been staring out over the rail for what feels like forever, jaw tight. When he finally turns to me, his voice is low. “You need to be careful with that kind of power, girl,” he says. “Things like that—” he gestures toward the sea “—they can wake the water.”
“I didn’t mean to—” I start, words tumbling over each other. “It just—happened. I’m sorry, truly, I didn’t mean to.”
Eddie comes up beside him, running a hand through his hair, his expression caught somewhere between concern and disbelief. “Does that… happen often?”
I hesitate, but lying feels pointless. “Sometimes,” I admit quietly. “When I feel too much. When I lose focus.”
He exhales, long and slow. “So, let me get this straight. You were locked away in a tower because you had unstable magic. You finally escaped… and you didn’t take the time to learn how to control it?”
The words sting more than I expect them to. I snap my gaze toward him, jaw tightening. “You think I didn’t try?”
He blinks, taken aback by the sharpness in my tone.
“I tried every day,” I continue, my voice low but shaking. “I tried to stop it, to control it, to be normal. But how was I supposed to learn when I was alone? When every time I asked for help, they looked at me like I was a monster?”
Eddie opens his mouth, then closes it again. The crew goes quiet, pretending not to listen but absolutely listening. I stare down at my hands, at the faint frost that still lingers across my fingertips. The shame burns in my chest, mixing with the ache of everything I’ve tried to bury. “I didn’t choose this,” I whisper. “None of it.”
Eddie sighs and nods once, the tension easing from his face. “Alright,” he says softly. “Then we’ll just make sure it doesn’t happen again, yeah?”
“Yeah,” I murmur. I'll just snap bang fix it right now, so it never happens again. Yeah, easy as.
As the men drift back to their work, Pike lingers at the railing, still watching the water. His voice comes out rough, barely more than a whisper. “Best hope the sea’s still sleeping, girl.”
I follow his gaze. The waves look harmless now, calm, glittering under the weak morning light. But for a heartbeat, I think I see something dark move beneath the surface. A ripple where there shouldn’t be one.
The day drags on in a blur of wind and work. The men keep their distance, not obviously, not rudely, but enough that I notice. Enough that it stings. Where before there were easy jokes and shared smiles, now there are careful glances and whispered words half-lost beneath the crash of waves. Every time I turn, someone’s already looking away. Every time I reach for a rope or a tool, someone’s hand twitches back, like they’re afraid of frostbite. Eddie tries to act normal, but even he feels a little more formal now. His voice carries that forced lightness people use when they’re trying not to show they’re nervous. I hate it. I hate how fast warmth turns into fear. How quickly people can turn into assholes just because I'm a little different. It's not like I look at them differently for their bulging stomachs or scraggly beards.
“Alright, lads!” Pike calls from the bow. “Get ready! We’ve got something!”
The net tightens as the men haul, the heavy ropes cutting through calloused palms. I join in without thinking, grabbing a length of rope and pulling with all my weight. The muscles in my arms burn, but it feels good to be part of something. When the catch hits the deck, water splashes over our boots. It’s fish. Dozens, no, hundreds of them, thrashing and glinting silver in the light. The men stare in disbelief.
“I’ll be damned,” Eddie says, running a hand through his hair. “That’s more than we’ve caught in a week.” He looks at me, then back at the sea. “Guess the ocean’s feeling generous today.”
The others laugh, but I catch the flicker of unease behind their smiles. Assholes.
Eddie grabs a bucket and tosses one toward me. “Ice,” he says. “If you can manage it. We’ll lose half the catch before sundown otherwise.”
“Right,” I murmur. “Ice. I can do that.”
My hands hover above the buckets as I crouch, Gilfred peeking from the folds of my collar. “Okay, little guy,” I whisper. “Just a little. Not too much. Calm, steady.”
He chirps softly, as if agreeing, or warning me. Probably warning.
I breathe in, slow and deep. Focus. Cold curls at my fingertips, spreading like smoke. The surface of the bucket fogs, then crystallises into perfect white frost. I move to the next, and the next. Tiny flakes drift from my fingers like snow caught in sunlight.
“Easy,” I tell myself quietly. “You’re fine. Just enough.”
But my chest feels tight, and I can feel the weight of their eyes on me, their caution, their distance. Even when they thank me, their smiles don’t quite reach their eyes. I can’t blame them. I know what I must look like: the girl who froze the sea. By the time the last bucket is iced, my fingers ache from holding back the power. My breath mists in the air. I straighten slowly, wiping my palms on my trousers and trying not to notice the way the men step around the frost patches left in my wake. I tell myself it doesn’t matter. I tell myself I don’t need anyone’s comfort. But it does matter. It always does.
When night finally falls, I can’t sleep. The hammocks sway softly below deck, the air thick with the scent of salt and fish. Gilfred is curled up beside me, a small warm heartbeat against my neck, but the ache inside me feels larger than the sea itself. I'm not welcome here anymore. I fucked it up already. I slip quietly out from the hammock, bare feet silent on the wood, and climb up to the deck. The sky is endless, ink black, stitched with stars. The sea mirrors it perfectly, a dark reflection that stretches into infinity. Everything is still, almost peaceful. I walk to the railing, hugging my arms around myself, and stare down at the water. The surface glimmers faintly, as though something deep below is glowing, pulsing with a rhythm that doesn’t belong to the tides.
“Just waves,” I whisper to myself. “Just waves.”
Gilfred stirs under my collar, uneasy. Then I hear it—so faint I almost think I imagined it. A sound carried on the wind. Not quite a voice, not quite a melody. But it hums in my bones, sweet and sad, like someone calling from the bottom of a dream. The hairs on my arms rise. The sea isn’t sleeping. It’s singing.