Pearl Before Swine ch 19: Wounded

~THE PEARL~

Beyond the beach and the dunes, a mosaic of stones winds through the forest to return to the university’s main building. As its last curve comes into our sight, Beau rounds the turn, halts, and crosses his arms. Morning’s rays streak between the trees and pool in his eyes like molten electrum, as luminous as the electric lights that have brought the need for a new Essence.

Those eyes narrow and settle on Sal. “You nearly gave me a heart attack.”

Sal stops, too, a hand on my shoulder. “Why?”

“You know what happened to that islander last night?”

“No?” A mote of panic sharpens Sal’s question as he passes me.

I share the feeling. I want to sprint past him and find Jun, but my legs transform into branches lacking knees. I no longer feel my toes.

“As soon as we heard, Vidal told me you’d switched with Oakson for rock collecting duty this morning. You should have been back at least half an hour ago.” Beau covers the distance between us with long strides. “So, I rushed out here, sure there wouldn’t be anything left of you to find.”

His gaze falls on me like twin hammers, and Sal’s hand slides down my arm to lock around my wrist, pulling me further behind him.

Pike rolls his eyes. “Beau Smythe, I thought you were a man of science. Don’t tell me you’re afraid of the sea, too.”

Beau pivots to tower over his fellow science student. “At least I’m not the weirdo who said the sea when asked for his greatest love.”

Sal tilts his head at Pike, then shakes away the tangent. “Do you know what attacked Jun?”

“You do.” Beau lifts his brows, and in Sal’s shadow, his eyes no longer glow.

Sal’s shoulders form a straight plain. He is a wall, yet his voice is quiet and jagged like broken pebbles grinding beneath a boot. “Please tell me he lives.”

I need that answer, too. It is air, and without it, my lungs might as well be stone.

“Can we be modern men here, please?” Hands raised, Pike stomps between the two other boys. “There is no such thing as Essences or Creatures of the Sea. If someone hurt Jun, it’s because we keep repeating these lies and superstitions meant to divide us.”

How have they hurt him, though? Is it as Beau said last night? Has someone given Jun to Mare, pinned him on the shore and poured his blood into the sea?

If there is any life left in my blue-eyed human, I can heal him. I have to try.

I curl my fingers around Sal’s forearm. “I want to see him.”

Sal is stiffer than any golem, skin prickled and cold. “Beau, why aren’t you answering me?”

“You think you deserve an answer?” Pushing past Pike, he jabs a finger into Sal’s chest. “You know it’s not safe out here, but you dragged Pearl along. You disappearing would be one thing, but if you both vanished—” He cuts off with a growl and shoves at Sal, but he might as well shove at a cliff.

Sal knows the sea is dangerous. He believes anything beautiful is. He has not known me for long, yet he intuits enough to understand that I would cherish the beauty of the pre-dawn beach over insipid safety. I suspect, too, that bringing me to the sea was a test. He believes me one of Mare’s creatures, and I do not believe I have managed to convince him otherwise.

Grip still firm on my wrist, he charges forward, knocking Beau out of the way. “We’d better get inside before we miss breakfast.”

Stumbling behind him, I repeat my wish. “I need to see Jun.”

Pike falls into step beside me with a sympathetic look. “I’m sure he’s fine, Pearl. He survived that bear.”

He did, but only with my help. His blood coats my hands anew, sticky, thick, warm, and unseen.

“Sal,” I whisper. “Sal, after everything that was said last night, do you think it was Creatures of the Sea? The Swine?” My focus cuts briefly to Pike, then jumps back to Sal. “Or did Aurora…” The sentence sticks in my throat, and I swallow it. “If you had let me follow him last night, would he…” I cannot finish this sentence either.

Sal walks faster.

“Who’s not answering now?” Beau calls, jogging to pass us.

Finally, my legs understand that I must move. Slipping my wrist free, I swing around Sal and fix a challenging stare on Beau. “We were working out a theory about the auroras. They are a new Creature of Essence, the Essence of the Night.”

Now his legs become stiff branches, and he nearly topples over, but I cannot stop. I have to get to Jun.

***

“Welcome to Great Minds Think Café. Vidal feels awful today. How can I help you?”

I squint at his badge, and though it remains in a script I do not know, I am still fairly certain it says Vidal.

“Do you and your boss have the same name?”

“Answering questions of that nature is not in my job description. Please pick a meal option.”

With a sigh, I swivel toward Beau. “Are you certain Jun is in the café?”

“You need food.” Sal’s hands on my shoulders realign me with the counter. Yet, when I lean my head back to look up at him, he is scanning the seating area far behind Vidal—an advantage his height allows that mine does not. “We all need to eat. Give her the same thing she had yesterday, Vidal. Me, too, and charge it to Beau.”

“Add a veggie plate,” Pike throws in with a small wave and a lopsided grin.

Beau scoffs. “Are you sure you don’t want to add some centipede guts to that? If I’m paying for it, why not go all out?”

“Tease me all you want.” Nose in the air, Pike snakes his arm around my shoulders. “Pearl and I already worked that out, and I don’t care diddly squat about your opinion.”

Vidal clears his throat. “Centipede is not on the menu, though Vidal could probably find some cockroaches for you.”

My ears perk at the suggestion. As much as I want to find Jun, Sal is right. If I do need to heal him, it will take energy I cannot spare if I do not eat, and if Vidal recommends cockroaches for a more interesting meal, then I want to try it.

“Can you add cockroaches to my plate, too?”

“It would make my day.” He is a sketch of straight lines—brows, lips, eyes—yet this request begets the slightest curve of a smile.

“Disgusting! Don’t you dare add that, Vidal.” Pike tows me away, arm still draped over my shoulder.

Sal grabs his jacket’s collar and lugs him back.

Twisting free, Pike lifts both hands as if warding off blows that do not come. “You think I’m some sort of teapot with a handle you can just carry around and set wherever you like?”

“You said you were going to make it up to Pearl for killing her centipede friend. Why don’t you start by picking up her food at the counter for her?”

Pike nods firmly, face scrunching. “That’s a good idea, actually, though it’ll seem disingenuous now that you told me to do it.” Rocking back on his heels, he lobs a glance at the front corner of the balcony, where smoke and steam waltz above a loitering crowd. “A centipede friend though? Is that an accurate description?”

“It was a gift from…” How do I explain my relationship to Terra? I cannot tell him the whole truth, and that realization is a rope of thorns crawling up my spine. My arms hold each other, and my gaze falls to our toes. “My father sent it because he worries for me.”

“Now I’m ten times more sorry.” Short as he is, Pike does not have to duck far to reenter my line of sight. “There was a pit in my stomach before, but now it’s like the Great Swallowing all over again, turning me inside out.”

The corner of my mouth twitches in a rebellious smirk. “For someone who hates words, that is very poetic.”

“Really? I’m no poet though.” He winks, pulls his beret from his pocket, and sets it crookedly atop his sandy hair as he straightens. “I’m going to go get our food now, okay? Do not disappear on me.”

At my nod, he takes off, and I turn to whisper to Sal. “Is he the Swine? Or…”

My gaze rakes our surroundings. Vidal takes requests from the next students queued before his podium, but our other companion has vanished.

My volume drops even lower. “Or is it Beau?”

Sal sighs. “Do you still want to see Jun?”

“You found him?” Whirling, I dash through the doors and beyond the half wall that blocks most of the balcony from my sight. Unfamiliar faces occupy most of the chairs, but at last I spy midnight hair fanned over the back of a charcoal jacket.

“Jun!”

Sal’s grip returns to my shoulders, holding me back. His words are for me alone, hissed into my ear. “Wait. Think. You say you’re not a Creature of the Sea, but you do have ties to Mare.”

I keep my eyes pinned to Jun’s back. “Is it true what you said when we first met? That you study the transference of energy like when an Essence heals someone?”

In the elongated moment while I await Sal’s reply, I inspect my blue-eyed human. Facing the rising sun, he sits alone at the same table where we studied last night. His head and arms move as he partakes of whatever his plate offers, and the motions are as graceful as what I have come to expect from him. At this angle and distance, I cannot tell that anything is amiss.

Though a soft breeze, Sal’s voice possesses winter’s bite. “You’re saying you can heal him. It doesn’t matter what happens to him because you can undo it?”

No, that is not what I mean at all. What is this feeling, this tightness in my chest and emptiness in my core at the thought of his smile’s absence in the world?

“I will protect him.”

“What are you, Pearl?”

Head tilted, I look at Sal and try to squirm free. His grip slides to my wrists—a vice, a chain, a leash.

“It’s a serious question. What are you that you think you can protect a Koa from Mare?” The words are less than a breath. If they catch in any of the ears that surround us, they swirl through that maze and slip free without any impact. Yet, they crash into me, each echo heavier.

Because it is true. I cannot even protect myself from Mare.

Unless I win the bet.

Ice crawls through my veins and bursts in tiny explosions as if I sit between massive jaws. Any moment, those teeth will meet and rip me asunder. No, not me, Jun, and I cannot stand it.

I tear free and rush to him. His small smile melts my fear. If I kiss him as Sal taught me, will that smile grow? Will he think of me as one who ignites his heart instead of one who remained silent while Beau voiced those awful words yesterday?

Last night, I told Tulip what happened on the balcony. Her words waft again through my head. “Beau’s a spoiled brat used to getting away with everything. Doesn’t help that he’s new here and he’s the dean’s nephew. You should stay away from him and Jun both, probably.”

I do not want to stay away from Jun. I do not know how, but I will not let those horrid things happen to him.

“They have happened,” Tulip argued, “not to him, but to his family.”

“He never knew them.”

Tulip had an answer for that, too. “He still loves them.”

The notion confused me, and I set it aside so I could sleep. Now, with Jun so near, my thoughts are a swirling sea beneath a tempest. How can humans love someone they have never met? Those Koa men died long before Jun existed. Even had they lived their lives out in peace, he would never have seen their smiles.

Does Jun regret being born too late? He had no control over that, yet I understand. No other sea stones like me existed while I lay on the ocean floor, but that did not make me less lonely. It seems foolish to blame something that does not exist for its own non-existence, but a part of me does.

If I win the bet, I can stay with Terra. I can ask Terra for the power to protect Jun. Maybe we can move to his island and protect all those he loves.

His smile sags. “This might be considered weird on the mainland, but I find it unnerving when someone just stares at me like they’re watching the world burn.”

With a silent, “Oh,” I straighten, but I cannot look away. “You are as beautiful as any fire. May I sit with you to dine?”

His mouth hangs ajar, and his brows rise, but after a moment, he swivels back to his plate. “Why not? No one else will.”

I pull out the chair alongside him, but Halcyon slides into it with a mumbled, “Thank you.”

A squeak of surprise and protest escapes me, but before I can tell the dragon to move, Sal approaches from Jun’s other side, meeting my gaze and shaking his head. The shadow of the upper balcony leeches all the green from his eyes, leaving them the gray of a steel chain. Solemnity weights the look, and the floor groans beneath my feet.

With a deep breath, I circle the table and sit across from Jun, trying not to look at Sal as he claims a chair. Jun peers askance at Halcyon as if expecting him to announce why he suddenly appeared. The dragon’s face is again buried in a book, and he lacks a plate. Has he already finished his breakfast? Would the humans approve of his diet? Hopefully, he does not eat any of their relatives.

I do not allow these wisps of wonder to launch into the world as Jun sips from a half sphere, gazing over its rim at me. The drink’s sweet, milky scent fills the air.

“Can I try some?”

Jun offers me the cup—a fruit sliced in half. A coconut. As its fragrance grows, so does my smile. I sample the creamy contents, and the rough, fuzzy shell scours my lower lip. My teeth scratch against the coconut’s flesh, and some peels off, sliding onto my tongue. While saccharine, it is not as sweet as its scent promises.

Jun’s eyes are wide, the corner of his lips trapped between his molars. “Do you like it?”

I nod, nibbling off more.

“Good. I’d have cried if you said it was gross.” He leans back, deflating with a sigh. “To me, this fruit represents my home.”

“It’s good for you, too,” Pike says with another wink as he sets my plate before me. Like yesterday, a mountain of yellow fluff occupies the center. “Coconut keeps you regular.”

My face twists. “Would one not wish to be special?”

Pike laughs. The sound is sunshine and waves crashing against the shore. “That’s not what that means. It keeps, well, you know, your insides…Jun, help me out here with a table-appropriate explanation.”

“You got yourself into this mess.”

Pike’s cheeks contort and redden, and he speaks too loudly. “What I mean to say, Jun, is I approve of your dietary choices this morning.”

With a shrug, Jun stabs the last berry on his plate. “I already finished all the things you wouldn’t approve of.”

Chuckling quietly, I lift the coconut for a second sample, but as Jun raises his fork to his mouth, his sleeve slips, and I freeze, a blizzard raging within. Not only does white gauze attempt to conceal an injury on his arm, fresh, scarlet blood seeps through it.

I drop the fruit and snatch his hand. “They did hurt you.”

“Nobody tell the dean, or the healers will tie me up in bandages.” He slips his fingers free of mine, blue eyes narrowed and darting everywhere.

“What attacked you last night?” Sal asks, low voice like the grind of river rocks. “Another aurora?”

Jun stills. “It was different. More solid. And it was singing.”

Sal glances at me, but after an obese pause, the straight line of his lips quirks up on one side. His tone overflows with syrup. “Were you bewitched?”

Jun scowls. “It was the same song Pike played before the bear attack, so I thought it was him at first playing some joke. Then, it chomped down on my arm, and Great Tempest, its teeth…”

His eyes pin his wrist, yet it rolls with a slow, jolted movement reminiscent of the golems, as if beneath his wrinkled sleeve, his skin has become a plain of stone. My lungs are just as rigid, though they are ice and fragile. I dare not move.

“I’d left a partially disassembled Baker Arrow on the nightstand, and I stabbed it into the beast’s side. It fled, the coward.”

I still cannot breathe. Pike draws in a slow breath and holds it. Halcyon flips the page of his book.

As swift and strong as a riptide, Sal grabs Jun’s arm and pushes his sleeve back to his elbow. The gauze wraps his entire forearm, lined by crimson pools.

“It’s still bleeding after how many hours? The healers need to clean and sew this.”

“They’ll tell the dean, and he’ll overreact.” Jun attempts to break free, but Sal is stronger.

“When something literally tries to eat you, it’s not overreacting to seek medical attention and post a guard.”

“I don’t need a guard. I need—”

Jun quiets as my lips touch his forehead. My hips support my weight atop the table, though I do lean on him a bit, one hand tangled in his hair to sweep it out of his face. The other digs between the folds of gauze until my fingertips reach warm, sticky skin. The ice within me shatters, replaced with lightning.

He pivots back, chair balanced on only two legs and hands around my wrists as he studies my face. A smile crawls across him, slow at first and shaky, but inevitable as dawn. “When Pike said you were a wild warrior woman, this isn’t what I pictured.”

“Pike called me a wild warrior woman?” I tilt my head and pull my knees beneath me. Yellow fluff sticks to the front of my jacket. The thinnest tendrils of steam waft from every point of contact between us, but Jun does not notice.

He smirks. “That, among other things.”

I turn to Pike, who is on his feet, eyes like deep, circular lagoons.

His voice is just as liquid. “What’s the knife for, bookworm?”

Continued in chapter 20

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