A Painted Goddess Read Online Free Page A

doable.
    Still, he wasn’t up for it.
    On the other hand, Alem couldn’t live on thirty square feet of rock in the middle of the ocean for the rest of his life either. He’d need water eventually. Food.
    And if Maurizan washed up on some island, maybe that was the one. He had to find out.
    So. Boots tucked into belt. He eased back into the water.
    At least it was cooler. He swam toward the island, forcing himself to go slowly. Getting a cramp or tiring out halfway there wouldn’t help him.
    Arms stroked. Legs kicked. Head above the water for a gulp of air. He fell into a rhythm. After a while he paused to get his bearings. The island didn’t look one inch closer.
    Damn it .

    Tosh knelt at the prow of the scow-schooner, eyes peeled for any foreign objects floating in the water. Kalli scanned the ocean to port, and Lureen and Viriam were doing the same thing starboard and aft. Miko manned the tiller, uncharacteristically quiet and somber.
    They were all worried about Alem and Maurizan. They’d all grown close, traveling together these past weeks, surviving a ship-to-ship attack from the Perranese, barely escaping from the mobs in Sherrik before the city sealed itself for siege.
    Miko had been sailing for hours, crisscrossing the area where Alem and Maurizan had gone overboard. Not a sign of them. Not a hint.
    “Tosh.”
    Tosh tore his attention from the sea and looked back at Kalli. “You see something?”
    “No,” Kalli said. “Nobody has.”
    “So?”
    “So it’s a big ocean,” Kalli said. “Miko says we barely got through that storm ourselves. He says the chances of Alem and Maurizan surviving are—”
    “Don’t.” Tosh turned away from her. “Don’t say it.”
    Silence for a moment except for the wind and the scow slicing a path across the water.
    “Okay, so what do I do?” Tosh asked. “Just leave them?”
    “You’re the boss,” Kalli said. “I just thought you might want to talk about it.”
    Tosh turned his head and saw Viriam and Lureen were watching his conversation with Kalli. Likely they’d discussed this before electing Kalli to come talk to him.
    “Maurizan still has the map,” Tosh said. “But Miko has seen it. He still knows where we’re going.”
    “She and Alem could be together if they made it to land,” Kalli said. “They might follow the map. We could find them there.”
    Tosh nodded, thinking it through. “It might be our best bet. To keep going. It’s where Alem and Maurizan would go.”
    “Yes.” Kalli was nodding too. Encouragement.
    It was what he needed to hear. It was a plan to find their lost friends instead of a decision to abandon them.
    Just the sort of lie a man could cling to.

    Shivering and wet.
    Maurizan hugged herself and shifted, gravel crunching beneath her. She was afraid to move in the pitch darkness. She sensed an open cavernous area. The place smelled dank and salty. The water’s edge was only a few feet away.
    When she’d fallen overboard during the storm, panic had seized her. She could swim but not well. The sea was something angry and immense that wanted to crash down on her and drag her to its cold depths. Never had she felt such helpless fear. She’d known she was going to die. No other scenario had been conceivable.
    Until the Fish Man.
    Even when he’d been saving her, it had seemed ridiculous. Miko’s tall tale of the Fish Man, glimpsed here and there by sailors—often drunk—skimming just below the surface of the water. It was supposed to be a legend. Nonsense. Lies.
    But the Fish Man was truth.
    He’d grabbed her in the water, swimming so incredibly fast, diving, breaking the surface again just in time for her to gulp air before plunging back below the surface. This had happened over and over again until the routine of it had numbed her. When he’d taken her down for the last time, it had been longer. Her lungs were about to burst, and she’d struggled, but the Fish Man held her with an iron grip. Just when she was