Page 31 of Beneath the Veil of Tides
“I…I can’t heal what’s not alive.”
Calvin draped his arm over my shoulders, pulling me into his side. I couldn’t let him die. No one deserved to die rescuingme. He needed to live. Needed to protect his Bound.
A violent gasp rang through the silence, halting the compressions against Noctis’s chest. Then frenzied coughing erupted as the god came to. He knelt over in a fit of choking, spitting up swallowed water.
I shook, nearly in sobs, then tore off and dove back into the ocean. Careful not to go too far away from the ship, I swam in wide circles. I searched everywhere, but to hell with quitting. Not after Noctis almost died for the cause. My fear worked as bait for what I needed. What I initially entered the depths in search of.
Finally, when the Tide Reaper crashed into my side, I pivoted and launched from the depths like a spear. I struck the hull with a thud, fingers like claws gripping the slick wood as I hauled myself up.
It would follow, and that’s exactly what we needed. The beast did as I had expected, landing before me in an ichor-drenched heap, and I gripped the strategically placed rope at my side, binding the Tide Reaper’s ankles before it could pounce.
Sleep slipped through my fingers, the night offering no rest. Tenderness wracked my body from the previous day’s events, but when the sun began to leak through the wooden floor above the hammock, my nerves insisted I jump from bed.
I’d tried to get Noctis into the hammock himself to sleep the night before, but he refused, threatening to slip into the mesh bedding along with me. Instead, his fiery wings flattened beneath him on the pallet beside me. He slept peacefully, as if death didn’t lurk to reap him mere hours ago.
I pressed my boot gently into his side, nudging him from whatever dream held tight to his consciousness. He squinted as the filtering sun spilled over his face. Then, his confused, icy-blue gaze met mine as he lifted himself up.
“I have a surprise for you,” I said, arms stiff at my sides.
He tilted his head, smirking. “Should I be flattered or deeply concerned?” His voice was thick with sleep, rough in a way that felt too intimate.
“Neither. Just get up.”
“You sure it’s not a confession? Because I’m ready to pretend to be shocked.”
I groaned. “You are the worst.”
“And yet,” he drawled, standing with an infuriating grin, “here you are. Bringing me surprises like we’re something.”
“I could still push you overboard.”
“Romance is a slow burn,” he leaned in and murmured against my ear, brushing his hand across my elbow so gently. “Yours just happens to come with threats.”
Shivers prickled across my skin, and I forced myself to remember why I was angry at him. Deception wears teeth and leaves deep wounds with a weight that candied words can’t hide. Flattery only has temporary sweetness that eventually fades.
I turned without a response and led him toward the main deck and around to the foremast. The ravaging Tide Reaper writhed against its restraints, a fierce snarl playing against its features, tattered clothes and bristly hair in patches across its head. It lunged forward but the rope around its throat snagged it back, bone snap echoing in the morning air.
Noctis’s face dropped all amusement, realizing the harm I placed myself in when he succumbed to sleep after nearly drowning. His features morphed into something unrecognizable, brows downturned, eyes thinning into slits, dimples peeking from the drawn upward smile. Pride.
“You did it.”
“Looks like you aren’t the only one who can tie a good knot.” I reciprocated the grin, the same self pride mimicked in my own gaze. “Now, see if it has enough of a soul to use for our ticket into the Shadeborne Bound.”
The god hesitated, eyes bearing into the Tide Reaper then nodded and shifted toward the irate creature. He shot his hand out, and the Tide Reaper froze as if bound by the Threnai’s spindles, wind pressing into its body and holding tightly. He reached both palms, gripping the terrified creature’s face. Noctis closed his eyes, and his hands glowed a faint dark blue hue, slowly encasing the dead sailor’s frail body like a slimy goo. It pulsed with a heartbeat under the god’s order.
“Eerie,” Calvin softly muttered, startling me.
If this worked, the ‘equal weight, equal loss’ would mean that another Tide Reaper or something else just as evil would be killed alongside it. I could live with that.
The rest of the crew silently stalked over, stopping to watch Noctis drain the remaining soul from the Tide Reaper.
The creature fell in a heap to the floor, Noctis’s hands still holding up where they gripped its face as if relishing in the feel of devouring a soul as the God of the Forsaken. He exhaled and turned to the crew.
“Looks like we can dock now,” he declared as we neared the harbor of the Waning Isles.
A rotten scent filled our noses, and I wasn’t able to shake the burning sensation that went through my sinuses. Like flesh decomposing in the summer sun. A sheen glaze interfered with my vision as my eyes fought against the rancid odor of the island.
How could anyone live in this?
