Page 88 of Beneath the Veil of Tides
The Pantheorn Sea was a kaleidoscope of hues in yellow and orange as the sun laid to rest below the horizon. Brigg Isle had already erupted in chaos as Laziel and I looked across the land above the surface, floating in the vastness of the ocean. To the left, evacuated villagers used the Aeltharyn Peninsula as a bridge toward safer regions, away from the advancing Oceanwrought armies.
Zahara’s ship hurled in the waves in the distant port, tied to the wooden pier in the temporary safety over the strip of land. However, the crew rushed people and assisted carrying belongings over for the displaced inhabitants. A gentle comfort settled deep within me watching my friends risk themselves for the innocent. I did not believe it was mere coincidence I washed up on their ship. I needed the crew much more than the crew would ever need me.
Maybe there were gods who really did listen and care.
We swam to the shore, our tails shimmering as they transformed back to our leg forms. I gripped my shoulder, hands fisted as blood dripped to the sand. Queasiness hit me hard as my body worked to hold myself upright outside of the water.
A cool sea breeze drifted through my soaked clothing and chopped, uneven hair. Chills ran down my body, tiny bumpsprickling across my skin at the chilly difference between the two Bounds.
“You need to get to the ship. To rest,” Laziel coaxed with quiet insistence, cutting through the beating ocean waves against the shore.
“No. Not until they’re all across.”
I trudged toward the villagers as fast as my wobbling legs would allow, knees buckling under me with each step. Ripping a strip in my tunic’s arm, I packed the blade wound, hissing as my fingers slid into the bloody gash in my shoulder. The agony shot through me with each inch of material I shoved into the open wound. The gray fabric drank the blood almost instantly, darkening in spreading blooms. My feet kept moving, driven forward by determination that refused to be swallowed with it.
“Miles distance them, Caelyn.” Laziel’s gentle grip on my shoulder spun me. “You need to rest.” He emphasized the last sentence.
Fury burned within me. My mouth opened to spew a rebuttal, but a shadow cast over us both. Laziel’s gaze slowly shifted over my head, eyes widening as he took a step back, his hand falling from my uninjured shoulder.
“Do you always defy a lady’s orders? Because she’s the only command I’ll never disobey.”
Noctis hovered above, asserting his dominance over the mer male.
“She’s hurt,” Laziel said, as confident as his nerves would allow.
Noctis’s gaze tore away from him and snapped to me as he rushed around to face me, urgency driving every movement. His hands lifted to my face, trailing over my cheeks in frantic, trembling passes as though he needed to feel for himself that I was truly still there. They wavered through my shortened hair, each wet clump falling back across my bloodied shoulder.
“Do you like it? One of the prisoners had the same cut, and I thought––” I tried to diminish the past events, but Noctis saw right through it. His hands drifted to my fists, cupping them gently as his thumb rubbed the skin. I bristled under the touch, the gruesome sensory feeling sending me on edge, reminding me of the exposed nail beds of my fingers. He raised my clenched hand to his face and carefully pulled the fingers from my palm.
His eyes widened at my gnarled nail beds, the blood that pooled along my skin, the nails that were missing. He pulled the other hand up to see the same damage. Then, his attention caught at the bloody packing of the wound along my shoulder.
“You were trusted to keep her safe,” Noctis seethed through gritted teeth. The redness in his rage-filled face nearly matched his fiery hair and feathered wings.
He shot his palm around his back, a blast of air encompassing Laziel like a rope. The mer did not fight the binds. Instead, his lip trembled.
“Noctis,” I tried, but the god stormed toward the mer, fists ready to defend.
Noctis met Laziel eye to eye, the mer holding his head up high while the god snarled down at him. He reached over his head and unsheathed the longsword from his back, readying it to drive through Laziel’s neck. It glinted in the sun and swung downward in a flash.
The sword abruptly halted right before it slashed through the tip of my head as I jumped between my Blood Tie and the mer at my back.
“Noctis,” I breathed, labored as if it were a fight just to draw air.
His features softened as his eyes met mine. Then, they hardened when he looked back at Laziel, an internal fight he struggled through to protect me.
“The three of us escaped because of him.”
“Three?” Noctis’s fingers felt their way back through my matted hair, a delicious tremor dancing along my skin at that touch.
I relayed the past few hour’s events while the god stood in contemplating silence. His seething stare kept tracing back to the bound mer, but he stayed still, listening as I told him everything.
Single-handedly, he scooped me underneath the knees and lifted me off the ground. I would have yelped, but the exhaustion weighed me down, soaking into my body and mind.
We took off into the air, the breeze now a nice reprieve to the flame that burned throughout me.
“I should have been there…” His words trembled as he spoke, each syllable sounding like it hurt to force out.
“You couldn’t have been.”
