Page 8 of Beneath the Veil of Tides
The creatures met me head on, and I lifted my chin in confidence, praying to any god that would listen. The dagger in my palm flipped perfectly, and I caught it by the sharp-edged blade. Like muscle memory, I flicked my wrist and sent it flying. The weapon pierced exactly where intended—between the eyes of the male puppeteering the destruction.
Holy shit.
The beast crumbled before us all, dissipating into the air like golden ash that blanketed the harbor. I scrambled to make out what I had done, how moments prior I couldn’t walk but suddenly threw the blade with direct accuracy under pressure.
I tore toward the smoking particles and snatched my gifted blade before taking back off toward the crew.
Iredale’s villagers crammed onto the darkened, storm-ridden shore. Zahara met my gaze beside the parents of the shivering child in their clutches and offered a slight nod, a silent gesture of gratitude.
She took off, swimming back to the docks and jumping up on the wooden pier by the moored ship. Jun and Calvin surfaced the ship’s edge, reminding me of my own experience scaling the hull.
“We need to get out of here fast,” Calvin yelled as Zahara and I sprinted across the gangplank. “Where the Oricaan are, the Royal Vanguard follow.”
CHAPTER FOUR
The Royal Vanguard.They were supposed to receive me during the sacrifice. And Jun said they’d return for me. Did all those people die because ofme? Guilt wracked against my bones, the contents of my stomach threatening to surge upward.
“The wind is with us!” Zahara commanded from the wheel, an order for Jun to cut the rope that secured us to the wooden dock. Calvin slid past and unfurled the mainsail. I staggered around, desperate to help, but was only in the way. There must have been something I could do to assist, but as I tripped across the ship taking off across the violent ocean, they left me alone to my thoughts.
Choppy waves crashed into us with ferocious hits, the storm nearing in devastation. It reminded me that awe and danger often traveled hand-in-hand, forming together as one, and I didn’t want to get caught in it.
The ocean distanced us from Iredale’s shores, and I watched the inhabitants in the shallow sea tremble in fear while we escaped. Guilt ripped into my body even further—my very soul—at the sight. At beings needing help and us leaving them behind to run away. The second Oricaan eased itself back into the fissure of the land, disappearing into the void opening. A breath escaped me.
“How did you know the Oricaan can’t enter water?” Zahara asked from the helm, jarring me from my thoughts.
“I didn’t know. It just felt right. Like my instincts took over,” I replied shakily. “What are they?”
Shock inundated me. The cheery shores turned blood-soaked within minutes, and I couldn’t shake the feeling that it was all my fault. The path to the Royal Vanguard I was supposed to take during my sacrifice was interrupted somehow. And if the Oricaan creatures meant the Royal Vanguard followed, I wanted to know exactly what they viciously hunted, even if it meantIwas their motive.
Zahara hesitated for a bit as if thinking of how to answer.
“For centuries, The Bounds remained apart. Not just by layers, but by gods, by values, and by politics,” she recited, her gaze looking over the raging ocean. “The Oceanwrought Bound started interfering. That peace we had? Barely holding together now.”
“Interfering how?” I asked, the guilt making room for shame of my own Bound bringing such destruction. But how?
“The sacrifices,” Calvin answered as he reached my side. His tone became stone—solid, sure, and rigid. “The Ocean Mother offered the Terraguard Bound merfolk power. It’s strong, and we believe the Royal Vanguard built the Oricaan to take more. We aren’t sure why, but the Ocean Mother has been giving the Terraguard Bound your kind for centuries.”
A goddess sworn and worshipped by thousands to protect just offers her own kind. Offered me. For my powers. The whiplash in emotions gurgled my stomach, my head aching at the information.
“How amIsupposed to help?” I sought answers deeper than the vague ones the crew seemed to hold back in order to protect me. I wasn’t frail or weak… at least I didn’tfeelit. My fingertips traced the shimmering scales clinging to my skin like silk threaded into flesh.
"We’ve been searching for something," Zahara continued, her tone edged with frustration. "Well, pieces of it. Atrident." Her fingers laced around a delicate feather-blue fabric that frayed slightly along the edges. “It’s in four pieces, one of which we’ve collected already—the Terraguard section from this Bound, but we still need three more sections.”
Zahara jumped from the raised platform and opened the door of the captain quarters, dragging a locked chest from the dark room. It scraped roughly along the wood, passing Jun and Calvin. Their eyes trailed it as if what remained locked inside would save us all. The metal lock crashed to the floor, and Zahara slowly lifted the chest’s lid.
Her hand pulled a rigid object wrapped in tawny, burlap cloth from the chest, and my breathing hitched. The bones beneath my skin hummed, my body itching to step closer as Zahara unwrapped the sharp Terraguard Bound trident fragment.
The sun’s light reflected off its surface and into my eyes, but tearing my gaze from the jaggedly broken trident piece felt as if it’d kill me.
“This one was buried deep beneath the shallowest canyon on Rescine Isle. Enchanted by this Bound’s late Eternal Seat with tornadoes to protect it,” Zahara explained, extending the fragment to me.
Oh, gods. I wanted to touch it.
“You ever run from a tornado and realize your legs aren’t built for that?” Calvin asked from beside the chest with Jun.
Zahara huffed, a lilt of her lips curling along the edges and gestured us toward a round table on the main deck, lowering the piece back into the chest and securing the lock. She pulled a rolled parchment from the inside of her vest pocket.
Each step away from the chest ached my body—my bones—as if the trident warned me not to put distance between.
