Page 1 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)

I n order to contain the drowned souls of the sea, it is highly important for one to bring a sturdy enough glass.

“Not so loud, Greer!” Kleio chides the fiery redhead, who's been whooping with delight since making it past the last bend in their path. They’re now out of view entirely from that black-spired fortress each of them knows unfortunately well.

A hand comes to twist the end of Kleio's long, dusky braid, while her heart-shaped face pinches in admonishment. Greer flashes her a straight, white grin, full of the promise of mischief in return.

“She’s going to murder you for this. You know that, right?” Herse snarks from the other side of Kleio, her chin-length onyx hair shining under the star-studded sky.

Kleio presses her cupid's bow against her lower lip in a frown, no doubt mulling over the tongue-lashing that’ll be had after tonight. Her quiet deliberation is quickly replaced with a shrug. “She’ll come around. ”

Herse shakes her head with a faint, disbelieving snort yet doesn't counter. She knows better than to argue with the crew’s second-in-command.

There is only one person on all of Pontus whom Kleio both loves and fears enough to listen to. And it seems as though that one person in particular has been very conveniently left out of tonight’s events.

The twins, Prisca and Nephthys, run past Kleio in a blur of copper skin and dark, coiled braids.

They burst out into identical peals of laughter when finally reaching the highest hillcrest of the dark coastline.

The tides rolling out in their loud pattern of oceanic noise are enough to muffle most of the group's subsequent howls and cheers at the beguiling sight laid out before them.

Tonight, those waves tumbling along the dark shores belonging to the Cardinal North are no ordinary tides. Tonight, the waters are ablaze with tiny pinpricks of brilliant purples, blues, and greens as thousands of star-like dots fill the heaving seas and shatter against the black sands.

Kleio gasps outwardly, her hand clutching a crystal vial hanging from the neck of her navy-colored northern raider uniform. In the warm midnight breeze, stray chocolate curls have slipped out of her normally rigid braids and flutter against the sides of her suntanned face.

It really is such a beautiful sight.

The crew’s second-in-command is likely wondering why on Pontus they should be denied this.

Why, on their one single day of autonomy, they can’t experience true freedom.

But that’s the way of things. None of them will ever be let off the leash, not entirely.

The Order of the Tide Raiders owns every single one of them.

The brand wrapping around each of their left wrists is proof enough of that.

That leash agitates Kleio more than the others.

It chafes her to a point where she takes idiotic risks like the one being taken tonight, just to get a taste of life before.

Perhaps it's because she's had a taste of true freedom in her past. Maybe it’s because she actually has something out there left to remind her of it .

The group of six hellions stand close to the sparkling water’s edge and begin stripping off their uniforms down to their water-suits with a nervous sort of excited energy.

Greer, the crew’s fourth-in-command, leaves her spot gazing at the ethereal waters and comes to stand beside Kleio.

The impish light in her olive eyes has died down to something like worry.

There’s an air of seriousness to what they're about to do, a hint of treachery.

“You don't think—” Greer starts and then pauses, looking back at the swelling ocean before swallowing nervously. “You don’t think she’ll be too upset, will she?” Her olive eyes flicker to the black hillcrest behind them and the ominous black fortress of the North Order beyond.

Herse snorts a derisive laugh from Kleio’s other side. “Oh, she’s gonna lose it.”

Kleio shoots a dark glare at the crew's third, to which Herse shrugs, before answering Greer. “If she does lose it, then it will be on me and me alone. None of you will be in any trouble, I swear it. I'll accept the punishment in full and anything else that comes with it."

That appears to do little to ease Greer’s newfound nerves. The others have also stopped their idle banter and absent laughter. Each one of them appears somewhat stricken now that the topic has turned to her. How she might react. How she might perceive this.

Nimra, the youngest of them both in appearance and in years, moves her weight from heel to toe anxiously while asking Kleio, “Should we have asked her to come with us?”

“No!” Kleio, Herse, and Greer all respond emphatically at once.

“Gods, no,” Kleio adds firmly, looking paler by the second. “Let's just get what we came here for, alright? We’ll be back before she’s even awake, and none will be the wiser.”

She looks each one of the other five present crew members in the eye, waiting for a challenge. When none comes, Kleio peels off her northern raider uniform down to the water-suit beneath with that crystal container now secure in her hand .

A moment later reveals Kleio slowly entering the sparkling waterline with bated breath. It’s been seven years to the day since any of them have come into contact with the drowned souls. The others waiting anxiously on the dark sandy shores quickly follow her lead.

Peals of delight ripple into the night as their movements in the tides make the divine ocean stars glow brighter before beginning to change shades of color. Green turns to blue to purple, and so on. Even Herse eventually shrugs off her uniform to join the others in the celestial waters.

But time passes by all too quickly.

It can’t possibly have been long enough before the winds begin to shift. Kleio appears to sense the slight change in their surroundings before any of the others.

No .

“Get to the shore!” Kleio orders, and they all follow her command without hesitation. The six of them begin staggering out of the rumbling waves toward their discarded uniforms, just as the sound of kicked sand emanates from the black dunes towering above.

Kleio’s face dons a well crafted mask, one that’s been forged from years within the North Order, before turning to discover the reason for the shifting winds.

Standing atop the hillcrest, his shoulder-length black hair looking all the more inky under the moonlight, watches Preceptor Bealu.

He gives them an oily smile by way of acknowledgment.

They’re screwed.

Completely, utterly, entirely, fucked .

Kleio could scarcely imagine the punishment Preceptor Bealu would inflict for their infraction tonight. She often tried to hide it, but Kleio had never fully recovered from his rather disturbing teachings during levels six and seven.

Bealu’s dark, soulless eyes land right on the crew’s second-in-command, sending a suffocating wave of dread rolling out and over the six below.

This was such a horribly asinine idea. What possible reason could there have been to take this sort of moronic risk ?

Bealu’s grin is serpentine in response to Kleio’s clear terror. It's a smile that promises hours upon hours of misery-fueled torment.

“Raider Hiraeth, why am I somehow not surprised?” he hisses, addressing Kleio directly while slowly shaking his head of inky hair in mock disappointment at them all. In the wake of her stunned silence, the oily preceptor adds, “And just where is your captain tonight?”

Bealu feigns looking around the dark beach, but his eyes never actually leave Kleio’s face. He’s enjoying the taste of her fear, no doubt.

Kleio appears at a loss for words. Her chocolate curls drip with star-flecked water, and heavenly droplets slide down damningly onto the black sands beneath their feet. She struggles to keep her calm, to keep from trembling with panic.

Preceptor Bealu’s voice lashes out into the night like the whip he so prefers. “Well then, Raider Hiraeth, it appears you are the highest ranking here. How do you see fit for punishment?”

Kleio grapples with herself, and that mask of false calm begins to slip.

She opens her mouth, undoubtedly in order to tell him she would be taking on the punishment herself in full.

Because no matter how utterly terrified of Preceptor Bealu Kleio is, she won’t allow for anyone else to take on his form of discipline.

Even if that means another day of horror for her.

And Bealu knows it.

There’s anticipation brimming in those soulless eyes of his, eager as ever to feast upon any remaining joy that might possibly exist within her after these last seven years of hell.

Over my burning corpse will I allow for that to happen. No matter how absolutely livid I am with her. With all of them.

“Actually, Preceptor, I would be the highest ranked here,” I drawl casually, deciding now's the time to finally leave my concealed viewing post behind the nearest blackened sand dune.

I’ve been waiting down here ever since the six soaking-wet idiots standing down along the shore snuck out of our cabin, thinking I wouldn’t have heard them. That was almost an hour or so ago now. They really and truly should have known better than to presume I’d be asleep.

Standing from my vantage point with a lazy stretch, I nonchalantly brush off the onyx sands clinging to my captain’s jacket before strolling their way. I’m immensely thankful not to have worn my full garb tonight. The air is far too balmy.

Preceptor Bealu whips around to watch my approaching figure with a look of complete surprise. That look quickly turns to something like annoyance and then swiftly into disappointment.

I smirk at him in turn.

You see, I’m not much fun for someone like Bealu to play with.

His affinity, the individual power gifted to a raider from the drowned gods' blessing, feeds upon the pain of others.

The pinguid man delights in watching the joy seep right out of those unfortunate enough to earn his punishments, stealing whatever happiness from prior memories they might contain in tow.

I make that charming little pastime of his damn near impossible.

Kleio lets out a choking sort of sound at my sudden appearance, while Greer and Herse both look like they might vomit. The rest are deadly silent, and I don’t so much as glance in their direction. My anger is a terribly behaved beast that I struggle daily to leash.

“Ah, Captain Boreas.” Preceptor Bealu recovers himself quickly with a false smile, emphasizing the use of my bastard name.

Boreas being the name given to those bastards of the north.

He's disliked me since the day I washed up here. I’m one of the few castaways the North Order has ever accepted, and likely only because of my highly unusual affinity.

I don't let it bother me. Not really. Not anymore.

Instead, I give him a cold nod of deference in return, as I've been trained to do.

“You will be accepting the punishment for your crew, I assume?” Bealu inquires, his voice dripping with barely concealed disappointment .

“I will,” I agree with another nod, still refusing to look at my six on the shores below.

Kleio finally finds her voice. “N- No . You can't, Merena." Her face has turned ashen while her curls continue to drip with that incriminating oceanic starlight.

Preceptor Bealu raises his eyebrows in response to Kleio's apparent defiance towards me, towards her captain. My second’s next words are directed at the dark preceptor, but her eyes are locked on mine. “This was my idea, all mine. I dragged them all out here without Captain Boreas’s—”

I shoot my second a warning glare before cutting her off sharply. “Stop. Talking. Now.”

Idiots , the lot of them.

My attention returns to Bealu, whose expression can only be described now as put out.

“I'm Captain. This is my crew. I will be accepting the punishment in full.” My tone offers no argument; the cold in it is biting.

His depthless eyes study me for a moment, looking for something to correct, anything to pick apart and swallow whole.

He frowns at the lack of ammo I have for him to prey on before sighing in obvious disappointment.

“Fine. Captain Boreas, you will follow me to the Grand Preceptor's quarters. He will be the one to determine a fitting punishment for you.”

I hesitate for no more than a blink, but it’s enough. Preceptor Bealu’s serpentine smile makes a reappearance. His infernal affinity can sense even the fleeting flicker of agitation that the mere mention of our Grand Preceptor causes.

“Oh yes,” he affirms, excitement returning to his eyes. “I’m afraid with your new promotion to captaincy, all discipline will have to go through Grand Preceptor Skelm. Although after tonight, who knows how long you have left with that title?”

I can both see and feel the pure panic rippling off Kleio and the others. I throw them all a dark look that promises consequences if they attempt to intervene any further .

After a brief glance towards the dawning horizon, Bealu says gleefully, "Well, let's not dally. I’m sure Hymir will want to deal with this swiftly.” Then he pivots on a heel and begins stalking back down the dark sand dune path without another word.

I take a quick study of my crew, all of whom are standing like statues. Each of them stares up at me with varying shades of shock and nausea playing about their features. My gaze cuts over to Kleio last, who looks like she wants to scream.

“Raider Hiraeth, get them all back to the cabin. I expect a full debrief when I return." My cutting voice is devoid of all warmth.

Kleio swallows down her tears before they have a chance to shine on the surface of her sepia-shaded eyes. She then clenches her fist to her heart in salute before dipping her chin in understanding.

With one last frigid glance at my crew and the tempting waters beyond, I too pivot and begin stalking down towards my impending discipline.