Page 100 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)
“ C aptain, do you want to see it?” Kleio asks, appearing once more in the doorway to my office.
“Is it time?”
She nods with a small grin. “The others are already up on deck.”
There’s clear mischief playing about the lovely features of her heart-shaped face. It confirms that my crew is doing more than just loitering up there.
I follow her through the increasingly familiar corridors and climb up onto the gleaming deck of Death’s Kiss to find six of my sirens leaning against the starboard railing.
As I suspected, the shine of a bootlegged bottle can be seen glinting off the small sunlight trickling through the overhead clouds as it passes from Nimra’s hands over to Greer’s.
My fourth takes a drink of the cobalt liquid before Kleio steals it from her grasp in order to shove it into mine. “Drink up, Captain, you’re behind,” she orders.
I laugh at the grin my second flashes me and obey .
Swallowing down the burning liquid, I join them all along the ship’s side to gaze out at the small wintry isle of the Cardinal North. The ocean's steady rocking presence beneath us is soothing.
It’s almost not possible to believe all of the horrors and joys I went through occurred in that tiny speck of a place. Eight years, almost everything in my life that I can remember happened there.
It’s just as impossible to believe that we’re leaving. Scratch that—we’ve left .
None of it truly seems real.
Least of all the triskelion signet ring burdening my hand.
“How long are we to spend at Thalassalis Isle?” Kleio inquires, sidling up beside me and taking back the bottle.
My eyes remain locked on the north, growing smaller and smaller with each passing minute while replying, “Until the full moon ends and then we’ll head for the Driftwood Court.”
The others standing down the line from us bickering and teasing all go a bit silent. Each one of us is every bit as nervous as we are excited to join the royal ranks of the Bone and Salt Crown.
It’s an honor none of us expected to receive and yet a little part of me dislikes not having had the final say in our path forward. All the lists I made and hours deliberating, for nothing.
However, imagining the look on Captain Agni’s face when he realizes I outrank him makes all that previous work completely and totally worth it.
This opportunity serves many purposes but the most welcome is putting much-needed distance between us.
I’ll likely only be required to withstand his presence at the occasional assembly meeting, assuming his TideLord brings him along.
The Cardinal North Order becomes a distant spec and the sounds of my crew’s arguing and laughter grow louder and slightly unrulier as the horizon swallows that portion of our pasts whole.
The more burning liquor I consume, the more I begin to reflect upon and replay those precious few memories. Those moments that belong only to myself. I go over them again and again until every second of them is burned into my brain and I’m certain I’ll never be able to forget them.
I’m lost inside a world of thoughts forced to remain my own when a brilliant agony alights my system. It violently rips me outside of my reverie while running up and down my backside with the exact same searing pain I felt after leaving The Vault.
I find myself moving to my knees as a lethal bout of curses slides past my teeth.
The pain overrides everything else and only Kleio’s voice is able to break through.
“ Merena ?” Her pitch in tone is concerningly high.
Stupidly, I scan the seas for signs of danger before turning from where I now kneel in pain before the starboard railing to face my second. Kleio stands where she’s been chatting with Herse at the helm while the others have begun playing a card game along the deck.
“What?” I ask, my voice hoarse.
My pulse spikes at the way her mouth is parted in shock.
Herse’s eyes are unusually round while informing me bluntly, “Uh, your back is fucking glowing, Cap.”
I inhale the calming scents of eucalyptus and clove while lying face down in a place that is both extremely familiar and yet entirely new.
Leech Davina’s sickbay .
Her gentle healing hands run up and down my exposed backside in silent contemplation. I can practically feel her thoughts churning nearby and I’m growing increasingly impatient.
“ Well ?” My tone comes out sharper than intended.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, Merena. I don’t know where to even start with this,” Davina answers in her own snappish voice.
Both of us are clearly on edge in the face of the unknown.
“No luck yet on any of the tomes we found on board either,” Herse chimes in unhelpfully with a small grimace from where she hangs in the narrow doorway of the small infirmary. “But we’re still looking. There are plenty of books for us to go through.”
“I’m sure we’ll find something,” Kleio assures me, coming to stand at the end of the cot I’m laying on. I glance up to meet her warm brown eyes and she’s quick to blink away the very obvious worry lining them.
Sighing heavily, I tap my fingers along the cushion edge while noting, "Well, at least the glowing has stopped. Plus, it looks cooler now.”
It seems my affinity mark has changed.
Or perhaps expanded is the correct wording. It’s still that same damning shade of castaway white but no longer does it portray a wild and unruly pattern bursting across my shoulder blades before streaming without motif down the base of my spine. Now it’s taken on a sort of shape.
More lines have been added and woven together in order to craft an intricate design made up of beautiful swirling whirls that, when connected, make it look as though a wave is crashing down my backside. It’s actually really rather beautiful.
If I wasn’t focusing so hard on not freaking out, I’d be pleased.
The problem is, affinity marks don’t just change . You’re gifted your markings when blessed by the drowned gods before your soul returns to Pontus and you inevitably wash up at whatever Cardinal Order the will of the nix leads you to.
We’re all more than a little on edge as to what this might mean.
"Oh, it looks badass for sure,” Herse agrees while Kleio remains silent .
My second leaves her spot before me on the cot and goes to study the contents of Davina’s new work space in quiet concern. She knows the last thing I want is to witness any of their distress on my behalf.
“Does this hurt?” Davina asks, beginning to roll a scented oil across my aching backside.
"No, not really,” I answer with a wince as she lightly spreads out the mixture.
Davina laughs with a small shake of her silver-threaded golden mane. “Liar.”
It’s quiet for a few minutes and Herse returns to relieve Greer from the helm so she can join the rest of my crew currently digging through any and all books lining the shelves of my office.
The only noise inside the sick bay comes from the slight creaking of Kleio’s weight under the wooden floorboards as she paces around the room anxiously.
Eventually Vi’s concoction begins working its magic and the aching in my back slowly lessens little by little. I’m verging on falling asleep as her hands continue dutifully pressing in the soothing oil when my second’s voice sounds startlingly nearby.
“Davina, what is this ?” Kleio questions, her tone strange.
Blinking open my eyes, I glance up to find her holding up a small triangular-shaped glass.
I squint to get a better look inside the tiny vial. It appears to hold a shimmering liquid of gold-flecked green. My brows furrow both in question and annoyance as Davina stops her work to take the oddly shaped glass from Kleio’s outstretched hand.
Our resident healer stares at the pretty liquid for a minute before her kaleidoscope eyes dart to Kleio’s and a look of surprise alights her features. “Why?” Davina asks, her voice low.
Kleio’s cupid's bow presses flat against her full bottom lip before responding slowly, “Because I’ve seen this container and that liquid before, at the beginning of the year. What is it?”
“Where exactly did you see it?” Davina pushes .
I look between my second and eighth in growing confusion as they now sport mirroring murderous expressions. What in the depths?
“In Vash’s stash of bootlegged liquor,” Kleio grinds out. “He had some other weird vials like this one in a bag. I only saw them once. They were all gone by the time we were celebrating the first pillar trial. He told me it was a sleeping drought but that was a lie, wasn’t it?”
Davina nods silently and I feel a brewing storm of anger enter the room.
“Okay so what the hell is it then?” I snap, overly irritated to be left out of the loop.
My eighth dips her chin in agreement with my second in regard to whatever unspoken conversation they’ve been having. I’m slightly alarmed to feel as something like rage begins rippling off our typically agonizingly restrained leech.
Kleio looks down at me before I can voice my budding demand for one of them to answer. I’m even more alarmed to discover a raging fire of anger consuming those sepia-shaded eyes.
“It’s Ehkinos."