Page 48 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)
P receptor Chie's age-speckled hand makes loops and lines on the board in front of his room.
I read and re-read what he’s just written but my mind is in such a deep haze I can’t focus enough to register any meaning behind his scrawl. I can’t concentrate on anything; I haven’t been able to, not since the end of Luminalia.
That was almost two weeks ago.
I thought I’d been somewhat spiraling since the second task, like my mind really did crack in those tidepools and never really healed.
But ever since the revel, I’ve been in an all-out free fall with no real end in sight.
My nightmares have worsened to the point that even spending time at The Boneyard does little to put me to sleep.
And if those dreams don’t keep me up, then it’s the feral pounding coming from the other side of my affinity.
It’s constantly keeping me on edge.
Normally that rhythm is a warning signal that my power is growing unruly but lately it feels like it’s some sort of harbinger. Like my affinity is trying to tell me that something is close .
But what?
I gaze down at my palm and the thick silver scar marring it.
The one from my od with Agni, the one that won’t go away.
I’ve had Davina look at it, claiming to be an injury from Oplon’s class and even her powers can’t seem to make it disappear.
What sort of a blade leaves a permanent mark on such a shallow cut?
Od lines never take more than a day to disappear.
Kleio’s eyes keep anxiously flickering over to me every few minutes. I’ve nearly bitten her head off for the constant worrying on three separate occasions. I know she can’t help it but to have a member of my crew worry like that about their captain—well then I’m failing at my duties.
All of which to say I’m more tightly wound yet inexcusably drawn than I can ever recall.
I didn't even hear Preceptor Chie’s question towards the class. I’m only able to catch on when the answer is given by Briggs, Vash’s fourth in command. Due to the fact that their table is right next to ours, it would be impossible for me not to hear him.
“The night of the bloody betrothal,” Briggs says in that unusually soft voice of his.
My head snaps up to the front of the room, gaining my attention at last. In any class, let alone Preceptor Chie's, it's not often that we discuss things believed to be complete myths or little more than Pontus legends. The man who prides himself on historical events and their accuracy.
The bloody betrothal is something like a children's fable. A bedtime story.
Yet his ancient eyes look out at us all with a very solemn seriousness. “Do you each understand the importance and significance of what has happened this last fortnight during the Luminalia revel? What monumental event we all bore witness to?”
The mere mention of that night makes me feel as though I might vomit. My face pales and I twist uncomfortably in my seat. Kleio looks at me again and I refuse to meet her gaze .
“The falling stars,” Greer answers from the other side of our table.
I can still hear the shouts and screams rattling in my head from that night. I remember the way I’d practically dove for my blade on the ground in that tiny private alcove. Then I was sprinting out of there, hurtling towards the main area only a split second later.
The continued cries and panicked yelling that rose while I ran down that hall towards my crew made my heart feel like it might just stop beating entirely. Confused relief hit me square in the chest at the sight of my seven, all completely safe and well, staring up at the night sky in horror.
The mood felt unexplainably heavy, mournful even.
It was one of those times that I’m made keenly aware of my memory loss. Afterwards, when we’d been dismissed to our cabins, Kleio and the others had explained to me what the big deal was.
“Correct,” Preceptor Chie agrees, looking away from us with a heavy sigh.
He makes his way to the front of the room, one hand at the base of his rounded back.
“Let us pretend that not all of you grew up with the tales sung by your mothers and the stories told by your fathers. What then is the meaning behind falling stars on Luminalia?”
“It’s the signal that ‘The Great Fall’ is near.” The sound of Brisa’s voice has me chancing a glance her way. The western captain’s face is as rigid as mine but I don’t think I’m mistaking the shine of real fear in her eyes. The same fear I find is reflected in every raider in this room.
It hangs in the very air we breathe.
“Yes, ‘The Great Fall,’ also sometimes called ‘The Second Wave’. The later title stems from the notion that some believe this to herald a second coming of ‘The Great Deluge’.” Preceptor Chie purses his mouth, wrinkles forming at the corners as he strokes the end of his beard.
From the grave looks between raiders, I now know many of those believers to be in the room .
Chie pulls himself from his ponderings to ask, “And this all ties into the bloody betrothal, of course; how? Your originating landmass version of the ancient tale is quite welcome.”
I'm surprised to see Kleio's hand rise in response, and even more surprised to find that it looks like it might be trembling. Preceptor Chie nods for her to answer.
“In the Oyster Court, it’s said that ‘The Great Fall’ signals the return of the Northern Empire. It’s the heralding of their revenge for The Bloody Betrothal and the subsequent fall of all our worlds. It means that at some point, sometime somewhat soon, all three realms will be at war.”
I understand the darkness pressing into every corner of the room a bit better.
Looking around, I have the startling realization that each of these raiders fully buys into this legend. Even my own crew members. I have to wonder if my face shows just how incredulous I feel in response to their dread over a myth .
Preceptor Chie nods in somber acceptance to my second’s answer and motions for the next raider to tell their landmasses interpretation of the legend. It turns out there is quite a wide variety of different ways in which this particular story is told around Pontus.
All of which are brutal and bloody and end in total and complete annihilation.
Lovely .
“ Please don’t do this,” I plead .
“I'm afraid you’ve given us no choice, Captain,” Greer states with a sad shake of her head.
“Come on—let’s just go back. I’m serious.” I turn my beseeching eyes to Herse, who stands with her arms crossed and a stony gaze facing out toward the dark night.
She glances over a shoulder at me. “Oh no, don’t you look at me to stop this. You brought this all on yourself.”
“How?” I ask in pure disbelief.
Herse is poised to answer but the sound of sand being kicked over the hill at my backside hushes her unspoken words. I shift to watch Kleio jump down from the black dune behind us with fierce determination in those brown eyes.
“ How? ” she angrily echoes, striding for us with nothing but her wetsuit on.
“You’ve been silent for the last five fucking weeks, Merena.
Things were a bit weird after that last pillar task I’ll admit, but you disappeared the night of Luminalia and came back off .
You won’t tell any of us what’s going on with you, even though it’s clear as godsdamned day that something is. ”
My second looks more furious than I’ve ever seen.
“You’re being a bit dramatic,” I breathe with the roll of my eyes.
“I am not, ” Kleio says through her teeth, coming to face me head on and her affinity flickers in the air nearby.
“You barely pay attention in class. The only time you're focused is during weapon training or mealtime, and you can’t sleep through a single night without getting your ass kicked or exhausting yourself by kicking other people’s asses. ”
I bite my thumbnail with cool indifference. “Is that all?”
Kleio shakes her head of dark curls currently braided into two uniform plaits. “How many times do I have to get this through your ice block of a skull, Merena? We. Can. Handle. Ourselves. Stop trying to protect us, you overbearing little deviant!”
“I’m not trying to protect you!” I snap, louder than intended .
Some of the others flinch from the slight burst of cold that expels from me unintentionally. Kleio, however, holds steady as a rock and raises an eyebrow skeptically. The only raider who’s never been afraid of me or my power. No matter what terrible things she’s seen me forced to do.
I take a deep breath to calm myself.
Kleio is right; things have only gotten worse since Luminalia. After the second pillar and my nightmare returning, I was at least able to right myself by spending time at The Boneyard.
Then I had to go and contact Kerau, whom I'm no longer sure if I can trust. I toss and turn with the idea that he knew the bylaws and was trying to get me thrown from the trials but that makes absolutely no sense. Yet the alternative is that he didn’t know the bylaws that were given by his own damned TideLord which would make him an idiot.
Which he isn’t.
I’ve recounted his apology when leaving the private alcove many times over. At the time, I thought it was just because he had to leave me to go to his TideLord but now I’m not sure.
Then there was the slap in the face I’d encountered just prior by the captains who did not wish to show any sort of friendliness with me in the face of the TideLords.
Captain Tetsuo has tried to gain my attention several times since but he’s been met with my very frosty stare at each attempt.
I won’t allow myself to be made a fool like that ever again.
It had stung worse than I’d ever let on.