Page 79 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)

T he blazing white symbols craft a pattern of tumbling waves that continues down along the tunnel until curving around the next corner. The longer we stand there, the more faded the light becomes, so without another word, Agni and I begin following after the beckoning trail.

My pulse has still not managed to fully steady itself nor has the heat fully left my face. Internally, I’m absolutely furious, both at myself and the pig-headed captain next to me.

Absolute fucking moron.

Just when I thought I was beginning to finally analyze him correctly, he turns around and shows me he can be even more unpredictable than I’d thought. He’s downright impossible.

The sound of our boots churning up sand fills the space between us.

I grow more pensive with every step, struggling to bind down the traitorous thoughts regarding what I was about to do. My swallow is tight when reimagining the counterattack I was aiming, the move I was poised to slide into place had the emblems at my backside not appeared .

I refuse to even so much as glance at the prick. I’m glad he doesn’t speak. I have no idea what sort of things would leave my mouth if I was forced into a conversation right now.

A pattern of the tides themselves pulls us further and further along for almost twenty more incredibly tense minutes. Until finally the passageway itself halts altogether at a dead end.

“ Seriously ?” I bark in disbelief, breaking the unspoken pact of silence.

Agni remains silent, to a point where I’m forced to turn around in irritation. His eyes don't even flicker towards my questioning scowl, which only riles me up more inside. Instead he remains focused on the dead end wall before us with a contemplative look on his face.

“Touch it,” he orders, meeting my eyes at last before nodding to the wall in meaning.

“ You touch it,” I counter immediately, like a petulant child. The edge in my voice is even sharper than usual. Our latest game has rattled me more than I’m prepared to acknowledge.

He snorts before letting out a low sigh, it reminds me of the way Kleio often does when she deems something I do as ‘being difficult’. Pressing his palm against the wall, a pale glow emanates from beneath his hand but nothing else happens.

Removing said palm, Agni looks down at me pointedly.

Shaking off the urge to throw another blade his way, I huff out a breath and place my hand upon the stone. It glows like before, except much brighter. But nothing else happens.

I’m about to pull away when Agni’s hand splays itself right next to mine along the wall. The size comparison between our hands is almost comical to observe. I endeavor not to stare at each of his many golden rings too obviously but I’m not quite sure I succeed.

The pretty ruby one on his pinky catches my eye in particular.

The wall flares brighter than ever before, giving way to a pulsing sensation. Almost like the ‘click’ of a lock. Just like the one I felt at the checkpoint before .

“That worked,” I announce, dropping my hand with confidence.

“How are you—” Agni starts questioning my certainty when the solid wall abruptly begins to crumble. It’s not a very wide panel to begin with, so the whole thing collapses in a matter of seconds. His hand just narrowly pries itself backwards before becoming part of the wreckage.

To my undying surprise, Agni starts laughing, like he just can’t help himself.

Eeking my gaze over to check whether he’s having some sort of psychotic break, I’m even more startled to discover that he’s laughing at me . “ What ?” I ask defensively, and my hands immediately begin patting myself down for anything awry.

He chuckles with a shake of his head. “Nothing.” My eyes narrow, I don't believe him for a second.

Agni moves to lean nonchalantly inside the newly made archway before coolly motioning for me to walk through first. When my lips purse in clear annoyance, a smirk again tugs on his features.

The jackass has left me just enough space to enter past him, so long as I press myself up against his person. Breathing out a long-winded huff of irritation, I brush by Agni with the shake of my head, ignoring the unyielding hardness of his chest against mine in passing.

Exiting reveals that we've just discovered a very large, very dark ocean grotto. The warmth of Agni's presence at my backside tells me that he's surveying the new location from only inches away.

I ignore that too.

The cavern is puzzling in its lack of anything besides black solemn waters and I’m not quite certain what exactly it is we’ve entered. I worry for a moment that maybe this isn't a checkpoint at all, and take a step towards the dark waterline.

Several things seem to trigger at once.

The glass-like onyx surface begins rippling ominously, with some sort of high keening coming from its depths. While a sound, like the whooshing of air, emanates from behind. A backward glance divulges that the crumbled entranceway has reversed into its fully solidified state.

I step past the south captain’s annoying statue-like presence to press my palm against the newly erected wall. Nothing. No pulsing sensation. Not even a shimmer of light at my touch.

“We're stuck, ” I mutter in outward annoyance before cursing beneath my breath.

A low rumbling shudders beneath our feet and abruptly returns my attention to the grotto where new additions have been made.

From beneath the ominous surface, two parallel paths of sea stone have emerged.

They both extend out to the grotto's midpoint, separated by several meters of dark open water, and end in dual circular platforms.

Glancing at Agni I find his eyes are tracing something on the opposite side of the grotto.

I follow his line of sight over to an archway that’s been outlined in that same goading white light as before.

In the center of the second gate lie two empty sockets, I’d wager they need to be filled in order to open it.

I suppose filled by what is truly the question.

Agni and I look back at each other simultaneously. The same idea is reflected in our gazes, as if we had spoken it aloud. An awful lingering heat stirs somewhere down low and I glance away from him with a short nod in silent confirmation.

He takes the left path and I take the right.

Agni’s newly reserved state is yet another way to keep me feeling off-footed, I’m sure.

It’s deeply troubling how easily he manages each one of his many personalities.

I get the strangest sense that he’s angry with me.

For what I cannot imagine, but it makes me throw curious sideways glances at his stony face until we both reach the end of our walkways.

Approaching my circular ledge, a table comes into view. Upon it rests a scallop shell larger than my own head. I look over to find a similar table on the opposite platform but only a teeny tiny vial rests on Agni’s altar. A smart-ass comment comes to mind and I snort to myself in response .

Peering downwards again, I study the milky liquid filling the ocean basin.

It shines a curious iridescent hue in the dim light and I begin tilting the massive shell over to examine it.

A gasp leaves my mouth when two glittering sapphires, one cobalt and the other teal, both roughly the size of my palm, are revealed beneath the liquid's surface.

After quickly rescanning the fading archway across the grotto, I conclude that the gemstones must be keys.

“Care to share, Boreas?” Agni drawls, his tone exasperatingly bored.

Ignoring him, I grab for the stones, only to find nothing but liquid. I grab for them again with the same impossible result. I try again and again, becoming more enraged with every attempt.

What the hell?

“There’s gemstones at the bottom of this basin and they match up with the sockets on the wall. Pretty positive that they’re the keys to open the second gate for us and our crews.”

“The issue being?” he inquires airily, his tone grating on my nerves.

“I can't—grasp them. The liquid in here is somehow—impenetrable.” Even as I say it, I find myself trying once more to no avail. Agni is silent for a long enough moment before I tilt my head in his direction and find him holding up the impossibly tiny vial in inspection.

“Is the liquid in your bowl a pearl sort of color by chance?” he questions, his voice unusually flat.

“It is,” I confirm.

Agni huffs low in obvious annoyance. “Then that would be acheronian poison and one of us is going to have to drink it in order to get to those stones.”

My hands remove themselves from the shell basin immediately, just as a sharp ‘crack’ echoes inside the dimly lit cave.

Turning around, I discover that both stone pathways have broken off from our respective platforms, and I watch in mute horror as they begin descending back beneath the eerie surface to the depths below. Leaving us stranded on our individual dais in the middle of the dark grotto .

"Well, Boreas, it looks like that someone is going to be you then,” Agni remarks with a slight frown before holding up his tiny vial once again from across the expanse. “This is panacea serum, just a bit more than a dose. I’m going to have to swim it over to you.”

“That hardly seems fair,” I snap in irritation. “I have to drink a bucket of poison and you have to what—swim half a pool's length?”

The gripe has barely even left my mouth before movement begins churning up the water near Agni’s platform. Both our eyes track the billowing liquid in deadly silence as a large obsidian fin with rust-colored spikes, each the size of a rapier, breaks free from the eerie onyx waves.

I don’t need to see the rest of the creature to know what lurks below.

A hafgufa .

The thing now beginning to parade in colossal circles around Agni’s isolated dais is a monster of old. A massive beast of a fish that’s said to swallow ships whole and spit men back out by their bones. Each one of those razor-sharp spikes is imbued with a fatal poison of their very own.

“That ought to even up the participation,” he mutters angrily with a snort in my direction, along with a few very choice words, both in his own foreign tongue and mine.

I watch as Agni begins unslinging his twin broad swords before removing his belt in visible annoyance. Something about the movements strikes me as odd. My eyes narrow in on him.

“Why don’t you just blast that thing?” I question.

He pauses his weapon removal to lift an aristocratic brow in my direction. “ Blast it?”

“Yeah. You know—” I push my palm out in a mock imitation of the way I’ve seen him bring raging spheres of flames to life. “Like that.”

His responding snort is derisive .

I grind my teeth in annoyance. "Alright, well, you could at least sear off its fins or heat up the water. I know for a fact that this is not a creature who will enjoy that.”

He gives me a queer look before saying slowly, “I’ll keep that in mind.”

Tilting my head, I study his strange expression further until it dawns on me. “ You took the kratosbane too!” I gasp, knowing I’m right as soon as I’ve said it.

Agni’s eyes roll skyward and back, his jaw flexing with the movement. His lack of denial is proof enough and he sets about organizing his possessions before tucking the tiny vial into a concealed pocket along his chest.

The knowledge that he took the kratosbane has me somewhat reeling again. Especially after our most recent spar. Yet another piece of his puzzle that just doesn’t seem to fit.

Once Agni’s set on preparing everything he’ll need for whatever strategy he’s formed, he turns to face me.

“It’ll be quickest if we go at the same time.

That amount of acheronian will probably take you quite a while to get through anyway.

It’s slow acting but I’ll try getting over there as fast as I can. ”

I scowl at him to cover the nerves beginning to wreak havoc on my insides. “How do I know you’ll even give me the antidote? If you manage to make it past that thing, you could just grab the stones and leave me here to rot.”

His face appears nonplussed while shrugging. “You don’t. You also don’t really have a choice.”

Always such an arrogant little prince .

"Alright, Boreas—let’s go!” he barks out with a determined clap of his hands. Something in his voice reminds me of an instructor. Like an encouraging preceptor urging me onward during a particularly difficult training set.

I nod without argument.

Picking up the basin, I peer down again at the milky liquid, real fear pumping through my veins.

Acheronian poison is not your average run-of-the-mill killer.

It is both a physical and mental trap. The disarmingly pretty liquid provides a slow, agonizing death while producing both pain and terror for the consumer .

A large splash in the nearby water steadies my resolve.

Fuck it.

I begin downing liquid misery like it’s summer wine.