Page 93 of Death’s Kiss (The Order of the Tide Raiders #1)

“Now this next one is going to be a little harder. It’s going to be about the past ,” Agni warns me pointedly. “How do you feel when you think of the encounter you remembered between us?”

Resisting the urge to shove down the emotion is admittedly a struggle. His young eyes still burn like an avenging star in my mind as he rounds himself on me. Even now, just the mere memory of their awful intensity makes my pulse quicken a bit.

“Fear,” I respond automatically before taking my hand and squeezing the index finger tightly.

I breathe in and out deeply until the emotion has come and gone. When Agni is silent, I look up to meet his stare and find surprise in his eyes, as well as a very deep frown on his face.

“ What? What did I do wrong?” I demand.

“ Nothing ,” he says instantly. “That was perfect. I just—I was not expecting that emotion to be your response. It’s a very different reaction than I had assumed it would be. That’s my own fault.”

“What did you assume it would be?” I ask curiously .

His lips quirk up a bit before he brazenly flashes me his middle finger—bitterness and rage. I let out a laugh of surprised amusement. That laugh, shockingly enough, earns me one of his dangerously crooked smiles. My pulse automatically trips over itself, and I curse myself internally.

“Okay, two more. This one is going to be tough and also about the past. But we need to get it out. So just remember, don't fight it. Try to identify it.” Agni again warns me before asking, “How do you feel when thinking about whatever important people that you might have remembered?”

The question does indeed unlock a bit of a floodgate. I’m no longer standing in the ocean before a wave. I’m caught up in a riptide. My jaw clenches as two inhumanly perfect faces flash in my mind's eye. Faces and their voices that I now cannot believe I ever before forgot.

I don’t even know their names beyond Mama and Papa, but I can feel their presence inside me. Which is in and of itself a blessing. It also makes my throat close up and my eyes sear until they begin overflowing with something brutally painful.

“Despair,” I choke out and my eyes close tight as tears I never allow for begin to break free.

“ Very good,” Agni says, his voice as soft and gentle as dawn.

When I don’t move, he takes my hand and squeezes my ring finger tightly for me. Like he’s standing with me in the waters as a tidal wave crashes through. I breathe deeply through my crushing misery. Eventually I‘m able to allow it to roll off, and I slump in relief of its passing.

Opening my eyes, I find Agni’s countenance solemn and understanding.

“That was really good, Merena. Despair and depression are the very toughest waves to ever withstand. But—” he adds with a quirk of his lips.

“I’ve heard a little rumor going around, made very well known to me by your adoring group of castaway boys, that you are the reigning northern surfing champion .

So I’ll be sure to get my autograph before you kill me. ”

I can’t help but laugh in surprise at his very well-played joke. Agni rolls his eyes at my clear astonishment that he has a sense of humor before letting out a breathless laugh himself. He then waits for me to gather my bearings before starting back up.

“Okay, last one.” Agni steps closer. “How do you feel about me now, with what you do know?”

I grit my teeth again while allowing the many different facets of Agni to rise up before me.

Now that I knew that tiny sliver of our past, it opened an entire sea of burning questions and warring desires.

There were so many layers to him that I haven't yet discovered. So many complicated and completely contrasting pieces to his puzzle that I just wasn’t sure how I’d ever figure out.

“Conflicted,” I answer honestly.

He takes another step closer with a tight nod in agreement. “That’s very perceptive and advanced, even for the fundamental stage. It means that there’s an array. People are highly complex. Just list as many as you can identify.”

Swallowing my spiked pulse at his nearness, I close my eyes and try to focus.

“Anger. Annoyance. Irritation. Vexation. Hatred .” I pause, letting the first wave barrel through with a deep breath, and my voice comes out next, less vehement.

“Confused. Unsure. Nervous,” I admit, truthfully, taking another deep breath.

Agni’s ashen voice sounds from just beside my ear. “And, physically ?”

I shiver in surprise at his unexpected closeness. He tilts my chin up beneath a finger, and I open my eyes to find him less than an inch from my face.

“Curious,” I reply.

Then he does the second thing I never saw coming in a million years.

Agni takes my chin in his hand and gently turns my head in order to softly press a kiss of golden sunlight onto each one of my cheeks. It has the effect of easing the very last ripples from that tidal wave of despair while soothing the awful, lingering rawness, both internally and externally.

Then he drops his hand and steps back away .

I stand there, searching his darkly handsome face intently, as a very loud internal alarm bell begins to ring quite shrilly inside my head. He has just skillfully breached one of the first highly formidable gates that’s currently locking up something much more dangerous than my affinity.

I can see it now—the little shine of triumph in his eyes. He knows exactly what he’s doing.

Fuck .

“Alright, I think you’re okay now. Let’s go.”

We make it about ten minutes towards his mooring before one more pressing thought shoves itself up to the surface. “Wait,” I say, and Agni halts his steps mid-stride to pivot on a heel before looking down at me in question.

“Your name—your real name—is Halcyon. Why did you change it to Olsson?” My brows furrow tight in question. Agni gives me a grimace that tells me he can’t physically explain why.

I chew on a lip before venturing, “I get the feeling Agni isn’t really your family name either?”

He dips his chin to let me know I'm right.

Chewing my lip further, I try to recall why exactly the name 'Agni' feels so correct. I only have those three memories to go off of, but then—something in the energy-laden air whispers to me one single word: agonizing .

It’ s the exact same unexplainable murmur of energy that told me on my Sál Moon to tell The Sons and Daughters my name was Merena when asked. So I instinctively find myself trusting it.

I look back up to gauge his reaction. “Agonizing?”

Surprise flares bright inside his eyes, and he grins with a small nod for me to go on.

“Agonizing—Agni. It was—it was a kind of nickname your parents had for you—wasn’t it?”

There aren’t exactly memories tied to this knowledge. It’s more of a feeling I get from a familiar source that I can’t quite place. His dark brows are high now, and his grin is terribly crooked as he nods repeatedly that I am in fact, somehow, correct.

“ Clever girl, ” Agni praises me, more than a touch wickedly. A flush instantly heats my neck and I shake my head in order to dismiss my own body's moronic mutiny.

It’s silent for a beat.

I’m not sure why I find myself looking at his face to judge my own memories, but I study those amber eyes while stating, “My parents, they called me Cherrystone.”

His grin softens a bit as he nods once in agreement.

I laugh breathily to myself in remembrance of just how much that nickname used to piss me off. Which is more than likely why my parents would keep calling me it. They both thoroughly enjoyed my dramatics.

Then I try to remember where it came from. Why did they call me that very strange name? My brows tug together, and I grow pensive for a moment.

“But I don’t know why,” I finally admit in defeat while my shoulders slump down a bit.

Agni stares at me in silent calculation before moving his bottle into one arm's crook and starting a new game. He holds up two fingers before me pointedly, and I squint in confusion before taking a guess. “Two words? ”

With a small smirk, Agni inclines his chin in response. Then he holds up just one finger, and I start to understand where the game is going.

“First word, cherry?” I venture.

His smirk broadens as I’m playing along. I shake my head at his amusement and press, "Okay, so cherry comes from what?”

Strangely, Agni's eyes grow a bit heated, and I watch in confusion as he slowly lowers his head before running his nose up my neck. My perfidious heart beats wildly, and I stare at him in surprise. He nods repeatedly, motioning with his free hand, as if telling me to think about it.

“My—I—I smell like cherries?”

“And you taste like them, too,” Agni confirms in an exhale, like whatever is holding him back from speaking ceases once I’ve figured out the answer. The grin he flashes me next is purely sinful.

I flush a damning scarlet in turn before promptly scowling with a roll of my eyes in an effort not to pay any heed to the terribly dangerous warmth sparking inside my core.

But then a very rare, soft-smile lifts the corners of my mouth. Because I now know that little portion of the nickname has Mama written all over it. Agni gives me an odd sort of look in response to the sight of that soft smile. Like his heart might have stopped beating.

"Okay, second word—stone?” I question, forcing him back into the game.

That odd look is gone in a blink as his expression quickly becomes a very solemn mask of harsh indifference. He firmly pounds a fist over his heart twice in emphasis.

“Heart of stone?” I guess.

Agni laughs but shakes his head ‘no’. His eyes turn upwards to search the sky far above while trying to figure out how to properly explain it. I watch as an idea comes to mind, and amber eyes meet mine again.

“ Brek ,” Agni says the word with intent. And suddenly it ‘clicks’ like the pulse of a lock .

That was right.

I remember it now.

The grin I then reveal is equally rare with the newfound certainty that this portion of the name has Papa written all over it. I was unyielding. I was unbreakable. I was the rock of protection, standing up against the volatile and chaotic storms.

I was stone.

Cherrystone.