Page 22 of Heir of Broken Souls (HOBF #3)

Chapter 22

Delilah

T he tall grass of the meadow brings forth an array of memories I wish I could keep at bay. Ones filled with my family, my mother Eleanor being returned to the sea…the look the mermaid Naia gave Hazel when we visited them the last time.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that mermaids should not be pushed or questioned. But if I had my way, I wouldn’t rest until I made Naia tell me why she never warned us of Hazel’s plans.

It’s the reason why I haven’t stepped foot here since that night, why I avoid the water by the sea in case she comes for me. I fear I won’t be able to hold my tongue around her.

My body is stiff, my posture rigid, as I stride toward the pool of water with Knox at my side and Elysia and Axel at our heels.

“Where are they?” Elysia asks.

“They’ll be here.” After all, they owe me.

No sooner do the words leave my mouth, ripples materialize in the water. A V forms as they glide below the surface. Bubbles rise as tails breach the water. One after the other, in all various colors of the rainbow. There’s seven in total, but now I know there should be eight.

I wonder how Eleanor would have looked leading the coven. How she would have treated them. Perhaps she would have warned me of Hazel, or maybe she was just as cruel and wicked as the rest of them before the palace. I would like to think she would have told me, but I know that her bouts of kindness were only from years of abuse. It softened her when it would have made others hard.

Amelia is the first to surface, the second-in-command of the pod. Her glowing eyes pierce mine as droplets of water cascade down her vibrant red hair, the color matching her tail. Then her leader appears.

The first I see of her is the glowing turquoise jewel resting atop her forehead, followed by pointed ears and wet white hair. The next are her red eyes, which are already locked on me. The sight of Naia rising has my fists clenching at my side and my heart rate spiking. My skin begins to burn, boiling with hatred for what she could have stopped.

I hearElysia’s sharp intake of breath behind me as the rest of the pod surfaces. The tension that sizzles between us is like no other. It’s building with such ferocity a single tap and I have no doubt it will spark an inferno.

“Delilah,” Naia drawls.

I bite down on my tongue, hard. I’m afraid if I open my mouth, I’ll start spewing fire like a dragon.

“We’ve been waiting for you,” Amelia says coldly.

It doesn’t matter what she says, I can’t take my eyes off the woman that could have stopped our suffering in its tracks.

A metallic tang bursts inside my mouth.

Blood.

She snickers knowingly. “Serpent got your tongue?”

Golden flames erupt at my palms, my eyes no doubt shining as bright as the sun’s rays. The pod doesn’t so much as flinch, though Alentia, a mermaid with vibrant violet eyes, glares at the back of Amelia’s head.

Eleanor’s sister.

Tendrils of Knox’s shadows trail down my back, drawing me from the dangerous cliff I found myself on.

“I see you’ve fully transitioned,” Naia says simply.

“What do you know of it?” Knox calls out, a slight edge to his words.

Another secret, it seems.

Naia doesn’t take her eyes off me, as if the mermaid knows to fear what I can do. “The currents whispered of the golden one.” She cocks her head. “My sisters and I received a vision of what would become of Delilah in the battle.”

“Another travesty you did nothing to stop, I see.”

Red, glowing eyes sear me to the spot.

Easy, Angel, deep breaths. Knox’s words aren’t enough to calm me. Nothing has been able to quelch this anger. Not since I’ve lost so much.

“We are not responsible for what the king may or may not do.”

“What the fuck does that mean?” I spit, earning gasps from not only the Fae at my back but the pod. I’m too fired up to correct her on the term she used, either. “Are you working with Peter?”

The expression that morphs her features finally has fear breaking through my temper, cracking the resolve of courage from the sheer will of my rage. She looks like she wants to kill . “I’ll chalk your ludicrous outburst up to your immense newfound power. However, such disrespect will not be tolerated.”

Great to know respect is one-sided.

As if she heard my thoughts her eyes narrow further. “Why have you come for our aid if you do not trust us?”

Her question stuns me, not because she can see right through my feelings but because, to be frank, I thought she wouldn’t care. After all, mermaids are rumored to be heartless, and I believe that unequivocally, considering she knew about Hazel…and what was to come of that night.

“Because I will not put my pride before saving innocent lives,” I say, trying to keep the ice from my voice and failing.

“Any snide remark you want to tack onto the end of that?” Amelia purrs.

Water flares below the surface of the water. The way Amelia snaps toward the violet-eyed mermaid, I’d say Alentia just whacked the second with her tail.

Naia ignores the interaction, and completely shocks me by saying, “What will it take for you to work with us without spite in your heart?”

My jaw threatens to unhinge. Ignoring the fact that she already knows why we’re here, I focus on the other problem instead. “Why do you care? You’re as heartless as they come.”

At that, something within her shifts. Not physically, but I can feel it. It surrounds me, suffocating me with the anticipation of what’s to come. It still does when she speaks again. “Because, believe it or not, Delilah, there are many situations in one’s life where you lose the freedom to make your own choices.”

I cock a hip. “Not speaking in sordid riddles would be a great place to start.”

Axel mutters something intelligible behind me.

Amelia hisses and spits, “Watch it, Fae .”

We still need them , Knox reminds me more gently.

All I want to do is cry and scream and rage at them. The mermaids saw something in Hazel that night. If that had been me in their position, I wouldn’t have allowed one of them to perish, even today. I wouldn’t want their pod, their family, to suffer like ours has.

“You could have stopped it,” I say thickly.

Knox looks over his shoulder, a mix of anxiety and worry overcoming his features as his gaze no doubt locks on Axel.

Knox and I are the only ones who know that the mermaids saw through Hazel that night, and no one else but myself saw the look in her eyes.

“Delilah, what are you talking about?”

The tension I feel radiating at my back has me stiffening. But for once, I don’t care if he flies off the rails.

Naia deserves it.

A low snarl tumbles from the pod of mermaids before us.

“Control your second, Knox!” Amelia demands.

“What are you talking about?” Axel asks again, his heavy footfalls approaching behind me.

I don’t take my eyes off Naia. “Why don’t you do the honors?”

“Delilah,” Knox whispers. “Don’t push it.”

Soothing emotions flowing down the bridge, love and tenderness. The temperature dips, the result of his air magic trying to cool my heated flames. But I’ve been waiting for an explanation, and I want it.

Angel, don’t do this.

“I’m not asking her, I’m asking you,” Axel snaps at me.

A niggling part of me knows I should stop. I should turn to Axel and explain, but I can’t see past the red haze clouding my vision. I can’t forget that all of this could have been avoided if she had just opened her mouth.

So, in turn, I open mine.

“Naia knew what Hazel was planning that night. She knew and never said a word.”

The forest grows quiet. Birds stop chirping, the river stops flowing. Even the trees seem to hold their breath as the storm that is Axel begins to churn.

Now my gaze isn’t the only one filled with hatred.

It was selfish of me, I’m self-aware enough to know that…but I just couldn’t pretend that everything is fine.

Nothing is fine about our lives.

It’s fallen to shambles.

Axel trembles. His face turns ashen, his fists clench at his sides, and as he slowly lifts his head to mine, I see the betrayal in his gaze. Maybe because I kept this from him, but right now, his wrath turns toward the pod. Before I can blink he’s lunging across the meadow.

Fangs extended, a roar tears from his chest and blades appear in his outstretched hands. He dives right for Naia, such intense hatred in his eyes that if looks could kill she’d be dead already.

Before Axel can strike, shadows wrap around his body and hurl him backwards into the far end of the meadow.

Knox heaves beside me, his eyes locked on his second, his chest rising and falling rapidly.

You, I will deal with at home , he growls down the bridge. “And you!” he bellows at his second, but his anger dissipates as quickly as it came.

A sob fills the meadow as Axel doesn’t rise.

Knox stops breathing as the quiet, muffled sounds of Axel’s heartbreak reach our ears. The anger that was fueling me just moments ago vanishes. Axel’s shoulders shake relentlessly as his sobs rise in volume.

“I suggest you have his mate take him home,” Naia says, uncharacteristically soft. I don’t have a moment to process that she knows they’re mates before she suddenly adds, “And make sure you keep him away from the bottle. There’s only so many times one can dance with death.”

Elysia doesn’t need to hear anymore. In the next moment she’s beside him, gently lifting him to a seated position. The sight of his tear-stained face has me turning away.

I did that.

My selfishness did that to him.

Knox won’t even look at me.

All my life I have carried the guilt of others. Now holding my own, I realize how heavy and uncomfortable it really is.

The fated mates teleport away, taking with them the sound of Axel’s inner torture.

“I can’t believe I did that,” I whisper.

“Grief is a very powerful thing. It can change a person at their core.” Naia’s face turns solemn. “You know that already and yet you still allow your anger to consume you.” She moves forward a fraction, her stare turning grave. “Axel isn’t the only one who will die if his grief continues to overpower him.”

Knox sucks in a sharp breath and places his hand on my lower back. As if he must touch me, to prove to himself I’m alive and standing, no matter how angry he must be feeling right now.

“Tell me why,” I plead.

Naia sighs. “The king placed a spell over her. So that if anyone figured out her true alliance, they were silenced. I couldn’t physically say what I saw even if I wanted to.” Her voice lowers. “Dark magic is as powerful as they come.”

Another wave of guilt crashes into me. Before it swallows me whole, I force out, “Do you know why we came here?”

“Yes.”

“And have you seen the entirety of the prophecy?”

“No. Only what Elysia has seen. We, too, receive the same translated snippets. You are the only one who’s heard it all.”

“Do you know how to decipher what we have so far? Where is this saltwater heap it speaks of?”

Naia turns to her pod, silently communicating. Once they all simultaneously dip their pointed chins, she turns back to me and nods herself. “We offer our services to you, to guide and aid you in this journey, for it won’t be an easy task.”

“No, no, that can’t be right.” I shake my head. “Our battle lies here. Cardania was just overthrown. The rest of the courts could fall at any moment.”

Her eyes turn sorrowful. “If you do not leave, all of Aloriah will fall. What you seek will give you every answer you need to save our lands. Without it, we will all perish.”

“I don’t suppose you can just…tell me what’s there beneath the sea?”

She shakes her head slowly.

Can they be trusted? Knox asks suddenly.

I trust anyone who received the prophecy. Anyone outside of that…no.

“When should we leave?”

“Tomorrow morning. It’s an eleven-day sail.”

Knox rubs the nape of his neck. “With the city evacuated I have plenty of boats to choose from. Any preference? Any storms you foresee, Naia?”

“Plenty of storms, yet none created by Mother Gaia,” Amelia purrs instead.

I will pluck my eyeballs out if they speak to us the entire time in riddles , I hiss. Knox’s soft chuckle drifts down the bridge.

“Care to share with the rest of us this time?” Knox drawls.

“No.”

I roll my eyes at Amelia but by the look on Naia’s face, she’s close to rolling her own.

“We’ll see you at dawn at Azalea’s shores. Bring your armor.”

And with that, Naia returns to the water, her pod gliding after her, leaving ripples in their wake.

All except for Amelia. She pins her gaze on Knox.

“Control your second, or next time it’ll be a dagger that stops him,” she snarls, then lowers into the water and disappears.

We’re silent for a moment, the weight of everything that is to come pressing upon our already tired shoulders. Until I shiver from the chill. “I didn’t think mermaids carried daggers.”

“It is an odd sight to imagine, isn’t it?”

Hefting a deep sigh, I drop my forehead to his chest. “I’m sorry about earlier. Do you hate me?” I ask, barely a whisper.

He barks out a laugh. “I could never hate you. But you owe him an apology.”

“That was so horrid and terribly selfish of me.” My eyes grow heavy. “I-I made him cry.”

“Axel cried because he found out there was someone who could have saved his twin. But how you spilled that information could have been far gentler.”

Groaning, I mutter, “Gods, I’m awful.”

Knox wraps his arms around me before planting a kiss on top of my head. “You’re not awful, but I do think you need to talk to him.”

“What if I drove him to drink?”

“Everything drives him to drink these days.” Sighing deeply, he pulls back but doesn’t drop his hold on me. “We should go. We’re far too close to Cardania’s border.”

Knox swoops me into his arms, his beautiful black wings spreading as he takes off into the sky.

“What’s the chance Elysia kept him away from the alcohol without them arguing?”

Knox’s deep chuckle sends goosebumps up and down my arms. “I think there’s a higher chance of Harlow and Lenox getting along than those two not getting into an argument.”