Page 32 of Wicked Tides #1

Vidar

I am the hate and rage of a hundred men.

I am the last dawn you will ever see.

~The God, Ferros

18 Years Ago

I remembered little. I waited as the girl had said and when it was time, I crawled out of my cage and went quickly to pick up Softscale from the ground where all the men’s weapons had been piled.

Then I crept to Gus, prying the spike out of his hands to free him.

He was barely conscious, but he was alive, even if he had one less eye.

And then, the rest happened as if I was possessed.

I was outside myself, watching it all unfold.

I slaughtered them all. I slaughtered every last one of them as they slept.

Their hot blood drenched my body and I reveled in it.

I made my way to each one of them, one by one, until the last one woke to see her sister’s dead around her.

Reyna. She yelled out as I drove a blade into her gut, drawing out her pain as she writhed.

I savored it, hoping I would never forget the look in her eyes as she died.

It was for my father. For the crew of the Mother’s Fang. For Gus’s fucking eye. For me. Had the girl not let me out of my cage, I would not have been able to catch them off guard. Their bellies were fat and their bodies were slow like wolves after a huge winter meal.

They all deserved to die. They deserved worse.

I was staring at the bloody bodies spread out before me, proud.

I deserved my vengeance, but in my rage, I didn’t even realize the girl wasn’t among them.

Then I heard her screams. She came barreling down the hill.

She must have wandered off and returned when she heard her sister dying.

Part of me didn’t want to kill her, but part of me did.

She would grow up to be just like her mother one day. I knew it.

Leave none alive. Everyone knew that in revenge, survivors always messed things up. She was a survivor.

When she charged me, I raised my father’s cutlass, ready to gut her, but I hesitated.

Damn my body. Damn my mind. They were at war with each other and that little hiccup allowed the girl to tackle me to the ground.

She was rabid. Madness had overtaken her at the sight of the massacre, but what right did she have to blame me?

“You promised you’d leave!” she cried out.

“I will kill every last one of you!” I roared, trying to wrestle her off of me.

She ripped the cutlass out of my hand and tossed it aside. I lifted my hands to push her away, my fingers grabbing for her throat.

“You are a monster! I freed you!”

“You are all devils! I will hunt you all down if it’s the last thing I do!”

She snarled like an animal at that, turning her head just as I was pushing up against her chin to get her off of me. I watched her teeth close over my fingers and felt a horrible pop in my joints. My knuckles splintered and I watched as she tore her head away, taking my fingers with it.

The worst of it was that she didn’t spit them out. She crunched once. Twice. Then she swallowed, opening her mouth to let me see her bloodied fangs when she screamed again .

For a moment, her agony was my agony. She was a reflection of me in my anguish and grief and my body stilled, unwilling to accept it. Never could I have anything in common with a monster like her. The only victory in it was that now she knew my pain.

“Vidar!” a voice called.

Gus. The girl looked up, teeth sharp and nails even sharper.

Little as she was, she was strong. She’d pinned me with ease and as I struggled, Gus came limping up the beach with a pistol.

He fired a shot at the girl and she ducked to the side.

I rolled to my feet, using the last of my strength to get off the ground.

I ran for my father’s cutlass and heard the girl charging after me.

She was ready to kill me. I had to be ready, too.

I grabbed the blade and spun around just as she was lunging.

The sharp metal met her cheek. Blood splattered the already stained sand and she spun, hitting the ground with a shrill cry.

I should have finished it then. I should have run her through.

I couldn’t. I was a coward. A fool. I ran for Gus as fast as my skinny legs could carry me as the girl struggled to her feet, one hand clutching her face.

We ran down the beach to the boat the girl had indicated and jumped in.

Inside was a weapon belt and by the luck of the gods, there was another pistol in it.

Gus tore it out of the leathers and fired on the girl as she sprinted toward us, hitting her in the shoulder. She hit the ground, shrieking.

We’d made it. We were rowing out to sea. To safety, I hoped, but perhaps to our death. It didn’t matter. As we distanced ourselves from that wretched island, her voice filled the air like poison.

“I will remember your name, Vidar!” she screamed. “I will remember your name! I will destroy you and everything you love! I will destroy you, Vidar! I swear to the gods, I will destroy you!”

Present day

I ambled down into the hold, a lantern in hand. The moment the firelight cast its orange hue over Dahlia’s colorless skin, my breath caught in my throat. But of all the sirens I’d ever met, there was a human quality to her that hinted she could still be reasoned with.

Or perhaps that was her supernatural charms. Or I was just being a fool…

Her eyes slowly lifted to look at me, dark and endless. Her friend was curled up against the other wall, fast asleep. Or pretending to be at the very least.

“Are you ready to talk?” I said in a near whisper.

She gave it some thought, her face giving nothing away. Finally, I watched her sigh quietly as if in mild defeat. She was tired. I was tired. One of us had to give in.

I held up the key ring and slowly unlocked the gate, watching Dahlia lazily unfold from the floor. She walked over to me, watching me with the same vigilance that I watched her. When she reached the open gate, she held out her still-cuffed wrists as if in a silent bargain.

I grabbed the chain, tugging her out of the cell only to lock the gate behind her. The cuffs would come off when I said they could.

We walked to my quarters where I hung the lantern up on a ceiling hook and then shut the door behind us, latching it.

Then I unlocked the irons from Dahlia’s wrists, tossing them on the table.

The keys I slid onto my belt, buckling them in place so they could not easily be snatched away, and she watched that as if tempted to bisect me just to get them.

The tension between us was like a stressed tendon ready to snap. The way the lantern rocked over Dahlia’s head created dancing shadows on her already eerily appealing face. She was a wraith in the dark. A beautiful, venomous thing.

“Tell me what’s going on,” I began. “I know you understand it better than I do.”

She was hesitant to answer. She veiled her fear like it was a sin to show it, but it was there. It was subtle, but it was there. She’d been spooked by that island and sirens weren’t often spooked.

“The xhoth,” she finally spoke. “They are hungry. And someone is feeding them. Likely to dissuade them from feeding on us. ”

“I need more than that.”

“People like the crew of the Cornwallis. They were marked, just like the men on that island. My theory is the men on that ship were under a sister’s influence. The girls were to be sacrificed to appease the sons’ abhorrent appetites or to feed a hungry clan. Who can know?”

“And the men on the island?”

“They were simply there to die. They’d been forced to wait there for something and they knew not what it was.

It drove them mad. I’m sure hunger drove them to eat one another.

In truth, the sons have likely been visiting that place, devouring one or two at a time just to stay satiated and the marks are simply so they know who gifted those men to them.

A pathetic attempt to stay in their good graces, I suspect. ”

“Tell me about the xhoth. I need more if I’m to sail us through these waters.”

“They are the sons of Akareth.”

I slumped into the leather chair at the far end of the room, regarding Dahlia in her oversized clothes. “Mind telling me what the fuck that means?”

She leaned up against the wall and then slid her back all the way down until she was sitting on the floor.

“They are from the darkest depths where Akareth resides. He is the father of all sirens, if you believe such things.”

“Do you not?”

“I’ve never seen him,” she shrugged. “Just as your people worship a god who’s never shown himself, my people serve a god who keeps to the shadows. His whispers are all we have.”

I swiped a bottle of rum from the table and popped off the cork, letting it bounce to the floor. “How’s that work exactly?”

“He calls us to the depths. No one knows how until they’ve felt the impulse to dive deep into the abyss. If we do not go, we are taken.”

“By the xhoth.”

She nodded once .

“And what happens in the depths?”

She shrugged again, watching as I brought the bottle to my lips and took a swig.

“I don’t know. Nobody knows for certain.

Even those that have returned are too broken to say.

If they come back, they are with child and have seen the wickedness of the dark.

Matrons, we call them. If a matron returns, always a cluster of daughters is born and a matron will return to the father every season to bear more.

If one of us does not come back… well… they are lost. Some say the lost ones have been chosen to bear sons rather than return.

Others say they are forced to bear daughters for the taking.

When they can bear no more, they are devoured, ever feeding our great, horrible creator. ”

I paused a moment, letting her words sink in.

“Is that why you all call each other ‘sisters’?”

She stared, remaining silent, but I could see the truth in her eyes.

“Have you ever been called to the depths?” I continued.