I could sense a bit of malice in her tone as if she was not saying it out of gratitude.
“I don’t know, but keep in mind that this ship and its crew was created for the purpose of hunting monsters like us.”
The corner of her lip rose so slightly, I would have missed it had she not turned her head to face the moonlight.
“You think I fear your captain or his crew?”
“No, but they might get in the way of the life you have ahead of you if you give them a reason.”
Finally, she turned to look at me again, the black of her eyes fading into small pupils surrounded by ghostly-gray irises. She looked over me once as if to study every detail of my face and then, before my eyes, the pale, ashen-white hues of her siren complexion took on a shade of muted tan to emulate that of a human. I wondered if I was so unnerving when I covered up my siren face with one that was more digestible. Knowing that she truly could go anywhere and be anyone if she wanted was admittedly worrisome, but the alternative was killing her or putting her in a cage for the rest of her life and I couldn’t, for the life of me, bring myself to do either.
I owed her now… which was an obscure feeling.
“Do not stress over something you cannot control,” she mocked. “What I do when I leave is fully out of your hands.”
“Are you implying that when you go, I might feel guilty for letting you?”
She shrugged. “I don’t understand why you feel what you do or when those feelings suit a situation, but you do seem quite concerned with what I may or may not wreak on this world now that I’m not buried beneath it.”
I sucked in a breath, turning to peer out over the surf as the sky began to brighten with the dimmest hues of dawn light. That great big ocean was a different place without the whispers of a self-proclaimed god prowling in its depths, but it was still an abyss full of horrors that needed no god to guide their hands.
“Why did you go into the temple when Aeris freed you?” I asked. “You could have left.”
“I wanted to see him again. To know.” She paused a moment, swallowing before she turned to study my face. “And I wanted to see you. I thought I could gain some clarity.”
“And did you?”
“Maybe. When I heard you use the voice on him, I suppose that was the moment I chose. I could never…” She paused again, clearing her throat and peering out at the sea once more. “It doesn’t matter.”
“And… how could you tell what was real and what wasn’t?”
She sighed like the question bored her. “Akareth didn’t understand light. He never did. His world is darkness. When he creates a vision, he makes his own light and it’s always flawed. I only realized it when I finally saw light myself.”
I thought back on the shadows always veiling Vidar’s face in every violent vision he’d force fed me. On the way the walls were dark in that temple when Vidar was skewered with spears as if under a spotlight.
I wish I’d realized it sooner.
But it did matter. He was gone and I found myself desperate to understand Lyla more and the world in which she was built, grim as it might be.
“You could stay with us,” I said, the words coming out before my thoughts could catch up.
Lyla let out a soft and almost inaudible chuckle. “You don’t want that. You fear me too much.”
“I think I’m far beyond fearing what you might do to me.”
“Not what I might do. You fear what I imply. That you could have become this. You were so very close, sister. Even now, you can hardly look at me because it’s like looking in a mirror only you don’t like what you see.”
“You are wrong in that as well,” I said, staring right at her. “I’ve never seen you in my life. This version of you, that is. Without his hands in you, pulling on your strings.”
Her gaze pierced right through me, finding the cracks in my armor like water found every tiny fissure in a boat.
“I don’t know what this version of me is either,” she whispered. “I doubted you had destroyed him until this morning. This morning… there was nothing. Nothing at all. No voices. There was hardly a memory. When we wake, dreams begin to fade. I feel as if my whole life has been a dream and without him… it’s all fading, like I never existed before today. What I am… I don’t know whether to put it out of its misery, feed it, or let it loose on the world.”
“You must have want of something, Lyla.”
“No… no, I don’t. But I should like to find out if I can find such a thing.”
The pity felt for her could have been misplaced, but it was there nonetheless.
