“Admittedly, I’d prefer if you stayed. If for nothing else, then just to keep my eye on you.”
“Afraid I will turn up in a hunter’s net? Is that called affection?”
“In truth? I would like some time to know you. Seeing as we shared a womb.”
“This is that blood we share talking. You feel you have an obligation, but I assure you, all that I said of our bond doesn’t exist. Blood is only blood. We share it, but we are no more connected now than we were as babes. You never minded my existence then and you won’t mind it if I leave.”
“That’s wrong. I’ve met you now and you’ve planted a slew of questions I fear I will never hear answered if you disappear.”
Her smile wilted like the edge of a parched flower. “You do not want those questions answered, Dahlia. I promise you that. You’ve been hardened by a world I don’t yet know. I’ve been molded by one you will never see.” She stood with a deep breath. “After all, seeking answers to festering questions is what led the Kroan to Akareth’s trenches in the first place. We may be the lastof our kind, you and me. The last to have heard his voice. The last to possess this cursed gift of his.”
“Maybe it’s better that way.”
She turned to look at me and sneered. “A world without us? Of course, it is better that way.”
When Lyla took a step toward the water, I straightened off the rock, part of me not ready to lose track of her. Not for love of a sister but for a need to understand. But, as she said, perhaps there were things I wasn’t meant to have the answers to. She was one of Akareth’s purest creations. Perhaps that knowledge was not meant for me or anyone for that matter.
“He may be gone, but the ocean will flood with those who have no one to follow now,” I warned. “It’s unsafe.”
She spun back around to look at me, the water up to her hips. “I may me a mosaic of scars, but each scar is a xhoth defeated. Do not underestimate me. I suspect I will be very dangerous in the days to come as my thoughts make an effort to re-order themselves, whatever that means. Already, I ate a shark for no other reason than to risk the injury of its teeth. I am… not quite well, sister.” Her eyes darkened again, all color devoured by blackness. “I do envy you. You know things. I do not. I disregarded that fact when my mind was a well of his demands. Now, I wish I knew… something. Anything.”
“Lyla—”
“That’s all,” she cut me off. “I have nothing else to say.”
Her gaze swept to the side and into a world only she could see before she sank into the water and disappeared beneath the waves. When I heard a pair of bare feet striding across the sand toward me, I looked away and found Cathal glaring at the surf.
“What did she say?” he asked. “Why’d ye let her go?”
“I didn’t. She just left.”
“Did she talk about me? Is she still… y’know… mad?”
“About her finger and her tongue? She didn’t mention it.”
He cursed under his breath and started to pace with his hands on his hips.
“She’s coming for revenge. I know she is. She’s too mad not to. Fuck.”
I shook my head and turned back to the tent. “You should ask Addison to make you a small bronze blade to put under your pillow. And perhaps learn to sleep with one eye open.”
“That’s not funny.”
I raised a brow at him. “I wasn’t trying to be.”
He grinned at me, eyes narrowed as if he was only smiling to mask a grimace. Before I reentered the tent, Cathal walked off, muttering to himself as he scrutinized the water’s surface.
But no amount of staring would eliminate the world that lurked beneath it, godless, but still very, very much alive. Kroans. Naros. Kraal and xhoth. Perhaps a hundred other creatures yet to be discovered. Clans yet to be met.
I breathed in the cool air, watching the horizon turn from black to deep blue, and then finally turned away and entered the tent.
Familiarizing myself with what was potentially a new world was tomorrow’s challenge. When I saw Vidar waking to acknowledge my presence, the only thing I wanted was to lie next to him and nurture him back to the man I knew he was. The dreaded hunter. My protector.
We had proven that we were unstoppable as one and that was how I planned to remain.
One Year Later
The pain of being deprived breath was potent, but like any other pain, it could be conquered. I peered up at the crimson orange hues dancing across the surface of the water above me, my lungs on fire and begging me to inhale. My bare feet stomped on gritty sand, carrying me across the ocean floor. In my hands was a heavy stone, keeping me submerged. I felt as if I’d taken a hundred steps, but of course I wasn’t focused on counting. When I finally could not take it, I dropped the stone and pushed off the sand, launching myself to the surface of the water. I sucked in a deep breath of air as soon as I emerged, sweeping the water from my eyes with one hand.
