“By being someone else’s prisoner. Some of us aren’t as vicious—as strong—as Kroans. I was young when they acquired me. I didn’t even know escape was an option until...” She glanced briefly in Nazario’s direction, swallowing the rest of her words, but I understood just the same.
Vidar returned with an extra mug of ale for Nazario. “Our sails will be finished in a couple of days,” he said. “Then we’re setting out again.”
“Where to, then?” he asked.
“Wherever the water takes us, I suppose.”
“I advise you, do what we’re doing and go inland. No one’s place is on the water these days.”
Vidar scoffed, about to laugh when he realized the seriousness on their faces.
“A pirate heading inland? Are sailors meant to sail the sands, then? Are fishermen meant to fish the mountains?”
“And you?” I asked Aeris. “You agreed to go inland?”
She didn’t answer. There were reservations in her posture. Sirens weren’t meant to be away from the sea. It was madness. Yri, especially, had a deep connection to it. I had never known one, but the histories said as much.
But I didn’t knowherand I didn’t know her past.
“I won’t lie,” Vidar groaned, leaning forward on the table, his face underlit by the single candle in the middle. “We could use allies. Preferably allies with a certain understanding of circumstances.” His eyes flicked toward Aeris.
Nazario stared at him, deep in thought. I wasn’t sure what he and his men had seen or how he and Aeris came to be, but it was giving him doubts. The silence grew between them, their gazes equally unyielding until finally, Nazario shook his head and leaned back in his chair with a groan.
“I’m sorry, my friend. I’ve done my fair share of fighting. For things I believe in. For things I don’t. Eventually, that’s all it becomes. Fighting.”
Vidar didn’t show it, but I could tell he was disappointed. We had no idea what we were going to face if we continued traversing the waters, unable to predict what terrors lurked in our wake. When it would strike. Whether we would come out whole, broken, or dead.
But the one thing I knew when it came to Vidar was that he was not going to let a threat go unanswered. We had a million things in common, but that was what drove us together.
“I pray your journey inland treats you well, then,” he said, raising his mug to take another drink.
My eyes wandered slowly toward Aeris, whose gaze had fallen elsewhere. It was the look of a woman with too many thoughts and not enough time to focus on one. Someone with doubts. A part of me wanted to talk to her more. To peel her brain apart and find the answers she was unwilling to give.
But she and her pirate were not our concern if their true intentions were to leave the water behind completely and flee inland.
We were not the same.
We who have not sinned
Will bear the punishment of those who have
~ Unknown
The night was late. The square had grown quiet, for the most part. There were those who still drunkenly roamed the streets and lazily chased giggling women into the night, but none could escape the need to eventually sleep. Including us.
I stood at the open window of our second-story room at one of the only inns staring into the disheveled alley below where two men argued over something trivial. I doubted they could even understand each other’s drunken slurs, but it was mildly entertaining.
Behind me, Vidar was undressing. He’d managed to get a room with a brass tub. I assumed it had been stolen because it didn’t match the rest of the rugged decor. The mattress was on a simple wooden frame. The floors were worn, stained, and full of dents and scrapes. The window had only one shutter on it and the fireplacehadn’t been cleaned in ages. Piles of ash sat around it like someone had simply moved it aside. The tub, however, was quite nice.
I turned to look at Vidar as he tested the water with his hand. He and Mullins had been hauling buckets of it from downstairs for nearly an hour and in that time, any warmth had been leeched out of it. But I didn’t mind.
I watched as he unbuckled his belt and began removing his pants and leather boots. I took my time admiring his physique once there were no more clothes to obscure it. He’d lost a bit of weight since we left the north, but it only made his muscle tone stand out like his skin had tightened over his toughened frame. Cocking my head, I licked my gaze slowly up his body, savoring the look of him. When he noticed, his mouth curled into that smirk. The one I hated not too long ago.
“Get a good enough look, love?” he said, his voice low and smooth. “Or should I refrain from getting in the water for a bit longer?”
I shrugged off my linen coat and tossed it on the edge of the bed as I gradually moved toward him. I reveled in the way he ogled me as I slid out of my britches and then pulled my bloody blouse over my head. My braid fell to the top of my hips as I left a trail of clothing on the floor behind me.
Outside, I feigned being human. I willed more color into my skin and less silver into my eyes. With Vidar, I could shed it all. He knew what I was. He knew every ugly little detail of my body and my soul. I was a canvas of scars that told every hardship I’d faced. The crescent bite where a shark nearly ripped out my lungs. The lashings on my back. The scar across my throat and a hundred other small marks. They were all remnants of the things that tried to destroy me and failed.
