“They’re not just stories.”
“I know. I still don’t believe in that god of yours, but I know something has infected the water. And your minds. It’s been growing for a long time.”
I stared at Aeris for a moment, reminding myself that her kind had never worshipped or even attempted to serve Akareth.
“I envy that the Yri never felt a need to find more,” I said. “Your people were content existing in this great body of water and never had a desire to find out what existed beyond it. Other clans say that our greatest flaw was that we always wanted more. More power. More answers. And it led the Kroans to a place we were never meant to go. We opened the door for the shadows and the shadows consumed us.”
Aeris blinked, her expression going flat, keeping whatever she was feeling hidden from my prying eyes.
“Don’t envy us,” she finally said. “We’re all dead.”
“Dead because Kroans are bloodthirsty. We always have been. Even I find myself thirsting for violence when it’s entirely unneeded. It’s in our blood.”
“But as you said, neither of us was there when the Yri were destroyed. I thought about that before we sailed for Dornwich. I’ve not known many other sirens, Yri or otherwise. When I talk as if I understand, it is only to protect myself from the fact that I don’t. In truth, there was a part of me that wanted to know you the moment we met in Thorpes, even if you frighten me.”
A smile whispered across my lips at that. “You don’t need to fear me. The rest of the world should, but those on this island right now?” I took a long scan of the many groups of men on the beach, drinking and either dancing or sitting around campfires. “This is all I have.”
“I know that now. I may have mistaken your ruthless nature when we first met. You are overwhelming in a way I can’t explain, but I understand why now. I have not loved many in my life. Perhaps I never loved anyone before Nazario, but I know enough to understand what it does to someone. It consumes us and in timesof need, it makes us monsters. I’m not so blind that I do not see just how often you’ve been made a monster because you love a great deal. The more we love, I’ve realized, the more willing we are to do horrible things in the name of it. I did not think a Kroan capable of that kind of affection, but I was wrong.”
Vidar’s bright smile caught my eye from across the clearing and my heart ached. Aeris’s words echoed in my head, repeating over and over as I watched him navigate his crew, giving each their deserved attention. And I knew, before the night was over, he’d give me the same. He was everything. The backbone and the crown. The leader and the protector to all the men on the Storm Weaver and to me. And even to Meridan. Our affection blossomed from the deepest hate and it made me covet him even more.
“You love him very much, your captain,” Aeris said.
“How do you know?”
“What do you mean?”
“How do you know you love Nazario?”
“I just do. I smile when I think of him and when I’m near him. I ache when I believe him to be in pain or in danger. And… I have killed for him. And I would do it again. And he would do it for me. His company completes me every morning and lulls me to sleep at night.”
“And you can feel my affection for Vidar?
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
She knitted her brows as if confused. “As sure as I am about my feelings for Nazario.”
I swallowed, that familiar, crippling fear infecting my heart like suffocating smoke.
“I haven’t told him,” I confessed. “We wanted to kill each other. This dark world nearly made us do it and we didn’t. We found each other in all the madness and we recognized what we were. We recognized that we needed each other. But who am I to say that’s love?”
“Who is anyone to say it’s not?”
One of the men from Nazario’s crew, the redhead with the broad shoulders, started jogging toward us. I stiffened at his too-cheery grin.
“Come,” he said. “Someone said to drink and be merry and I’m not one to disobey an order.”
The music was becoming louder, and more men were starting to join what they all thought was dancing.
“Cathal,” Aeris warned. “I don’t know how—”
He grabbed her wrist and hauled her toward the fires, his eyes shifting to me. I raised a brow and he raised one back, offering his hand. “You, too. Ye’ve frowned enough for all of us. I want to see if sirens can dance.”
I was fully ready to deny him when Vidar appeared out of nowhere, barefoot with his britches rolled up, and scooped me into his arms.
“I’m a jealous one, Caffle,” he said.
