If Akareth was real, however, it meant there was a monster pulling the strings. Something tangible. Something that had been in control from the beginning. Something I could destroy.
I wasn’t sure which was worse.
“He is as real as the knife I’m going to stick in your precious pirate’s gut if I get out of this cage.”
My teeth ached to rip out her throat at the mere mention of harming Vidar. Or anyone, for that matter. If she touched a single person from the Weaver, I would have her in pieces and it made my muscles twitch like they were tugging on a taut leash trying to get at her.
I leaned forward, wrapping my fingers around the bars in front of me.
“If you touch anyone on this island, I will rip your guts from your body and hang you with them.”
Nothing. She felt nothing for that statement. Not even an eye twitch betrayed what she might be thinking.
“It’s rather unoriginal, sister.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Don’t you dream of it? The terrible feeling of being torn apart as babes? Or am I the only one who remembers the screams and the blood?”
“All birth is filled with blood and screams. It does not mean we shared a womb.”
“Ahh, so you do remember the screams.”
“Of course I do.”
She struggled against her binds to lean toward me, her salt-crusted hair falling further into her face.
“Youdidn’t scream, Dahlia. You were the perfect, quiet little baby. No cries. No struggling.”
“I know I did not scream. Mother did.”
Another laugh as if she thought I was a fool. “Kroans do not scream at pain and mother certainly didn’t.” She crept closer, the chill of her company burrowing beneath my skin. “They were me. I cried loudly, all the way into the shadows where they dragged me. Into the cold abyss.”
“No.”
“I screamed so much, father forced me to sleep for months when I reached his realm.”
“How can I be sure you’re telling me the truth?”
Her faint smirk turned flat, pulling at the lines around her mouth. “I know,” she whispered, her lip quivering. “Iknowhe is real.”
I skimmed over the scars littering her exposed skin. I could hardly tell what could have made them. They were shaped strangely, but each one was gnarly and rigid.
“You think the surface is a hellscape. A battleground. You believe you know what it’s like to survive, but you, sister, are a coddled thing. My world was darkness from the moment I opened my eyes. The only light I knew was the light of the surface fading. What light I saw from then on was false. Always a way to lure me in. To break me. To peel me apart from the inside out, over and over, until my screams were my only company and my own voice my only friend.” Her smile slowly started to return as her eyes drifted deeper into some unseen, horrific memory, taking her further from that cage. “And every moment, he was there. He’s still here,” she giggled. “Making sure I don’t forget that my reason for being here is to kill your pirate and bring you to the trenches. His perfect daughter. The one he wants to break. See, I am not to bring you in chains. No. I am to destroy what you hold dear so you crawl to him, shattered and hollow like all things that eventually sink to the bottom of the sea. Bones. Ships. Empty rib cages stripped of meat. Rotten and forgotten. Heartless.”
“He tortured you,” I said. “All this time, he was hurting you.”
Her gaze flicked toward me, wide-eyed. “Pain is how you know you’re alive. And in the dark, few things make you feel alive. It’s silent down there in the abyss. On days he did not speak to me, I felt so alone. But his sons kept me company. Always biting and cutting and fucking me like the whore I was to them.” She canted her head again, shifting onto her feet so she was hunched over herself, pulling on her bound wrists. “Tell me. What does it feel like?”
“What does what feel like?”
“Being whole. On the inside, I mean.”
I shook my head. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“The sons. They’re quite violent,” she laughed. “I believe I’ve been incomplete for a long time. On the inside.”
“Lyla, why help him? He did nothing to protect you. His own daughter.”
