“I saw you come out of the water,” she said softly. “I… I wanted to check on you.”
“Everything is fine,” I said. “Where is Vidar?”
She pointed toward a thin path leading through the trees. “He’s been helping Addison. This place had a smithery once. They fixed it up and she’s been working since this morning.”
I nodded and started heading that way, unsurprised when Meridan followed. Like me, she had gotten fully dressed in a pair of cotton pants and a shirt with her dagger strapped to her hip like she was preparing for something. Her energy was back, it seemed, which lifted my spirits a little.
When we passed by Lyla’s cage, I couldn’t help taking a glance at her. The sheet had been lifted just enough for someone to slide a plate of food inside for her, but by the looks of it, she hadn’t touched it. An ample amount of overcooked meat sat by her feet, but she was blind to it. Even as we passed, her eyes did not stray from whatever unseen world she was staring into.
“Has she moved?” I asked.
“No,” Meridan answered. “Not at all.”
I didn’t know what to make of that, but it didn’t matter yet. I wanted to see Vidar before anything else.
When we came to a wooden walking path that was overgrown with weeds, very specific weeds with thin leaves, I could hear the sound of metal banging on metal again and rounded a tuft of trees to see a few men and Addison working around a hot forge. Nazario, James, and Vidar, drenched in sweat, were moving things around while Addison continually slammed a hammer against a slate of red-hot alloy. Torches lit up a very busy work area. Sparks flew. Steam coated the air when she dunked the hot blade into a vat of water and James stirred the embers in the forge.
Nazario and Vidar worked in unison to lift a heavy wooden crate onto a couple raised logs and by their effort, I assumed it was filled with ingots. It was Nazario who saw me first. As he wiped his forehead with a cloth, he tapped Vidar on the shoulder and gestured toward me. Vidar turned, wiping his hands off on a long rag hanging off his belt.
Meridan brushed my arm before trekking further into the work area and helping wherever she was needed. I could see numerous blades laid out across a table, imperfect, but sturdy. Long ones. Short ones. Next to them, hilts of all shapes and sizes sat in a pile, ready to be paired with a blade.
The steam stunk of the dreaded herb and bowls of fresh hemsbane oil sat ready to coat every weapon. But I didn’t have time to wrinkle my nose at the siren-killing instruments around me. I looked up at Vidar, a spot of shame growing like a blood stain inside me.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For staying away so long.”
“For the hundredth time, I need no apology.” He looked around at the others in the clearing and then took my arm, leading me a few strides away. “But, since we are in dire times, I need to know where you are. Up here, I mean,” he said, tapping his temple with his finger.
“Lost,” I admitted. “I cannot lie to you. What you said was three days was weeks to me. I know it doesn’t make sense, but I was in a hundred different worlds, each more twisted than the last, for many days. I cannot recall details. It’s all been fading, but I recall the desperation. The panic. The loss. So many times, I thought I was awake when I was not and…” I raised my palm, stroking the scarred flesh where Lady Mary had cut my skin open.
Vidar reached out, taking both my hands in his. Stepping in, he lifted them to his lips, kissing the tops of my knuckles.
“You’re awake,” he assured me. “And if the bond truly is severed, his hold on you has loosened.”
“Loosened, yes. But it’s not gone. I still feel him like a worm squirming in my belly,” I winced. “And his seed remains, like Lyla said.”
“Seeds only grow if we let them take root and I won’t let that happen. Nothing has changed. Wewillfind him and we will destroy him.” His eyes wandered a bit as if he’d confused himself. “As soon as we figure out how.”
“There might be a way to find that out. In Akareth’s efforts to reveal my deepest fears and secrets, I think I might have seen one of his. Or at least a glimpse of something that I think I already knew.”
“Tell me.”
“I think I would like to talk to Lyla first. With you, of course.”
His lips stretched into a charming smile. “Not keen on repeating what happened last time you were dishonest?”
I did my best to withhold the smile tugging on my lips and shook my head. “Not keen on seeing the look on your face when I betrayed you,” I corrected softly.
“Fair enough.”
“Dahlia,” Addison said, out of breath. She was re-tucking her skirts into her belt, making sure none of the fabric dragged or got caught in the embers. She was glistening with sweat and coal stains, her hair pushed up into a faded blue sash. “You’re just in time. Yours was the first one I finished.”
“My what?”
She walked to the table filled with bronze blades and grabbed one off the far end. One of the only ones with a handle secured to it. It was slightly shorter than Lady Mary with a raw shape to it, the marks of her hammer still somewhat present down the length. She held it out across both of her hands and extended it toward me. The odor of hemsbane almost burned in my nose. The oil still glistened freshly on the bronze. When I reached out to wrap my hands around a thin handle made of twisted leather and metal, I could tell the weapon was made with me in mind. Smaller to resemble myexperience with a dagger. Heavy for its size because I was not too delicate to wield it.
Addison wiped her hands on her skirts and stepped back as I examined the craftsmanship. Not that I knew much about smithing, but I could tell the weapon was lethal. Turning the cutlass upside down, I could see a darkened shark tooth embedded in the butt of the hilt and ran my thumb over it.
“Hilt came to me last year,” Addison said. “No idea where it came from, but Vidar told me about your scar. Wrestled a shark, did you?”
