Page 113 of Wicked Tides
“Meridan!” I shouted. Immediately, she was at my side, her lips bloodied. “She cannot get away.”
We both took off after her, but my sister was as fast on land as she was in the water. For all we knew, she had others waiting for us, but I didn’t care. She could not leave.
When we exited the cave, Ligeia veered off toward a cliffside. We followed, but before we reached her, I stretched out an arm and halted Meridan. Ligeia spun to face us as two other Kroan emerged from the frosted stone ground, their bodies uncurling from the rocks and shedding their gravelly color.
“All of Theloch will descend on this place,” Ligeia threatened. “And every place you go will fear us as we rise up in your wake.”
Meridan and I wasted no time. We charged toward the intruders without remorse or hesitation. We had not fought our own in years, but we knew how to do it. We combined our efforts, tearing into one before even thinking of the others. Ligeia inched toward the cliffside, staying far from my blade. Just as I was about to finish one of the strangers off, the third tangled her fingers in my hair, dragging me backward. I launched my feet up, flipping over her skinny form and driving my knife into her side. She screamed as I twisted it and then dragged the sharp edge through her stomach. Blood and organs spilled to the ground in a steaming heap.
Ligeia roared with fury and suddenly reached out toward Meridan. I threw my knife. It whispered past her head, cutting deep into her scalp, but it barely slowed her. The third stranger, though wounded, had enough in her to rush at me, a smaller bone dagger in her hand.
A pistol blast rang through the air and her head snapped back before she crumpled to the ground. Glancing sideways, I saw Vidar marching toward us, his eyes set on Ligeia and his cutlass clutched tightly in one hand. My sister wasted no time and grabbed Meridan bythe back of the neck, dragging her toward the edge of the cliff. I watched in horror as the two toppled into the water below.
“Meri!” I shrieked.
I stepped toward the ledge to see the water bubbling up where they’d disappeared beneath the waves. Vidar moved up by my side, sheathing his blade.
“She cannot leave,” I said, tearing off my clothes as fast as I could. “She will tell others where we are.”
“You cannot go alone.”
“I have no choice.”
When I hit the water, it was like hitting a slab of solid ice. The cold swathed me in a suffocating cage. My vision was skewed by a flurry of bubbles, but I could see them. Ligeia’s dark hair mixed with Meridan’s silver locks flitted through the water ahead and as soon as my body was through changing from one form to the next, I darted afterthem.
~ 39 ~
Vidar
We all serve a dark god
Bound by lies and tyranny
~Dema Dumos
One of the women in the village was sewing me up with a bone needle and a thread while I stared across the room at my wounded men. The mutineers had all been killed on the spot while Boil, Jesse, and James all rested on cots, recovering from their wounds. Thankfully, they were minor. A couple of split lips and bruises, but we’d all gotten out of it unscathed, for the most part. Gus came to sit beside me as the woman stitching up my shoulder knotted the string and severed it with a small knife. I had been lucky. The slug went clean through my shoulder and left nothing behind. It hurt like a bitch, but I had been hit worse.
Gus reached out to poke at a bruise on my temple.
“Fuck off,” I said with a groan, swatting his hand away.
“Quite a night,” he said. “Quite a week, actually. We haven’t buried this many men in years.”
“Uther, the bastard,” I said through my teeth.
“He lost his silentium.”
“On the island. He was the last in the boat.”
“You think one of them bitches snagged him and planted ideas?”
“I do. But he didn’t agree with leaving Dahlia and Meridan alive in the first place. How much of it was under her influence?”
“And the others?”
“Each of them spoke up when I let Dahlia out of the holding cell.” I glanced at Gus, searching his one good eye for truth. “You think all of this was a mistake?”
He sighed heavily. “I think I trust your decisions. Like I trusted your father’s.”
