Page 48 of Wicked Tides
“What do we do, Dahlia?”
Her voice was smaller than I’d ever known it to be. We weren’t used to fearing the ocean like that. We were outsiders. There was a certain unease about being rejected everywhere and having no place of refuge. The sons planted a different kind of dread. One that made me feel helpless.
I balled my hands into fists against my knees.
“There is something awful happening in the water,” I said.
“Worse than the xhoth?”
“The men on that merchant ship did not have silentiums.”
“Not all men do.”
“No, but more than one had had a sigil carved into his skin. Our sisters had visited them.”
“You think they were under someone’s influence?”
I nodded. “I think those men were doing someone’s bidding. Not just anyone’s bidding, actually. The symbol was Kroan.”
“Then the girls…” She paused “What were the girls for?”
“I don’t know. Perhaps the men were meant to bring them bodies. Ligeia’s clan hunts these waters. She always had a greater taste for humans than even my mother. And with so many hunters on the surface, she would not be above making men do the work she did not want to.”
“I don’t want to believe our own kind is swaying men to bring them innocent children, but I do. I also don’t want to believe Akareth’s sons are now hunting us. What has become of us?”
“Our people are desperate. Hunters are killing us and there are rumors that some of us are being taken alive, silenced, and sold to men far from the sea. Far from our home.”
Meridan’s face twisted with disgust.
“That they eat our tongues is barbaric enough. Now they must defile our bodies?”
“We devour them completely when it suits us.”
“And selling us? Imprisoning us? I’d rather die than be shipped away in chains for sick men to use.”
“It is a hateful and endless cycle, Meridan. One we will never escape.”
“I wish I could hide in the depths and never come back. Without knowing the xhoth are down there, of course.” She paused a moment, picking at her nails. “And the girls? Do you think these men will truly help them or will they all meet the same fate as us? For all we know,Vidar is the foulest man alive. He almost killed that girl in front of you. He doesn’t even care for other humans let alone us. How could he be trusted in any way?”
I raised a brow. “You trusted him enough to free him on that island.”
She cocked her head. “Desperation is something I’m familiar with, too.”
“You shouldn’t risk yourself for me. Nor should you have let him go. You should have run.”
“You would risk yourself for me. You would deny it, but I know you would. It’s in your soul to care about others.”
“It’s in my soul to kill,” I groaned.
“Is it really? You and I have not been to the true depths like others have. Like your mother had. Our minds have not yet been stripped and shattered by whatever is down there. To say it is in your soul to kill is somewhat of a lie, I think. I think we kill for reasons, even if they’re our own.”
“Does it matter?”
“I suppose not. What are we going to do?”
I rolled my eyes and sighed. “I don’t know what we are going to do, but Vidar has already uncovered more than one of my weaknesses and he’s already using them against me.”
“Then we find one of his.”
