Page 55 of Wicked Tides
“Always.”
I swallowed, my insides churning at the tone of his words. I wanted to kill him, but I didn’t seek him out in our dreams to fulfill that fantasy. I had come there to find a way in. To find a soft spot that I could expose and sink my claws into.
I couldn’t tell him I hated him. I couldn’t tell him that the dream wasn’t quite a dream or that I was me.
So, I spoke in the gentlest way I could.
“Me, too,” I whispered.
The ire faded in that gaze of his and as it did, something deep and overwhelming seemed to loom over the watery expanse like a storm cloud. No, a tidal wave. I turned my eyes to the great darkness that seemed to stretch on forever and heard rumbling thunder far within the void. I’d heard the sound before. It was deep and melodic and made of nightmares. My blood went cold. I stared at the overbearing darkness and felt that there was something beyond it. Something behind the shroud. Something not of our world or the next.
Father.
~ 22 ~
Vidar
Beware the silence.
Beware the words not spoken.
Beware the stares not seen.
~ Clea Roberts
Dahlia had been on my ship for two days and the tension was only building. My crew had remained loyal through the worst of times, but there were a few among them who were questioning my decisions. The whispers were faint but present. Why I cared to return a bunch of girls to their home while two sirens were locked up on board with their tongues in their mouths was somewhat of a mystery, even to me. So of course men were talking. Some wanted to return to the harbor and sell them for as much as we could get, girls be damned. Others wanted them dead. Their arguments whispered across the Rose.
Ships and their crews were delicate things. A good captain never forgot that. And with social temperatures changing, we all needed to adapt as well.
Dahlia’s presence, though I’d been avoiding it the past couple of days, was becoming a distraction. My plan to use her would go intoeffect soon, but I needed to get things in order. Feel out my men’s stance on it all.
As tempting as it had been to destroy her once and for all and be done with the torment, something told me I needed her alive.
My father may have miscalculated in the end, but he always told me knowledge won every war and with new monsters haunting the tides, Dahlia’s knowledge would be crucial.
Or so I kept telling myself.
Up ahead of the ship, a giant fog bank sat over the water like a sleeping monster. I stared at it, elbows perched on the railing, and narrowed my eyes.
Beside me, Gus leaned forward, blowing out a cloud of smoke before sticking his pipe back in his mouth.
“That’s a thick fog bank,” he grunted.
“We’re near the Aisle of the Black Water,” I said flatly.
Gus took a deep breath and let it out on a long sigh. “I know. I can smell it in the air. Like blood rotting in a salty tidepool.”
“I smell it, too.”
“Been a while since we’ve been through these waters.”
“There’s no way around that doesn’t add a week to the journey. Stick to the course. Make sure shifts in the crow’s nest are short. I want everyone sharp.”
“Aye. We’ll need our senses in there.”
It didn’t take long for the Rose to become fully immersed in the fog. Clouds above shielded the sun enough without it. It was like sailing through a storm with no wind. The silence was so heavy that I could hear every creak and moan within my ship as she skimmed the water. A siren’s song would be easy to sense in that kind of deafening silence, but I prayed we would not hear one in a place where we’d been stripped of our sight.
I stood at the wheel, my wits sharp and my guard up. Four men stood at the railing on either side of the ship, watching what little they could see of the waters below for signs of unwanted guests.
