Page 109 of Wicked Tides
I was dumbfounded as I watched her prance away with him and join the fun, but I wasn’t pleased by the looks on some of the men’s faces as they passed. Uther and a few others sat by themselves at a table, watching, but not participating in the celebrations. I feared they would never warm up to us.
Not that I should care.
I was surprised by Mullins as much as I was surprised by Meridan. Though he’d been civil most of the time, his dislike for sirens had never waned nor did his expression of it. Now he was dancing with one and smiling about it.
Meridan never allowed herself to have fun. I watched her join a circle of skipping girls around the fire and couldn’t help myself. Vidar and the woman were forgotten. Seeing Meridan let down her guard and wash herself of her sorrows and fears was perhaps the brightest image at that feast.
Long into the night, things finally began to die down. The younger members of the tribe retreated to their homes to rest. Then the elderly disappeared while the men of the Rose found corners and benches to pass out on. Young ladies from the village gently coaxed a few to their feet to take them somewhere they wouldn’t freeze to death in the night while the stronger men dragged others away. A couple crewmen still sat by the firepit singing slow shanties with drunken slurs, still sipping their drinks, but otherwise, everyone had gone.
Including Vidar. I saw him walk away on his own some time ago and had expected him to return, but he never did. My gut turned at the idea that he might have been with the young woman somewhereprivate. The image of the two sweaty in bed with her moaning beneath him made my nostrils flare.
I balled my fists on the table, recalling the direction he’d gone when he left. I took a big swig of water and then stood from the bench, heading out toward the cave. I thought it strange that he’d gone that way, but perhaps he and his little admirer wanted time alone somewhere remote.
The idea sickened me.
Nearing the cave, I saw the illumination of a torch deep in its cavernous depths and paused. Perhaps it was not smart to pursue him when I was so clearly unhinged about the thought of him fucking a woman. I was liable to kill someone and Teles had warned me against such things.
But I was not a smart woman when it came to my impulses and I trudged on, my soft, leathery boots crunching on the frosty ground. I was prepared to see something I didn’t want to, but when I got closer, I realized my suspicions were wrong. I smelled only one presence. A familiar one. One that made me feel stripped all over again. Through the darkness, I could see him, alone, standing in the cave with a torch raised toward the wall of the long passage where I knew the carvings littered the stone. Beside him, he’d also built a small fire to stay warm. He was planning on staying a while.
I could have turned back at that point. He was alone and my jealousy was misplaced. I could have left. Ishouldhave left.
But I didn’t. I went forward.
~ 38 ~
Dahlia
There is no curse so great
as seeing a future you cannot have
or a past you cannot change
~Alisaen Ducroix
“Where is your sweet admirer?” I said, announcing my presence as I neared Vidar’s makeshift camp.
He glanced my way and I was struck by his firelit brown eyes. His mouth curved into a smirk as if my question pleased him in some way.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he played.
“You do. You only danced with one girl tonight.”
“She’s sleeping, like all the rest, I suspect.”
“Your men are being hauled off like corpses to their cabins. Seems they cannot hold their drink when it is made by foreign hands.”
I stood beside him, looking up at the carvings to find he was studying a set of figures hunting a massive whale with tiny boats and spears. Nearby, a carving of the sirens swimming in a skryll beneath a canoe led to other carvings deeper in. I didn’t know what to say. I was certain the depictions were as confusing and foreign to Vidar as theywere to me. We both just stared at them, likely thinking the same things.
“The world has been making less sense to me since you slithered back into it,” Vidar finally said, sighing as he stepped over to a stone and sat himself down.
He jammed the torch down between two rocks, standing it at an angle before he perched his elbows on his knees. That’s when I noticed his leather folder full of drawings on top of another stone and the charcoal stains on his fingers. He’d been copying the images from the wall onto his own paper for safekeeping.
I found another stone suitable for sitting across from him and took a seat, watching the firelight make flickering shadows on the walls.
“What are you doing out here?” I asked.
“I knew there was more on these walls than you let on. I needed to see it.”
