Page 115 of Wicked Tides
The thought made my already spinning head spiral out of control. I had seen Dahlia drive her knife into Uther. It was the second time she’d come between me and someone trying to kill me.
When we exited the cave and came to the water’s edge, I noticed the silence first. The water was placid and so blue it seemed tampered with. Up on a cliff, I spotted a villager with a bow and arrows strapped to his back. He was diligently scanning the water, but not likely for the same reason I was. Another lookout stood further down the beach.
“They sent these men out to keep watch as soon as you went in to get stitched up,” Mullins said. He buckled his belt around his slender hips and chose a direction. “I’ll start patrolling down that way.”
I nodded as he headed down the rocky beach. David sighed and tied his coat tightly closed. Looking at him, I was reminded how young he was. I was barely younger than him when my life fell to pieces and though I tried to keep his together, I had failed.
Maybe there was no helping the course of things.
David headed in the opposite direction as Mullins without a word.
“David,” I said, catching him before he hiked too far away. He turned and I slid Lady Mary out of my belt, handing it to him. “Take this.”
“Lady Mary?” he said, wrapping his fingers around the hilt.
“You see one, you gut her.”
“What about you?”
“I’ve got my pistol.”
“I’ve got a pistol.”
“Just take it. Bronze is better for killin’ them. We’ll get you your own soon.”
He looked down at the cutlass. Lady Mary wasn’t pretty. She was full of nicks and she hadn’t gotten a good cleaning in some time, but she was sturdy. He ogled it as he walked away, but once more, he stopped before he was too far.
“I want her to be alright, you know,” he said. “As foolish as it sounds, I do want her to survive. When I was about to drown on the Widow’s Smile, in that damn holding cell, I called out to the men andnone of them stopped. They was all trying to save themselves. Then she showed up. Dragged me out of there and to the surface. If she can do that, then I can wish for her safety, right?”
The thought of Dahlia going down into the hold to fetch a boy she didn’t know was a puzzling one. She was a conundrum. From the day she freed me from that cage, she had been a giant mystery.
And I wanted to see her safe.
“Go,” I said, jerking my chin. “Keep an eye out and don’t let your guard down.”
David nodded and then finally slid my cutlass into his belt as he patrolled the other side of the beach.
The day dragged on with nothing to focus my attention on in the water. In the distance, I caught the spray of a whale breaching the surface once or twice, but no sirens. Not even the locals. It irked me a little that they hadn’t intervened when the damn Kroan waltzed onto land to attack, but we didn’t know them well enough to place any real blame. Perhaps they were of a weaker, more cowardly sort.
The lookouts had switched shifts many hours into the afternoon and when the sun began to sink toward the horizon, Mullins returned from his trek, tired and hungry.
“Going back for some food,” he said. “I’ll grab us all a bite.”
He hesitated before leaving as if waiting for me to tell him I was finished searching for her, but I didn’t. I was willing to camp at the water’s edge if I had to. My shoulder was sore and I was tired, but I kept my eyes on the water. I alternated between sitting and standing all day and leaned up against a large rock once Mullins left toward the village.
Down the beach, David strolled into view and gave me a nod, letting me know he was alright before he began another walk along the water.
It was all ridiculous. I wanted to reason that I was just volunteering to help the other lookouts in case another threat burstfrom the water, but I was there for far more selfish reasons and it was to see Dahlia returned. Some nasty voice inside me told me she wouldn’t. After all, other sirens were not her only threat in the water. She still had the sons to contend with. I wanted to know what possessed her to leave like she did when she knew the dangers waiting for her, but I could not ask her if she was lost to us. If she did not come back.
The sound of steady wind was broken by water sloshing nearby. I stood and peered down the icy bank. It could have been anything. An animal. A siren. I wanted it to be Dahlia, though.
When I saw a hand jut out of the water, I narrowed my eyes, hoping. Then a head of black hair emerged and I started jogging in her direction, hand on my pistol in case it was not the siren I wanted to see.
But then that scar gleamed in the late afternoon light just right.
Dahlia clawed at the ground, dragging herself out of the sea with a strained grumble. My body wanted to grab hold of her and hoist her into my arms, but I tamed that impulse. It took every fiber of my self-control, but I did it.
“Did you get her?” I asked, trying to sound casual when really, my heart was racing.
