Page 11 of Wicked Tides
“Then it’s true what David says,” she whispered. “You don’t love us. We were just the burden you inherited when Jack was taken by the sea. Your guilt incarnate.” She paused as if waiting for me to deny it, but I couldn’t even do that for her. Slowly, she pulled away from me, shoulders hunched with defeat. “Then consider yourself relieved of us when you set sail next. The next time you dock, whenever that may be, I pray we are gone.”
Her voice was monotone and empty which was more painful than it would have been if she’d yelled at me. But I still made no attempt to dissuade her. In truth, I did love her. I loved David. I would do anything to see them safe, but safety was not all they needed. If my coldness finally convinced Agnes to move on, then so be it. It was the best I could do.
As she walked quietly to her bedroom, I glanced at the back door. I wasn’t staying in that house for a week. Not after the words we’d just exchanged.
I walked to the door and pulled it open to find David leaning against a wooden post just outside, the empty bucket in his hand. He looked up at me, his face as solemn as his mother’s without as much pain. The look in his eyes said he heard everything. I stepped out and shut the door behind me. Leaning against the opposite post and crossing my arms, I waited for him to speak his mind now that we were alone.
“She cries into her pillow at night all the time, you know,” he admitted. I wasn’t surprised. “She misses you.”
“She misses your father. She misses a man in her bed. But that can’t be me. I regret that I made her think it could be.”
He hesitated for a long moment, letting his eyes wander. “Are we really just your guilty burden?”
I looked him straight in the eyes and took a step toward him, grabbing him by the back of the neck.
“You listen to me,” I said, pointing a finger at his face. “Never once have I ever thought of you two as a burden. Did I care for you and your mother out of guilt? Yes. But also, because I wanted to.Because I loved your father. But you’re a man now. And a man takes care of his mother, you hear me? And you can’t take care of her from my ship.” I straightened and grabbed his shoulders, squeezing his slowly developing muscles. “Use these muscles and pick up a trade.”
I looked him in the eyes again and raised my brows, waiting for a response that would put me at ease. It took him a while, but he finally answered.
“Yes, sir.”
I patted his cheek and stepped back, leaning against the post again. “Good man. Besides,” I looked up at the full, reddish moon behind the parted clouds. “You don’t want to be like me. Men like me are empty and empty men can’t take care of their loved ones like they should. I pray that you neverbecome this.”
~ 5 ~
Dahlia
Beware, beware, the beasts atop the waves
They’re quick with nets and quicker with their blades
~ A Siren’s Lullaby
The moon was full and bright that night, peeking momentarily from the parting clouds like a baby crowning, blood-red tinge and all.
Birth was an ugly thing, but it was everywhere. I remembered my birth all too well and it was one of my many curses. The first thing I heard was screaming. The water carries sound so much farther than the air. All of Theloch would have heard my mother’s suffering cries. I came into this world from cruel agony. It was one of the hardest births my people had witnessed in years.
And somehow, she loved me for it. In her own way, at least.
Pain was one of our many languages. We endured it. We inflicted it. We welcomed it.
But nothing had prepared me for the day she was killed. That was a pain I did not think I could endure. She was Reyna. A matron. The mother of waves. A terror to our enemies.
I was a stupid, skinny child of the deep to think her invincible.
I paid the price.
Traitor. Leech. Coward. Soft-hearted. Spineless. I’d heard so many whispers since that day, that it was hard to remember my real name. Dahlia. The bitch daughter of Reyna. I was unworthy scum to the Kroan and I deserved to be treated as such.
No sacrifice was enough. No act was enough. No kill sufficed. I would never forgive myself and neither would my people.
I was leaning back against a rather uncomfortable incline of black rocks inside a cave that night, staring at a pool where the tide had left water behind. Above me was a gaping hole in the cave ceiling where the moon cast rouge light on the placid pool. Lune bled that night and that meant violence. She would bring the tide soon and my cave would be buried beneath the waves. But it didn’t matter. Though torturous, my patience was an art. I had needed to practice it over the years since my sister slit my throat and left me to the currents beneath the waves.
I believe she expected the sharks to tear me apart.
Lune knew they tried and left the scars to prove it.
But my flawed skin had become my identity. I did not grow up to be the beauty that was my sister and I never really reflected my mother’s grace in song.
