Page 49 of Wicked Tides
“I think I have.” I inched closer to her, lowering my voice. “You know there are scattered whispers that we can see into the dreams of our enemies if we eat of their flesh.”
“Mystics like to ramble about it, yes.”
“I’ve eaten of Vidar,” I reminded her. “And I believe I walked in his dreams. I think I am connected to him, whether I want to be or not. Now that we’re near, something has changed.”
Her white eyes widened a bit when she processed my words. I could see the thoughts churning in her mind just like they’d been churning in mine.
“You can plant seeds,” she whispered. “Poison him against himself. Against his crew. Bend him to your will.”
“That would take time.”
“We may not have time before he chooses to kill us. We will have to take our chances with the monsters below.”
“He wants to know about them. It’s the only reason we’re here. So, we will give him what he wants. It will give us time and I can outsmart him if I have that time.” I turned my darkened gaze toward the swinging lamp and ground my teeth. “I can take Vidar’s mind apart.”
“You could use him.Makehim protect us. Turn his crew into our own just like that other crew was being used.”
It was a lot. Especially for someone like me who was completely unlearned in using a man’s dreams against him. It was in our nature to manipulate. To reform a man’s resolve. To replace his desires and amplify his needs. So few of my kind stretched that ability further than their voice, but I knew I could do it. I was Reyna’s daughter.
And from that point onward, I was going to peel Vidar apart and expose his core. I was going to break him.
~ 20 ~
Vidar
Only when we wake do dreams become fantasy.
~Unknown
Having Dahlia in the holding cell was bad enough without her sister there, too. Merilyn, I believed her name to be. I slept like shit the first night she was on my ship. Her presence alone had inspired the demons inside me to wake.
But none of that mattered in the grand scheme of things. The bigger picture had expanded. It wasn’t just about killing sirens. Overnight, it had become about this new threat. The “xhoth.” They didn’t discriminate and my lack of knowledge about them, their tactics, their needs, and their motivation had me on edge. Fuck Whitton’s request for tongues and warm bodies to sell. Fuck his love for money and lack of understanding. Something in the ocean was shifting and it wasn’t going to obediently remain contained. Evil didn’t work that way.
Everything was a mess and it only got messier when the second siren showed up alongside my ship. The same woman who’d freed me on the island. I knew she wouldn’t give up Dahliaso easily, so I wasn’t surprised. Disappointed, but not surprised. I hadn’t spoken to many sirens long enough to judge, but I wanted to say she was pretty level-headed for her kind. She read the situation and understood we needed each other to kill those beasts. What she didn’t read was my inability to trust her and how determined I was to get to Dahlia.
For eighteen years, I went over a thousand scenarios in which we would see each other again. I imagined coming across her face in a pile of heads dumped by hunters. I imagined fighting her to the death. I thought of dying at her hands. Of being dragged to the depths in her claws. I imagined her slaughtering my entire crew before I could stop her. I knew she wanted to. She longed to take her revenge on me. I wasn’t foolish enough to think that seeing another crew of good men sliced to pieces and skinned alive in front of me was out of the realm of possibilities.
Dahlia had been my worst nightmare and my loudest demon since the day she called my name in anger on that black sand beach. After the day I killed her people in front of her as her mother had done to mine. And now that nightmare was on my ship and in the flesh, longing to rip me apart.
Could I blame her for hating me? No. Just like she had no right to blame me for what I did. I wanted to think she knew how illogical it was just like I did, but neither of us could control the endless circle we were stuck in. Momentum had locked us in motion, constantly chasing the other in hopes of ending the torment only to add more debris to our path.
Gus escorted one of the older girls into my chamber and I could tell by the way she hugged herself with her arms and lowered her head that she was thinking it was for much different reasons than it was. It was not the girl whose life I’d threatened, but this one had seen the whole scenario play out. They all feared me now. Was it worth it to get a reaction out of Dahlia? Maybe. There was no point in regretting it after the fact.
Gus could speak the girls’ language. Not well, but even a few words helped us communicate with them. From what we could tell, they were from far up north. It was a place very few ships sailed to. The ice in the water made it near impossible to move through the narrow channels and the cold was unforgiving.
So why the hell did the Cornwallis have the girls on their ship? It was a question I couldn’t begin to answer and one that left a cold and uneasy chill in my blood.
On the table in front of me was a map. It was well-used and many of the words were too faded for anyone to read, but I knew it too well to care about smudged islands and stained corners. To my left, Uther was looking over the same maps. When it came to navigating, he was one of the best.
Gus said something to the girl and she nodded timidly, glancing at the map. I saw her eyes searching and trying to understand it, but it was clear after some time that she wasn’t accustomed to reading any sort of charts. Her brows worked with concentration before she glanced between Gus and me and shook her head.
“She can’t read no map,” Gus grunted. “Doubt she’s ever sailed this far from home to have a reason to.”
I scrubbed my face with my hands and grumbled with frustration.
“Can’t get them home if we don’t know where that is.”
“Sailin’ them home seems risky,” Uther said. “Even in the warm months.”
