Page 54 of Wicked Tides
I blinked, realizing quickly what the tune was about. Growing impatient, I tossed the silentium necklace into Vidar’s lap and immediately his gaze darted in my direction.
“There’s no singing at the bottom of the sea,” I said.
Vidar’s lips curled into a smirk as he rested his head on his fist.
“Well, well. If it isn’t the devil herself.”
“The devil doesn’t exist.”
“I beg to differ. We all see the devil from time to time.” His eyes roamed over me once. “Mine happens to dress in skin.”
“Seal skin.”
I didn’t know why I wanted to correct his assumptions. It wasn’t as if I cared what he thought of me and I wouldn’t have been opposed to wearing the skin of men, but if I was going to appeal to him in any way, I needed him to see me differently.
“Is that right?” he said, narrowing his eyes.
I took a deep breath and peered around at the endless sands once more.
“So? Why are you dreaming of the devil?”
“In this place? You can’t tell where we are? This is Hell, isn’t it?”
“You seem awfully comfortable in Hell.”
He snorted and looked down at the silentium in his lap before picking it up to examine the small, hollow pendant.
“I’ve been here before, devil.”
I inched my way closer to him. “So have I. But it’s not Hell. It’s just the bottom of the sea. The place all things come when they die.”
“Is that not another name for Hell?”
I huffed a laugh and shook my head. “In Hell, you suffer. Here, you simply lay in silence, rotting away, free of pain. Alone. Surrounded only by darkness and bones.”
Vidar narrowed his eyes again and slowly unfolded from his seat, coming to his full height. He held his hat in one hand as he stepped to the edge of the hull and then down to the sand in front of me.
“You talk as if you desire this place.”
“This place is nothingness. Up there is where the horrors are,” I gestured toward the whirling waters above us.
Vidar followed my gaze upward as another wave of lightning lit up dark shadows swimming in the void.
“Hard to believe horrors lay beyond that,” he said softly.
“It is beautiful, isn’t it?” I muttered back, staring at the barrier.
“Like a lace veil placed over a diseased body.”
I kept staring, losing myself in the haunting beauty of it and knowing his words were painfully true. When that realization came, so did the water. It descended in a faint mist at first before turning into a light sprinkle. Slowly, I lowered my eyes back down to look at Vidar. His head was still lifted toward the watery sky above, his eyes closed as the sprinkle turned into rain. Cold, salty rain as if the ocean was falling on our heads. And still, he wasn’t alarmed. Instead, he looked… at peace.
Finally, when his head lowered, I found myself entranced by the tears of water cascading down the contours of his tortured face. His lids rose to reveal those deep brown eyes like he was re-realizing where he was. There was a moment between us that stretched on too long. A moment where I felt tethered to him in a way I didn’t like. I’d always felt trapped in a feud with him, but this was different.
“All walls must come down,” I whispered.
He shrugged a shoulder. “All walls must come down.”
“Are you afraid of drowning?”
