Page 14 of Godsbane
He stalks towards me in long strides until he’s close enough that I can feel his breath. The woods seem to go quiet aroundus—the only noise the pounding of my heart and the rushing of blood between my ears.
“There’s no god I would ever get on my knees for,” I defiantly declare.
Gray eyes scrutinize me, boring into me as if he already knows my darkest truth and he’s waiting for me to reveal it. I force myself to breathe around the darkness that threatens to overtake my vision. I’ve come close to being discovered before—much closer than this—but no one has ever peered into my soul the way this man is right now.
“Meditating…” he repeats. The last syllable lingers lazily in his mouth, eyes still intently focused on my every move. “Why?”
We may be allies, but we are not confidants. Some secrets, especially ones as damning as mine, are better left unsaid. The magic in my veins, the power that aches to be released into the world, the way I feel when I make the earth bend to my will—those are truths that I’ve always believed will only be exposed when Death takes me at last.
But the way he’s looking at me right now makes me want to offer an infinitesimal piece of a confession, to unburden myself of the tiniest fraction of the insurmountable weight that gets heavier with each passing year.
“It calms my mind,” I concede, “centers me … like I’m connected to something larger than myself.”
The corners of Captain Murphy’s lips turn up in an unexpected smile. “I feel the same way about swimming.”
His feet carry him backward, his eyes locked on me until he’s several steps away. Turning and walking towards the nearby trees, the captain calls out over his shoulder, “Find us some firewood, princess.”
A heavy sigh leaves my body. That was entirely too close for comfort, and yet a part of me grieves the loss of that sliver of safety, the brief moment that was entirely too good to be true.No such safety has existed for me since that fateful day in the Eastern Sea—the day I was swallowed whole by the water and ended up on a beach, lungs filled with sea water and blood filled with magic.
The black serpentine beast flits through my mind at the thought.
“I’ll get firewood when I’m ready,” I mumble, as I make my way back to our campsite.
My caramel-colored mare wanders over and I begin the process of unsaddling her for the evening. Minutes pass without a quick-witted quip from Murphy for my blatant disregard of his command. My head swivels to locate him, eyes scanning the trees until they reach the waterline.
There, on the bank of the small pond, Captain Murphy stands with his boots, armor, and shirt casually discarded at his feet. My eyes roam up slowly, taking in his low-slung black leather pants, the large hands planted firmly on his hip bones, the expanse of scarred tanned skin that covers his back, and thick rippling muscles that carve out his broad shoulders.
Holy gods.
As if on cue, my horse snorts, drawing my attention away from the half-dressed man in front of me.
“You’re right, girl,” I whisper, “it’s not polite to stare.”
But as I unbuckle her saddle, I can’t stop myself from peering over her back for another glance. Murphy is wading into the pond now, eyes closed and face turned towards the sky.
My gaze lingers, watching his aqueous movements. It’s as if heflowsin the water, as if he is composed entirely of droplets that morph into ripples surrounding him as he submerges.
Another second passes before his head breaks the surface again, rivulets of water streaming from his onyx hair as he ascends. His shoulders rise and fall with each breath of the nowchilly air. He turns towards me and it’s there, across his honeyed skin, that I find my doom.
Tattooed in raven ink across his sculpted chest is the perfectly replicated image of the primordial sea beast. The leviathan of my nightmares twines through cresting waves of ink, its mouth open as if it’s poised to strike the captain’s neck with one wrong move.
“If you’re going to stare, you might as well join me.”
His gruff voice forces my eyes away from his body, snapping to a pair made of molten silver before I turn and run.
CHAPTER 6
My feet pound against the hard ground, but my racing heart moves faster, causing me to stumble over fallen branches and overgrown thorny bushes. My knees hit the earth in a thud that rattles through my bones. The force of the fall and the weight of my circumstances crash into me at once.
There is nowhere to go, nowhere to run.
“It’s just a coincidence,” I lie to myself over and over as I try to catch my breath.
Maybe if I say it ten times, a hundred times, it will be true. But coincidence is just the gods’ way of remaining anonymous. Their handprints cover everything.
I’ve scoured text after text, questioned priest after priest. There are no stories of the sea beast, no fables or tales written or spoken of the creature that haunts my sleeping hours. No sketches or drawings that depict the menacing jaws or razor-sharp scales that are so perfectly hewn onto the captain’s chest.
No, if Murphy knows about the sea serpent, it’s because he’s seen it too. And if he knows about that, what other knowledge does he have? As if on command, my magic streaks a burningpath down my spine, the very place the beast touched me all those years ago.
