Chapter 9 Stars, fallen to ground, die
Stars, fallen to ground, die,
For they are meant to fly
~Amelia Nite
I found myself sitting across from the red-haired woman at a table inside a mostly empty bar further inland.
We found ourselves a corner away from the crowds with warm ale in mugs in front of us.
I had no intention of drinking mine, but the men didn’t seem to mind.
Gus sat off at the end of the table with his pipe, his free hand resting on his belly while the raven-haired man sat across from Vidar somewhat tensely.
His broad-shouldered companion sat on the other side of the girl with his ankles crossed on the table.
The men looked like a couple of attack dogs the way they surrounded her, strengthening my suspicions that they were being influenced by her somehow.
“So,” the dark haired one sighed, taking a big gulp from his mug. “Vidar Bone Heart. Most known hunter in these parts. Interesting company you’re keeping.”
“And?” Vidar said. “Do you have a name?”
“Aye, I’ve got a name. Captain Nazario Basilio of the Amanacer.” He said with a somewhat dramatic flair. “You won’t have heard of me. I’m not from here.”
“And whereabouts are you from?”
“Somewhere I’ll not be returning to anytime soon. Not for an abundance of predators from the sea as much as corrupt cunts on shore making a living hard.”
“You won’t find relief in these parts. I fear the fruit is turning no matter where you pick it from these days.”
“Aye, I’m seeing that.” His eyes dipped to Vidar’s silentium necklace and his face hardened. “You have a silentium and still a siren sits beside you.”
“And one sits beside you. I find no bronze jewelry on you, though.”
Nazario smirked and then pushed a lock of dark hair behind his ear. Tucked within the tresses was a strand wrapped in leather and at the end was a small, round, bronze pendant.
“Some of us are more subtle.”
My gaze drifted to the woman sitting stiffly beside him. When our eyes locked, I found that shy disdain bleeding off her again.
“Have I done something to you?” I asked.
Her jaw ticked at the question. “You are Kroan. Your kind has done something to everyone.”
“And men just like him have done worse to all of us yet you clearly trust him.”
She stared at me for a long moment, fear turning her emerald eyes cold and distant. I was not unfamiliar with the look.
“I’ve done nothing to you,” I said. “I’m curious is all. Until us, I’ve never seen another sister with a man in this manner.”
“I’m no sister of yours.”
I rolled my eyes and turned my attention to Nazario. “What are you to each other?”
He hesitated like it was the first time he’d been faced with the question. I could sense it, though. I saw it in the way he pushed the woman behind him in the market. In the way she hid behind his strength.
“You love her,” I said.
He took a deep breath and briefly glanced her way. She returned the glance, but neither answered me. There was a long, drawn-out silence that fell over the table. The men took another swig of their drinks and I mulled over what little I knew about them.
“Aeris,” the woman finally spoke, her tone softening. “My name is Aeris and…” She lifted her gaze slowly up toward Nazario. “I love him.”
“And your people? What do they think of this?”
“I have no people. Yours killed them all.”
Realization crept up on me like a beast from the shadows, its hot, wet breath whispering truths.
“You’re an Yri,” I muttered.
“No, not really,” she shook her head. “I’m just me. You know there are no more Yri.”
I wasn’t sure if I was feeling guilt. Perhaps it was something similar, but I couldn't—wouldn’t—take responsibility for something I had no part in.
Of course, it was then that I realized why she harbored such hatred for me.
Many clans had no love for Kroans and Yri had more reason than any to despise us.
“While I’m dying to know what the hell this conversation means, I’m assuming it has very little to do with how you came to be here together,” Vidar said. “Which is the part I’m more interested in.”
“You first,” Nazario said. “You’re a hunter.
Not just any hunter. I’ve traveled far and still people know your name and the ship with red sails.
Yet the company you keep would suggest a very different man than the one I’ve heard about.
Bone Heart never leaves his victims alive.
And according to stories, there have been many. Victims, that is.”
“Things change.”
“What things?”
“Things from the water,” I joined. “Things more dangerous than me. Things just as likely to kill my kind as yours.”
Nazario cleared his throat, glancing at Aeris again like they were engaging in silent conversation. She shifted in her seat, pulling her cloak tighter around herself as if she was cold.
“You know of what I speak,” I said. “You’ve seen them.”
“Tides are changing,” Nazario said. “Anyone who’s been on the water for an extended time knows that.”
“What happened to you?” Vidar asked.
“Plenty up until now. This seems to be one of the last safe ports in these parts and this place is a shithole. We came from Dornwich before here and I can tell you that no place is safe anymore.”
“What happened in Dornwich?”
“They’re getting a bit too friendly with the more exotic ladies, if ye know what I mean,” the broad-shouldered man said, his eyes flitting toward me. “I’m Cathal, by the way. Cathal Murphy,” he said with a flirtatious smirk that told me this wasn’t his first round of ale.
I slowly turned to look at Vidar. We locked eyes briefly and though he hid it well, he was alarmed by the mention of Dornwich.
“Does Dornwich deal in sirens by chance?” I asked softly.
Vidar gave me a subtle nod.
“James’s sister lives in Dornwich,” Gus brought up.
“I know,” Vidar said, his words heavy. He sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I need another drink.”
He stood with his mug and headed to the bar with Cathal close behind him while Gus engaged in a bit of conversation with Nazario.
I set my gaze at Aeris, who was staring at Vidar as he walked away.
Then I watched her attention crawl to a bread knife sitting in the middle of the table next to a half-eaten, stale loaf of rye.
I knew the look of a woman who’d been touched too many times by men. She was a little thing. She’d likely not seen many real fights by the looks of her. But she was a survivor, nonetheless. She was also foolish to even think of hurting Vidar, if that was, in fact, what she was contemplating.
She slowly reached out for the bread knife.
She could have been after a simple slice of the bread, but I was too suspicious to gamble with the idea.
I quickly snatched the knife off the table and started cutting into the loaf.
I separated a small piece and handed it to her before placing the blade directly in front of me.
Aeris took the bread and glared at me as if the food had somehow been tainted by my touch.
“Touch him or anyone here and I’ll gut you so fast your precious pirate won’t even hear you scream in time,” I said softly.
I knew she could hear me, but my voice would not carry to the men on the other side of the table. My words were for her alone.
She tossed the bread down in front of her and wiped her hands on her cloak.
“I wouldn’t dare,” she said. “Crossing a Kroan is the last thing I want, seeing as the only time my people did, yours wiped us out.”
I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, hoping it would relieve the tension building in my shoulders.
“I wasn’t there. Neither were you.”
“No, but the act remains. You’re zealots claiming the atrocities you commit are the will of some god. And I know from much experience how dark that path can get.”
“A god whose sons are wreaking havoc on the same waters we both live in. Do you think I’d be with these men if I was loyal to my former clan at all?” I ran a finger across my throat, indicating the scar on my neck. “One of my blood sisters did this. They tried to destroy me. Then they banished me.”
“That does not make you good.”
“I never said I was good.”
We stared at each other for a few breaths before she blinked and lowered her eyes.
“You’re with that hunter, then,” she said.
“And you’re with a pirate. If that’s the only thing we ever have in common, so be it.”
Once more, she met my gaze. Some of the anxiety had left her eyes, but not all of it. I imagined she was incapable of relaxing, just like I was most of the time. Especially around so many men with bronze blades and a willingness to do anything for a few coins.
“So, why were you banished?”
“I betrayed my people. How are you alive?”
“Many survived and remained scarce. My grandmother escaped with my mother in her belly and my mother survived with me in hers.”
“And how did you come by a pirate?”
“By being someone else’s prisoner. Some of us aren’t as vicious—as strong—as Kroans. I was young when they acquired me. I didn’t even know escape was an option until...” She glanced briefly in Nazario’s direction, swallowing the rest of her words, but I understood just the same.
Vidar returned with an extra mug of ale for Nazario. “Our sails will be finished in a couple of days,” he said. “Then we’re setting out again.”
“Where to, then?” he asked.
“Wherever the water takes us, I suppose.”
“I advise you, do what we’re doing and go inland. No one’s place is on the water these days.”
Vidar scoffed, about to laugh when he realized the seriousness on their faces.
“A pirate heading inland? Are sailors meant to sail the sands, then? Are fishermen meant to fish the mountains?”
“And you?” I asked Aeris. “You agreed to go inland?”
She didn’t answer. There were reservations in her posture. Sirens weren’t meant to be away from the sea. It was madness. Yri, especially, had a deep connection to it. I had never known one, but the histories said as much.
But I didn’t know her and I didn’t know her past.
“I won’t lie,” Vidar groaned, leaning forward on the table, his face underlit by the single candle in the middle. “We could use allies. Preferably allies with a certain understanding of circumstances.” His eyes flicked toward Aeris.
Nazario stared at him, deep in thought. I wasn’t sure what he and his men had seen or how he and Aeris came to be, but it was giving him doubts. The silence grew between them, their gazes equally unyielding until finally, Nazario shook his head and leaned back in his chair with a groan.
“I’m sorry, my friend. I’ve done my fair share of fighting. For things I believe in. For things I don’t. Eventually, that’s all it becomes. Fighting.”
Vidar didn’t show it, but I could tell he was disappointed. We had no idea what we were going to face if we continued traversing the waters, unable to predict what terrors lurked in our wake. When it would strike. Whether we would come out whole, broken, or dead.
But the one thing I knew when it came to Vidar was that he was not going to let a threat go unanswered. We had a million things in common, but that was what drove us together.
“I pray your journey inland treats you well, then,” he said, raising his mug to take another drink.
My eyes wandered slowly toward Aeris, whose gaze had fallen elsewhere. It was the look of a woman with too many thoughts and not enough time to focus on one. Someone with doubts. A part of me wanted to talk to her more. To peel her brain apart and find the answers she was unwilling to give.
But she and her pirate were not our concern if their true intentions were to leave the water behind completely and flee inland.
We were not the same.