Chapter 35 #2
I’d come to realize Vidar was just as capable of dealing pain as he was comfort.
As I laid beside him, his arm draped across my chest, I found myself awake, listening to the sound of his breathing as the ship rocked and creaked across the water.
My memories slipped back to the day we met again after eighteen years with vengeance on our minds.
The hate I felt when he walked onto that ship threatened to suffocate me.
And it nearly did when I had him under my blade.
I could have ended it that day.
But without him, I knew I would have been ripped away from the surface and plunged into the depths far sooner and I would have had nothing to cling to.
Nothing to hold me together as Akareth tried to peel me apart.
I would have been like my mother, with no purchase to save me from the descent.
Or like Lyla, with no concept of light to steer me from the darkness.
I was blessed to have Vidar, a man who did not tolerate anything less than boldness and ferocity.
I turned my head, ogling the man who had defied all my expectations of the world. Who had shattered my resolve and built a new one with his brutal hands. Who had altered my thoughts in a way that made me feel freer than I ever had.
Wild creatures were harder to tame, and Vidar had been keeping me unbound and uncaged, allowing me to be the monster I was and the woman I wanted to be.
It was why I kept returning to him, no matter what strange and terrifying directions my mind strayed.
Unable to sleep with so many thoughts running rampant, I rose from the bed, carefully sliding out from beneath Vidar’s arm.
The air had a chill to it as we ventured further east. I didn’t often feel the cold, but that morning, it was persistent.
I took Vidar’s leather coat from the end of the bed and slid it on, quietly padding barefoot to the door to get some air.
Outside, the sky was still a deep blue. The sun had not even begun to crown, but its light was waking to announce it.
I took a deep breath, savoring every bit of the morning aromas.
Should anyone or anything try to fool me again with flawed copies of reality, I wanted to be able to find the real versions of things in the back of my mind.
Perhaps I could learn not to be tricked so easily.
Instead of heading to the bow of the ship to enjoy the early morning, I veered toward the grate covering the hold.
Anyone on deck keeping a lookout paid no mind to my venture.
I slipped below, almost choking on the smell of hemsbane.
The overly sweet, almost rancid odor of it hit me like salt on a cut.
I nearly covered my nose, but when I saw Lyla sitting quietly in her cell, not a hint of discomfort on her stone-like face, I refrained.
If she could stand the overpowering smell of the herb, so could I.
Despite everything, I admired her resilience. It dwarfed even mine. I approached her cell, eyeing the crates full of fresh hemsbane stocks and dried bundles stacked against the wall beside piles of cannon balls and harpoons. The question remained.
Why did I want her alive?
“I know you cannot speak to me. Perhaps it is better that way.”
I lowered myself in front of the gate, sitting cross-legged on the ground and letting the silence linger between us for a while.
I imagined my presence still wasn’t something Lyla enjoyed.
I didn’t much like her company, either, but I forced myself to learn it.
I wanted nothing more than to understand.
“Our sister gave me this,” I said, dragging my finger along the raised scar that stretched across my throat.
“For getting our mother killed. So, you see, you’re not the first sister of mine to attempt to kill me.
You’re not even the second. Mother visited Akareth many times, each time losing more of herself to him.
But she fought him. He told me as much when I slept.
She tried to pull away from him and… it made him enjoy her that much more.
The Reyna I knew was a vicious, heartless creature.
I did not know if she loved me most days.
I wasn’t sure she was capable. I do not wish that to be me.
I thought of myself being that hollow for a time. I found myself begging for death.”
I rolled onto my knees, inching closer to the bars.
“You have known only darkness and pain. Akareth did everything to make sure you knew nothing else because if you had, you would have had something to fight for. Like I do. There was so little room in my heart for anything but hate before I recognized Vidar for what he was. He was the thing that kept me alive, even before we found each other again. My need for vengeance drove me to him and my need for more than that has kept us together. There are few people in this world who truly know me. The ones that do, I will do anything for. You understand fear and pain, but never have you known fear of losing the ones you care about. It is the rawest and yet most wonderful feeling there is to know something is that dear to your heart.”
I raised my hand, wrapping my fingers around the cold bars.
“Lyla, without Akareth, we’re all free. Free to choose.
Free to live. I know it is what you want.
You are not just a thing to be used and broken and bent.
You are…” I took a breath, chewing on my words for a moment.
Staring into that cell, into the eyes of a Kroan who was so much like me and yet could not be more different, made my heart feel painfully exposed.
“Lyla, you are my sister,” I whispered. I took another breath, my fingers tightening around the iron.
“I am going to kill him. I don’t know how, but I will.
And when he is gone, perhaps I will learn who you really are. Perhaps you will, too.”