Chapter 38
Do not sit upon a throne of ash
And call it victory
~Mina Lucera
Seventeen days on the sea was no feat for most of the men on the Weaver.
They were pirates, hunters, and general deckhands who had spent most of their time on the water since they were young.
In that time, Addison had stocked at least half of the men with weapons, prioritizing those who didn’t have a bronze blade at all and promising that she’d make better ones for those whose weapons were worn and old.
If supplies allowed it, of course. Harpoons were tipped with small, bronze points and slugs were fashioned for the pistols and flintlocks.
No detail was going unrefined as we started our journey into the unknown.
In the distance, halfway through the second week, Vidar and I watched the volcanic island chain of the Black Water pass us by.
Memories of that place were grim, but without those horrid nights as children, our paths would never have crossed.
Despite the ugliness of it all, I could not bear the thought.
I sat with my legs hanging through the railing, watching the water beat against the hull of the storm.
Vidar had careened his beloved ship in Gilly Pine when he started doing business with their governor.
Her hull was slick and scraped clean of barnacles and she was cutting through the water with excited speed.
The fresh sails certainly didn’t hurt, either.
I just hoped our journey through Daughter’s Pass and into more dangerous and unforgiving waters did not lead to our doom before we could make a difference.
In truth, I’d never sailed through those waters.
Swimming beneath them was one thing, but the ocean was a treacherous place on the surface.
Looking over my shoulder, I glimpsed the hold where Lyla had been sitting in the dark for over two weeks.
The only light she was given was when someone ventured down there to give her a plate of food.
Not that she’d complained. She grew up in the dark, after all.
And as the hemsbane dried, the stench of it grew less stifling.
But her comfort wasn’t the thing that was on my mind.
Sirens healed and her tongue would grow back, if it hadn’t already.
Someone would need to refresh the wound or the harness would need to be strapped back onto her head to keep her silent, but the hassle of removing it every time she needed to eat seemed an unnecessary risk.
Still, despite what she was and what she had done, cutting out the tongue of another siren did not sit well with me, even if I was not the one to perform the act.
“Aye,” someone said. “I’ve been wondering, too.”
Vidar crouched down beside me, his elbows perched on his knees.
“What?”
“About her tongue. This is a long journey. I suspected she would need some… maintenance.”
I exhaled sharply, climbing to my feet. “I suppose someone should check on the progress of her healing.”
“Boil has been the only one willing to bring her food. Says she hasn’t moved in days.”
“You should have told me. I can bring her food if it makes the men uncomfortable.”
“You think letting you do it makes me comfortable?”
“Then come with me. I would like to talk to her if she has the ability.”
“Why?”
“To learn. If she’s unwilling to speak, then I am sure Cathal will do what no one else seems keen on doing.”
Vidar groaned, hanging his hands on his belt, and then conceded, accompanying me into the hold where the barn animals, hemsbane, and crates filled the space, making it look much smaller than I was used to. It was less than a year ago that I’d been a prisoner in that same place.
Lyla indeed looked like she had not moved in many days. She was slumped against the back wall, stuffed in the corner like she was a dummy that someone had laid in that position. She was staring at one of the goats.
“It’s been more than two weeks,” I said to her as Vidar casually sat against a barrel filled with dry beans. “I suppose you understand why I’ve come to see you.”
Nothing.
I didn’t think it was possible, but Lyla certainly looked paler than she had before.
The dark circles around her eyes had grown heavier.
Her collarbones jutted out sharply and her legs looked so white, I could see her dark veins faintly beneath her skin.
I looked around at the bundles of hemsbane and sighed, glancing at Vidar.
“I think the hemsbane is making her ill,” I said.
He shrugged carelessly and I didn’t blame him. Lyla didn’t deserve to be comfortable, but it did raise some concerns. I walked toward her cell and knelt, resting my hands on the bars.
“Lyla, we will have to check that your tongue is—”
“All it does is chew,” she muttered, still staring at the floppy-eared goat. It was sitting on a patch of straw, chewing its crud in a corner as far from Lyla as it could get. “But it’s had nothing to eat since yesterday.”
“They do that,” I said. “Goats. Cows. They rechew what they’ve already eaten.”
“It’s scared of me. I don’t know why. I’ve done nothing to it.”
“Animals can sense a predator. And that is what you are.”
Her eyes shifted toward me, reminding me how bottomless they were.
“Those fat birds,” she said, indicating the chickens pecking at the ground near the back of the hold. “They get close. Do they not sense I am a predator?”
“Chickens are not the brightest of creatures.” I looked over her sickly form, noting the way she seemed to have picked her fingernails so short, they bled. “Is the hemsbane doing this?”
“How am I to know? I’ve never been this long exposed, to the weed or to dry air.
Nor have I been away from him this long.
” Slowly, she closed her eyes, peeling at her already rigid nailbeds.
Then she pressed her lips together like she was suppressing a scream or like she was in great pain.
“How do you live in this silence?” she said through her teeth.
I watched her stain her oversized shirt with blood as she abused her fingers and turned to look at Vidar. He’d noticed as well, but again, he didn’t seem to care. Perhaps I was in the wrong to feel sorry for her, but I did.
“I hardly live in silence,” I said. “You are confused because you no longer hear him?”
“Not in dreams. Not in the waking world. He is gone.”
“That is a good thing, Lyla. Your mind and your body are your own now.”
“What do you know!” she barked. The chickens fluttered about in a fright and behind me, the goat had leapt to its feet.
“What good will come from no longer being bound in chains?” She rolled to her feet and crouched over to me, gripping the bars to press her gaunt face between them.
“I feel pulled in all directions. Where do I go, then? How do I choose? How do any of you choose?”
“We just do, for better or worse. It’s called freedom.”
“You want a monster like me to be free?”
“Would you choose to be a monster if you were?”
Her eyes lingered on mine for a breath before her nose twitched like she’d caught a whiff of something foul.
Then she hissed, pushing off the bars to bury her hands in her matted hair.
When she could not get her fingers through the knots, she growled furiously, hunching over herself and forcing it until strands of it loosened from her scalp.
“I don’t understand!” she said, beating her hands on the floor with every word. “Kill me! You’ve ripped me in half already, cut me, bled me, and imprisoned me. Why?”
“You’re my sister.”
“A fact you denied over and over again! Now that I am in shambles, you spare me? Kill me.”
“No.”
She stood, proving that, despite the look of her, she was still strong. She turned to the back wall and slammed her hands against it, curling her fingers against the wood only to drag her already bleeding fingertips down the grooves.
“What does he want me to do?” she mumbled. “What does he want from me?”
“It doesn’t matter. You are free of him.”
An eerie chuckle filled the room before she slammed her palms against the wall again with a maddened scream.
“Stupid. You are so stupid, sister. First to spare me and then to assume we are free of him because our hearts stopped beating for a moment.” She turned to face me, blackened veins framing her eyes.
“And you’re a coward, unwilling to put my death on your conscience despite what we did to that old man.
What we would have done to this entire crew had we been given the chance. ”
“You had the chance,” I reminded her. “You hesitated. You allowed me to capture you.”
“Lies,” she hissed, slumping forward against the bars again until she was on her knees, her head hanging low. “You read so much when there is so little to read.”
Her breaths became labored. Clipped. If I did not know better, I would say she was crying, but my gut said she was incapable of such a thing.
Still, the way she trembled was far too pathetic for me to overlook.
I wanted so badly for Lyla to be black and white, but instead, she was a muddied color in between, shifting from one side to the other in no particular pattern.
I didn’t know if she needed comfort, punishment, or an execution.
Slowly, I reached out toward her hand. I could feel Vidar watching me and silently warning me away from the act, but my hand moved without thought.
I rested it gently over the top of her cold knuckles and immediately, she stopped her quivering.
She gradually lifted her head until I could see her eyes in the dark shadows of her hair.
Her breath rolled across my fingers before she lifted her gaze toward mine…
and revealed my mistake. She took hold of my wrist with her other hand so quickly, I barely saw it.
Then she pulled, bringing my arm into her cell.
The front of my body crashed against the bars, the sound accompanied by Vidar rushing to stand and unsheathing Lady Mary.
With my hand in her grip, Lyla glared between me and Vidar like a toddler testing its limits. Then she examined my hand, her grip on my wrist unyielding.
“What would he do if I bit off your hand?” she said, her voice going from harsh rage to innocent calm in a blink like there were two women inside her taking turns speaking.
“He would cut off yours,” I snarled.
“He would have to come in here first,” she said, stroking my knuckles with her bloody fingertips. “And I am not as weak as I look.”
“I would kill you,” Vidar growled. “Dahlia’s hand is worth far more than your life, I assure you.”
She smiled up at him, sharp teeth gleaming in the lantern light. Then, like she was mocking him, she stared into his eyes and slowly lowered her mouth to my fingers, prolonging the kiss she planted on the top of them as if she was reveling in the way it made his pulse frantic.
As soon as I felt her grip loosen even a fraction, I yanked my hand out of the cell and stood away from the bars, angered by the lack of progress I had made with her. I heard Vidar sheath his weapon with a low curse.
“Why?” Lyla muttered.
“Why what?” I asked,
“Why is your hand worth more than me?”
“You know why. We care about each other. We protect each other. From everything.”
When she did not respond to that, I tossed a glance at Vidar, who seemed beyond fed up with the visit. He turned and headed for the steps to leave and I followed, turning to face Lyla one last time.
“If you want to end it,” I said. “Do it yourself. We both know you’re more than capable. But I don’t think you will.”
“What makes you so certain?”
“Because you haven’t yet. You have a chance to live for yourself now, you know.”
“From inside a cell?” she chuckled, staring once more into nothingness.
I did not have an answer to that comment. It was true that she could not live in a cell and be free at the same time, but I could not let her out, either. She was a menace and nothing she did was predictable.
“None of it will matter anyways,” she said. “Not where you’re going. We’ll all meet each other in the afterlife soon enough, if there is one.”
I shook my head, dismissing her words. I didn’t want them to be true, but I knew the odds were not in our favor.
I turned and started to climb the steps when I heard Lyla choking and gagging behind me.
Once more, I turned and found her hand halfway buried in her mouth, her jaw unhinged to accommodate it.
With a single tug, her mouth began to flood with blood.
She coughed it all over the floor before tossing a mass of flesh toward me with a hateful growl.
At the bottom of the steps was a bloodied tongue, ripped right from the root. I stepped down to retrieve it with an exasperated sigh while Lyla retreated to her corner again and laid down, rolling onto her side with her back to us like a pouting child.
Just then, the sound of a bell chiming rang from the deck.
“Fuckin’ hell,” Vidar swore, rushing upwards.
I followed, emerging to see Aleksi ringing the bell from the crow’s nest. Vidar and I both pivoted to see what it was that had caused him alarm and noticed a thick wall of dark clouds rolling toward us like a hungry, lumbering beast.
“We are getting closer, I think,” I said, breathing in the humid air as it rushed across my face.
“We’re clear of ports, love,” he said. “From this point on, we survive or we don’t.” He spun, heading for the helm. “Batten down the hatches and reef the sails!”
Men began shouting at each other, scattering to their stations as the wind picked up.
I was no sailor, but I knew that when a storm was coming, it meant the wind should have been blowing the same direction.
Instead, it seemed to be pushing us toward the storm while the clouds simultaneously trudged toward us.
I took a deep breath, launching Lyla’s tongue overboard.
“Is that it?” Meridan said from my left. “The Myre?”
“I would assume so. It looks uninviting enough.”
“Can the ship make it?”
I glanced up to see Vidar at the wheel, barking orders at his men. The Storm Weaver was strong and her captain was even stronger.
“Yes,” I said confidently. “She can.”