Silence is a Masterpiece
The end of all things
~Unknown
I took a deep breath, memorizing the scent of the world. Salt. Stone. Rain. Life. I thought I was prepared to enter darkness and never return. I was ready as soon as I saw those spears pin Vidar to the ground. Now it had all changed again.
The monsters of the depths bled onto the stone platform, closing in around us.
Lyla released my hand and I could hear her tearing into her attackers behind me.
I spun to see another one advancing with his gnarled spear.
I released Vidar and I leapt at him. I unhinged my jaw and as I ripped his head to the side, I bit into the leathery skin of his throat, ripping and gnawing.
His sharp fingers came up to wrestle me off him and, screaming my fury, I jammed my nails into his fleshy gills, grinding them deep until I felt the membrane of his lungs.
One last push for freedom would not make a difference, though.
I knew that. We were about to be overpowered.
On my own, I would have happily fallen to my knees and let my unfortunate fate befall me, but Lyla was there, still fighting.
Vidar was there, fighting a different battle as he slowly began to lose strength.
I could not let either of them meet their end while I still had an ounce of strength left in me.
It was chaos. Limbs and blood flew about in all directions. Perhaps there was some joy in cutting down Akareth’s sons in my last moments.
But it didn’t change the fact that the odds were against us.
And then the air shifted like Mother Nature suddenly decided to speak up against the madness.
Ocean spray pelted my face, making the platform slick.
A wall of fog rolled in from the sea, surrounding the stone cliffs like a giant, ghostly serpent coiling around all of Theloch.
The commotion shifted and, through the smallest gap in bodies, I found myself staring at the hazy barrier at the faint shadow of something lurking beyond.
A bright burst of light exploded in the haze and with it came the familiar pop of a cannon. An entire row of xhoth fell like trees in a great squall, limbs flopping and breaking against the impact of heavy, iron ammunition.
I ducked when a second cannon fired into the fray, thinning the clusters of enemies that surrounded us.
Looking toward the sea, I saw the sails of the Storm Weaver emerging from the white wall, tall and proud and riding the raging storm to come about like she was trying to wrangle it.
Another flash of fire thundered through the air, cutting through the xhoth and hitting one of the obsidian towers.
Fissures shuddered through the stone beneath my feet as the tower began to crumble.
Lyla took my hand once more, dragging me to my feet.
I pulled Vidar against me, pained by the groan that left his lips.
In the madness, the Kraal had begun slithering back into the water while the xhoth moved about in a frenzy, trying to avoid harpoons and cannon fire as they tailed us, reaching with their greedy hands.
I felt claws on my back, tearing my shirt to shreds.
I felt them cutting into my flesh and ripping at my hair, but I kept running.
The ship rose and fell with the waves. Rain beat on my face like little pebbles.
The stone platform beneath my feet was slick and uneven, but when we reached the edge of the cliffside, the waves lifted the Storm Weaver to meet us like Lune had granted us one last favor.
We leapt through the mist of a crashing wave, xhoth clawing and biting at the air in our wake.
We landed on the deck hard. My legs folded beneath me and I rolled, losing all sense of direction. When I found purchase, I quickly looked around, searching for Vidar. I found him in the turmoil, limp and lying on his back. Quickly, I scurried to his side, the crew around us frantic.
“Vidar,” I said, cupping his face in my hands. His eyes were closed and his body lax. “Help!” I screamed. “Mullins!”
Mullins stumbled across the deck toward us and Meridan was close behind.
Realizing Vidar wasn’t responding, Mullins lifted him up with a loud grunt, folding him over his shoulder and pushing to his feet.
The man was lean, but when he picked up his captain, he looked stronger than a bull.
He walked him toward the captain’s quarters while Meridan turned her attention on me.
“Are you alright!” she shouted over the thundering commotion.
I nodded, but part of me knew that was a lie. I stood, stepping back from the pool of blood that had gathered on the deck around me. When Meridan noticed, there was a moment where both of us assumed it was Vidar’s, but the odor of hemsbane was faint. Most of that blood was mine and I knew it.
Nearby, Nazario and Cathal had Lyla secured against the mast, hanging on to ropes for support as the ship swayed.
She was on the floor, collapsed and so covered in blood, she looked like she’d been swimming in it.
Men were shouting. The ship was rocking violently as the tempest raged across Theloch.
Beasts from below clawed at the hull, scraping and shrieking their frustration.
I wanted to go to Vidar, but my body was starting to fail me.
My back started to burn like a red-hot rod had been dragged from my shoulder blade to my thigh.
I closed my eyes, wondering if that was the moment when it would all finally be decided.
The moment that was out of my control, when Death stopped teasing me and finally staked his claim.
“Dahlia?” Meridan said, but her voice was far away.
Through slitted eyes, I could see the gray sky falling angrily upon us, chasing us from that horrid place. It began to spin and my legs grew numb beneath me. Meridan reached out, her fingers skimming mine as I toppled over. Before I knew how it all ended, the world had gone dark.
“I will look for you in every lifetime. In every body. I will love you in all of them, until the last star burns out in the sky.”
My eyes fluttered opened and I was fleeced of my dreams. Dreams that were untainted by Akareth’s touch and filled with Vidar’s voice.
His smell. His touch. But then I saw him standing there, the corpses of Akareth’s sons scattered around him, his body battered yet unbroken.
He’d come back from death once more, wielding his bronze cutlass like the terrifying menace I hunted for eighteen years.
Bone Heart.
The name all sirens knew and feared, even if they didn’t want to admit it. He had once more lived up to his name.
Around me, cool water was tinted the palest shade of red.
My gills expanded between my ribs and I could scent my own blood through still, freshwater.
I was in a pool, the hushed sound of a waterfall some distance away the only thing that reached my ears besides my own pulse.
For a while, I was content to float there, alone and in silence, my tail a length of relaxed muscle coiled over smooth stones.
My heartbeat was slow and lazy. When I tried to move my body, I could feel a peculiar tightness pulling at the side of my back.
A kind of tightness I knew very well from when wounds healed into scars.
I rolled over onto my stomach and pushed up on my hands, arching toward the faint, fiery light of a sunset.
In the back of my mind, I feared emerging from that pool and being faced with a world absent the one I loved most. The fear that he died after I lost consciousness was a possibility I didn’t want to face.
I pushed to the surface of the water and was practically blinded by the amount of green surrounding me.
Trees, ferns, grass. Moss blanketed every surface.
Vines hung like fishing lines into the water and on them were small, budding flowers.
And the air smelled divine, filled with life and the rich scent of soil.
“Dahlia?”
I turned and all of my worries were silenced for a moment when I saw Meridan sitting on the edge of the pool.
She climbed to her feet, letting the thin fabric of a white dress fall to her ankles.
I drifted toward her, my tail shifting as I moved.
By the time I reached the bank, I was able to stand on two legs and stretch my sore and bruised muscles.
Meridan wasted no time. She wrapped her arms around me, pressing her pristine white dress to my wet body.
“Thank Lune,” she whispered. “I’ve never seen so much blood come out of someone who was still breathing. Not even you.”
“And yet I breathe,” I said flatly.
Meridan drew back and looked up at me. “Yes. Are you not overjoyed by that?”
I brushed my wet hair back from my face and sighed, unsure what to say. Bending, Meridan picked up a faded red wrap dress and handed it to me. I slid my arms into the fabric and tied the garment at my waist, letting routine guide my hands.
“Come,” she said, taking my hand. “The others will be so relieved to see you.”
I dragged my feet behind her, a thousand things shooting through my head at once. I wanted to ask the question. The one that had been burning my thoughts for however long I’d been soaking in the pool.
Was Vidar really alive? Or had I dreamt it all?
I felt senseless.
As we cleared the trees, a massive, sandy beach opened up before us, its backdrop a vivid dusk over a calm surf.
The men had set up camp. Piles of fruit were gathered on giant leaves, no doubt collected from the island itself.
Fish hung on drying racks and some was cooking over a fire, tended by Boil and Aleksi.
All eyes turned to me as I emerged from the foliage.
Men began to stand and smile in greeting and I knew not how to respond. I felt as if I’d missed something.
“Pay them no mind,” Meridan said, dragging me past them before anyone could speak.
We trekked further down the beach, heading for a large tent that was set up near a runoff of fresh water from further inland. Behind it, the Storm Weaver was careened on the sand, thick ropes anchoring her to the largest trees. Repairs were well underway.
There were a few people sitting under the canopy of the tent and a few standing, their backs turned to us as we approached.
I could recognize Mullins immediately and Nazario’s familiar dark hair was the next to catch my eye.
They noticed us and stepped aside, unblocking a pair that was sitting in the tent itself.
I saw crimson hair the same shade as the sunset.
Aeris was kneeling in front of a wooden chair in which a man sat slouched, his elbows perched on his knees.
Vidar’s golden ropes of hair were pulled back neatly.
His shirt was hanging over the back of the chair and Aeris’ nimble hands were tucking the ends of fresh bandages into a knot against his chest. Bandages that spanned his ribs and stomach.
But it didn’t matter. I didn’t care anymore about the gnarly wound that was hidden under those wrappings. All that mattered was that Vidar was alive and breathing, in the flesh and not in my dreams.
And nothing else mattered outside of that. I staggered forward, my mind teetering on the edge of insanity. Every step I took I thought, maybe, he could disappear.
The moment his head turned and his eyes locked with mine, I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that I was not being teased by my puzzled imagination.
He was my Vidar and not an illusion or a hope or a trick.
Tears filled my eyes. My breath stopped and my heart fluttered to life, beating for him.
He stood, tall and strong despite his wound, and marched toward me like nothing else existed.
Ten steps. That was all there was between us.
Ten torturous steps to cover and my feet barely remembered how to move.
But Vidar’s did. He closed the gap between us and when I thought my legs would collapse beneath me, he caught me with his arms, holding me aloft.
I clung to his shoulders, pressing myself against him, and lost myself in his presence.
“I thought I’d lost you,” I sobbed, trembling in his strong arms.
His hands brushed up my back, his head dropping so he could rest his lips against my shoulder.
“I thought I’d lost you, too,” he whispered, squeezing me hard enough to break the bones of a less resilient body.
I drew back to see his face. “They killed you. I watched them kill you. It was so clear.”
“No. No, he kept me alive. He made me watch as he…” His jaw pulsed and the words evaporated from his tongue. “It doesn’t matter. In the end, you came out and he did not.”
I sighed a breath of relief the moment I realized I had not lost everything and all the pieces I thought I’d never get back had been restored. I lifted my chin, meeting his lips in a gentle, unrushed kiss just to taste him again.
“Vidar, I love you,” I whispered. “I love you. No victory was worth losing you.”
His hand cupped the side of my neck, his thumb brushing the tears from my cheek.
“I am here.” His other hand trailed down my back and over my hips, tracing what I imagined was a very prominent new scar through the fabric of my dress. “Are you alright? Two days you were in that pool.”
“I am lighter than I’ve ever been. If you can stand yet another mark on my body.”
His thumb tenderly trailed the scar along my cheek. “Your skin could bear a thousand and one scars and I would still think you more beautiful than Aphrodite.”
I smiled lazily at him. “I should have known you were alive. I should have seen past his deception. It’s just…
before, he could not get you right. No matter how many times he tried, he could not get you right.
But in that place, you were perfect. He’d finally put the pieces together so flawlessly only to kill you for what I thought was the last time. ”
“He tasted of my blood. Perhaps that is how he perfected the image of me, but I swear to you, whatever you saw, it was a cruel trick. Just as the things I watched him do to you were only to torment me. Here you stand, against all odds. Whole, which is certainly not how I recall him leaving you.”
He snarled, his eyes closing as if to extinguish visions of it from his mind. I cupped his face and when I felt his jaw tick beneath my hands, I brushed his cheeks to soothe the taut muscles.
“I pray the visions will stop,” I said. “I pray that he truly is gone because I long to have you to myself.”
“Aye. That is all I wish for as well.”