Chapter 38
I stare out across the vast ocean beneath an intermittently cloudy sky for what feels like the thousandth time.
A few paces from me, Seth and Valdis are lip-locked, practically devouring each other.
I could leave, I could go below deck, but I’d rather not be alone with my own thoughts.
Or worse, with a devastatingly attractive warrior prince.
Valdis’s giggle is cut off by a small gasp. I swivel my head toward them as Seth drags his lips down her neck.
“By the gods, you two!” I exclaim.
Valdis turns to me, her eyes bright with amusement, a grin on her lips. Seth drops one last kiss onto her collarbone before slinging both arms around her waist and smiling at me. “Apologies, we’ll behave,” he says with a chuckle.
“Thank you.”
But when I turn back to the ocean, Valdis giggles again.
I swear colorfully, but I don’t even look at them this time. “You have a cabin below deck, don’t you? I’d suggest going there.”
“Sounds like you should take your own suggestion,” Valdis says, and my gaze flicks to her as she winks at me. “Maybe you’ll be less cranky if you … release some of that tension. Alone or otherwise. No judgment.”
“Val, leave her alone,” Seth says, lacing their fingers as I glower at her. “Come on.” He tugs her away.
If there’s one thing I’ve learned about Valdis and Seth, it’s that six years of marriage have done nothing to diminish their love for each other.
They seem as passionate as forbidden lovers, as insatiable as newlyweds.
It’s not only their annoying public displays of affection, but the subtle, tender glances between them.
Whether in the heat of battle or the banality of supper.
They love each other with unwavering devotion and uncanny force.
It takes me a while to decipher the unpleasant heat that builds inside me each time I’m in the vicinity of their suffocating hunger for each other. But it’s startlingly clear today.
It’s jealousy. Ugly, unjustified jealousy.
“Gods, this journey is never-ending,” I groan aloud, even though it’s only been two weeks on the ocean.
“Take it as a quest for the virtue of patience.” Briony’s saccharine voice reaches my ears before she appears in my periphery.
Naturally, I startle.
“The ocean can be serene as easily as it can be tumultuous,” she says, as if I hadn’t nearly jumped out of my skin. “Beneath its surface is an entire unseen world—filled with both danger and beauty.”
I turn toward her, my brows cinched. “What in hells are you rambling about, Briony?”
To my surprise, she laughs. It’s lighthearted, like a bird’s song way too early in the morning. “You tell me.”
My eyes are in danger of falling out of my head for how hard I roll them. “You truly are such a priestess at times, you know?”
She shrugs and pushes her sandy brown hair over her shoulder.
“Briony, you never explained to me how you’re a high priestess of Lugda and a Healer. The two don’t seem compatible.”
“I know. You’d be surprised how many things in life that seem incompatible are actually interconnected.”
“Gods, please stop speaking in riddles. I don’t have the … virtue for this.”
She smiles. “Alright, fair enough.” She folds her arms atop the rail and gazes out at the blue-green water as though it holds all the answers.
“Most know Lugda as the god of death but forget that he’s also the god of fate.
The Underworld has been portrayed as an awful place where the ill-hearted are punished in the afterlife, but Lugda is merciful and grants benevolent souls a place of rest in paradise.
As a Healer, part of my role was making a person’s last days, last moments, as peaceful as possible.
I consider it ushering suffering souls into the waiting arms of Lugda.
Or as some believe, into the arms of Rhianu, the Mother, who then escorts them to Lugda’s realm. ”
I let her words sink in. She says it with such conviction, I want to believe her. “What do you think of the Seer’s talk of the death of the gods? Since you’re best friends with Lugda, where in hells are these bloody gods anyway?”
Briony makes a tiny sound like a half laugh, half sigh. “It’s been quite the mystery, but believe it or not, I’ve been visited on more than one occasion by the god of death.”
A chill runs along my spine.
“I’ve felt his presence when patients have passed on. I’ve heard his voice guiding me, I’ve seen him in dreams, seen other restless souls wandering the realm of the living.”
“Is that … normal for a priestess? One of Lugda, at least?”
“No.”
“I suppose that’s what makes you high Priestess.”
She nods, though she doesn’t seem at all prideful about it.
Sighing, I rub my hand over the short-cropped parts of my hair.
Everything about the gods is bewildering.
Larger waves lap against the boat, making it lurch and my stomach roil.
I distract myself with another question for Briony.
“I understand what you mean when you speak of ushering souls to the Underworld and all of that—eerie, by the way—but how do you have healing powers? Aren’t those typically granted by Ehlach?
Moon magic and all of that? I’d have expected Lugda’s gifts to be shadow wielding. ”
“Isn’t Durvla the daughter of Dusk? Dusk refers to Ehlach, yet, as far as we know, she possesses no healing powers, only dreamwalking and dreamweaving.”
My brain hurts.
“The Veil between the Underworld and the Realm of Dreams is thin. Ehlach, Sunlagh, and Lugda—Moon, Dreams, and Death—were once thick as thieves. The lines are blurred in many ways. Things aren’t just black and white when it comes to the gods or to magic.”
“Obviously.” My shoulders slump. It would be wonderful if something could be clear.
“No need to look so forlorn,” a deep voice says from behind me.
My heart leaps and I inwardly curse myself for the response.
“I’m here now. You can smile again.”
“Gods, you’re insufferable …” I mumble, refusing to turn to Odgar.
“Insufferably handsome? Insufferably charming?”
I face him. He leans against the mast, his arms crossed, tunic sleeves pulling taught and straining. He’s not wearing his leather armor, and his tunic clings to him in places. I swear his muscles have muscles. My mouth goes a bit dry.
“What’s truly insufferable is my sister and best mate,” he says. “They’re like animals in heat. Loud animals in heat.”
That pulls a small laugh from me.
Odgar’s lips curl into a smile as he keeps his eyes on me.
I hold his gaze as chatter among the ship’s crew continues around us, as waves lap steadily against the boat and birds occasionally call out from above.
The steadiness in his gaze tempts me to look away, but I stand my ground, confronting the pull between us.
I’m unable to discern between the desire for quick gratification and something more meaningful. I can’t trust my emotions or my intuition—they’ve never been the most reliable.
“What are you thinking about so hard?” Odgar asks. “I can almost see smoke coming out of your ears.”
“The way you’re looking at me,” I admit.
“What of it?”
“I don’t like it.”
He laughs, and the deep rumble resonates in my chest, spreading through my insides as if fueled by my own flamewielding. “Why not?” He steps a little closer, one hand on the taffrail, and I step back.
Briony makes a swift escape somewhere to my left and I’m tempted to follow her, but Odgar’s persistent gaze pins me in place. “Because … it’s complicated.”
“What’s complicated?”
“I am.” I step back.
“I don’t mind.” He steps forward.
I step back again and his eyes sparkle, like flecks of gold swimming in the purest sapphire gemstone as he pursues me. His lips are firmly together, but a smile fights hard to break through and eventually wins. He’s enjoying this.
With another step away, my back hits the rails again, this time in the corner of the stern. I let out a disgruntled huff.
Odgar grins, his teeth gleaming in the sunshine a moment before a cloud passes overhead and hides the sun. “Looks like you have nowhere to run.”
I glance over my shoulder at the water starting to lap more fiercely below. The sails flap loudly in the winds that pick up. “I could go overboard,” I say, fighting to keep my face neutral.
He tilts his head down to me, his braid slipping onto his shoulder. “I’ll follow you even into the depths of the sea,” he says.
I’ll love you even in death—oh, Callum. My heart hiccups and my throat swells. “Don’t say that.” The wind picks up even more, carrying my voice away as it whistles across the ocean. The sails crack like a whip and Odgar’s gaze diverts from me to the sky.
I follow his line of sight to the dark clouds billowing toward us. The waves grow choppier, higher. The first drop of rain falls right into my eye, and I blink rapidly just before the sky opens to unleash a torrent.
Shouts carry across the boat, everyone scrambling to close the sails and do … whatever else needs to be done on a ship in the midst of a storm.
Odgar shouts something at me that I can’t make out over the din.
“What?” I yell back.
He wraps his hand around my bicep and pulls me, swinging me away from the rail, away from the water that splashes into the vessel. Not that it would make a difference with the sudden downpour. “Get below deck!” Odgar shouts. “And hold on!”
I nod and run for the stairs, my boots slipping on the slick wood. My chest tightens as I turn back to lay eyes on Odgar. He’s still standing there in the downpour, watching to ensure I make it below deck. “Be safe,” I shout over the commotion.
I rush below and into my cabin as the boat rocks violently.
Begging my guts not to upend themselves, I swallow again and again.
Crates and barrels slide. Something clatters to the floor as it falls.
I pitch forward with the next rock of the ship and land on the cot.
My heart hammers wildly as I sit up and hold on to the underside of the mattress.
The howl of the wind and the shouts grow louder above deck, but all I can think of is that Odgar could die out there. Hells, we could all die—even us taking shelter below. Perhaps there’s something I could do. Anything.
I push myself off the bed and rush for the door, but as I reach toward the latch, the door flies open, making me jump.
Odgar barrels into the cabin and shuts the door behind him. “Where did you think you were going?” His voice cuts with surprising sharpness.
“I was coming to help!”
“To help do what?” He looks at me as though I’ve lost my mind.
“I don’t know. Anything but sitting down here, waiting for death?”
He laughs, though he—astoundingly—seems nervous. “Unless you can command the winds and the waves, there’s not a thing you can do, revna.”
My lips part. I intend to say something more to him—like why does he keep calling me revna?
—but the boat tosses me forward into Odgar’s hard chest. He wraps his arms around me, balancing me, but the boat rocks once more, tossing us both to the side.
His back slams hard into the wall as he turns at the last moment. It could’ve been me.
He grunts and I wrench myself from his arms. “Gods, are you alright?”
Rubbing the back of his head, he winces but nods. “Yes, I’m fine.”
The boat is still being tossed about, and my heart refuses to calm down over the sounds of water pelting against the ship, of waves crashing, of the shouting of the crew above and perhaps even down here. “Have you been in a storm this bad before? Could we die out here?”
He wraps his arms around me again, pulling my face against his chest so that I feel his words as much as I hear them. “If we are going to die, do you really want to spend our last moments talking about the possibility?”
“No.” A tremor rises in me. Even the dark flames at my core shudder. As if even Enidwen’s spirit inside of me fears for her life. I can’t stop the quaking, but Odgar holds me tighter, his back still pressed against the wall.
“Let’s sit,” he says over the cacophony of the storm. I sink down to the floor with him, sitting between his legs with my thighs draped over one of his. I press my face to his leathers, taking in the scent of pine oil and perspiration. Normally, I’d be disgusted, but right now it’s a comfort.
His chest rises with each intake of breath, and I bask in the warmth of his arms encircling me, even as the boat rocks, creaks, and groans. Even as I fear our impending death.
The ship tilts so hard we begin to slide.
My heart leaps, and Odgar tightens his grip on me with one hand while the other anchors us against the floor.
I hold my ground as well, my heart pounding in my throat.
Water pours under our door, streaming across the floor.
Panicked cries seem to bleed from the walls.
This is it. We’re going to die.
But the ship stops tilting, and I relax slightly, even though we continue to rock back and forth in the tempest. Odgar’s heart thuds steadily against my ear, and as I start to disentangle from his embrace, there’s the slightest increase in the pressure of his arms around me.
I lick my dry lips, and though I make no further attempts to shift, I murmur, “You don’t have to hold on to me anymore.”
“I know.” His voice rumbles through his chest, against my cheek. He presses a kiss to the top of my head, and I inadvertently sink deeper into his hold. I find myself desperate to commit this feeling to memory.
If this is the last experience I’ll have in this life, it wouldn’t be a bad way to go.