Chapter 21 The Cloak of Shifting Tides #2
Warmth settles through me under the soft weight of the slippery material.
For a moment, I have to wonder if Mòr knows of my fear.
Of the dread that fills me each time I think of the water or returning to the Nightingale.
If this cloak can really protect me from the depths, then I could almost forgive her for this marriage mess. Almost.
Rhyland clears his throat in the long silence that follows. “We should be off. Mattias asked that I gather some herbs for the infirmary. I need to replenish my own stores as well—laeknir especially. I assume you’ll keep your beasts at bay?”
The word beasts slithers over my skin. I remember his warning when we first landed here two days ago—stay on the path.
Mòr laughs. “Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a few hounds, Brother?”
“I am of the kind you keep.” Again, seemingly for my benefit, he explains, “The grimalkin are big as trees and endlessly ravenous. They rival Nekane’s mutts in Eld?heim.”
A true smile splits Mór’s face. “She's always been such a show off. Disgraced or not, I do feel it's my sacred duty to keep her humble.”
Rhyland only shakes his head.
It’s a wonder they can speak so casually about the goddess of the underworld.
Most back in Helgate were terrified to utter her name, lest she rise from the depths and unleash a dark plague upon them.
But of course it’s different, I’m sure, when you’re a god or goddess yourself.
Part of the most powerful family in the four realms.
“Sora doesn't want to see us off?” I ask before I can stop myself. While I'm not the dryad's biggest fan, it still feels wrong to leave without saying goodbye to her.
The look Mòr and Rhyland pass is fleeting, but I don't miss it. Anger and guilt collides there.
“Sora isn't one for goodbyes,” Mór finally says, blinking toward me. “But I am; come here, you.”
Before I can gather the protest that's lodged in the back of my throat, she has me captured in a crushing embrace.
She smells of lavender and myrrh, with the faintest hint of jasmine.
By the state of her, I wouldn't have guessed it would be something so lovely.
Still, I use all of my strength to pry her away.
When she grips me tighter and whispers into my ear I stop struggling.
“Take care of my brother, and I promise you'll see your mother again.”
A threat? Or something else? A clue perhaps, from one of her mystical visions? I long to ask it all but bite my tongue.
“Alright, unhand my bride.” Rhyland's using the joking tone that only seems to exist when speaking to his sister. Easily, she untangles me from her arms.
I expect them to share an embrace of their own but they don't. A solemn nod between them and Rhyland is whisking me away from the whimsical cottage.
“These last two days I haven’t been myself.
Isle Elaris has a way of getting inside of your head.
Making you feel things that aren’t real.
Warmth. Home. Deeper things.” Rhyland’s drawn his sword, slicing a path through the low vines as he speaks, though he keeps one hand locked around mine.
I can’t tell if it’s for protection or to ensure I don’t slip off.
The ghost of his lips on mine sends a strange tingle through me. Absently, my fingers find them, and I wonder if it might be best to try to wipe the memory away for good.
“I can see that,” I whisper, lowering my hand.
“I haven’t been myself, either, what with the forced marriage and your strange herbs.
” I want to make my voice as cutting as I feel inside, but it falls short, a hollow echo into the trees that creak and groan against the wind.
I pause, scanning the wood. “You’re certain the grimalkin, whatever they are, aren’t going to spring forth and devour us?
” Wearily, my eyes trail along the deep shadows of the path.
We’ve left the vibrant sandy dunes and sunshine behind, passed the dark watch tower where everything has a haunted quality to it.
The darkness writhes and pools in some places, thinning in others.
What branches and growth aren’t dark as ash bloom with what I vaguely recognize as poisonous flora—hemlock and hogweed.
Spots of bright yellow narcissus. Entwined through it all, thorns and creeping vines wait to snag a careless step.
More of those black thorned flowers I can’t identify.
Rhyland lets me go as soon as we are over the hill and down the path, but I struggle not to reach for him which seems—pathetic. Since parting with my móeir, I’ve always faced my fears alone. Seeking comfort with anyone, let alone the enemy, is foolish beyond belief.
“Mòr’s hounds are loyal to her. If she calls them, they will retreat.”
“And if not, I suppose you could fry them with your sunlight—”
He stops before the words are fully off my lips, so quickly that I slam into his back and almost topple over. He turns, though, sheathing his cutlass and deftly catches me with a single hand held tight around my wrist.
“About that night—what you saw, you aren’t to speak of again. Especially once we’re off this island.”
I swallow at his nearness. Close enough that I can smell the saltiness of his sweat, see it gleam off his sun-bronzed skin.
He looks different in the tangled, dark forest. Even more like the god of war who tried to lay waste to the world in his hunt for the crown.
The realization makes me shiver, but I force myself not to try to tug away from him.
I won’t let him know he scares me, despite his sister’s claims that our vows made it so he poses no physical threat.
She could have been lying—trying to trick me so I wouldn’t attempt to kill him again.
“Why?” I whisper faintly enough that it’s almost lost amongst the wilting branches.
“It’s…complicated. These runes—” he pushes his sleeves up, the markings that are etched there glow in the tentative gloom.
Three carved on each arm. “Ireus put them there shortly after he cast me into this form, the one fit to walk amongst mortals without—” He flinches, remembering something so painful there aren’t words for it.
“They contain my power, the ability to wield sunlight as our godly house is named for. I can blame my father for a lot of things, but doing this isn’t one of them.
My power is dangerous. The sun is life but it is also wrath and destruction.
That night with the kepra, I'm not sure what happened if I’m being honest. I saw that beast hanging over you, ready to take the light out of your eyes, and my power exploded. Afterwards, I paid the price.”
I think of him slumped over, grimacing in pain in Mattias’ infirmary.
At the time, I’d thought maybe the kepra hurt him worse than he was letting on but now…
now it makes sense. All that power that came from him in defiance of the king of the gods’ binding.
The effort it must have taken to break through it—I can’t even imagine.
I think of my battle with my own power. How draining it is to try to call it up.
“So the next day, when the crew was going on about me helping you kill the kepra…?”
He looks more grim than ever. “A story I asked Briggs and Sabre to spread among them. I don’t like lying, but if they knew I’d accessed my powers and then seen how much it weakened me after—or if word spread to my father…
my ship is shrouded from his sight. If he had seen, he would have intervened right then and there. ”
The way he says intervened makes it clear Ireus wouldn’t merely reprimand him for fighting the binds. It would be far worse. Worse than banishment and mortality.
“Why—why are you trusting me with this?”
His eyes darken, cold, swirling and contemplative. “Do I have another choice?”
I shrug and finally tug against his hold. “You could have lied or killed me.”
A wicked smirk claims his lips. He doesn’t let go.
“Killed you? After all the effort it took to save your life.” He’s pulled me closer now.
Close enough that his cool breath brushes my face.
I meet his gaze and want to curse myself when my eyes flit down to his lips, a tingle following on my own.
Again, I remember the feel of him—the taste.
The way my body sparked to life beneath his touch.
“You could have simply let me die.”
His smirk fades and the look on his face turns brooding, intense.
There’s something there that mirrors the want in me…
. No, I'm imagining it. Imagining all of this. Nothing but distrust lives between us. Lies and deceptions. He couldn’t possibly want this—want me.
And there’s no way in the four realms I would even consider—
His touch moves from my wrist to my jaw where he slides it along the sharp line to cup my throat, feel my beating pulse under his fingers. I gasp at the sensation. The rush that floods every inch of me. I’m trapped here in his stare, wanting to kiss my husband, knowing I cannot. Will not.
His voice comes as whispery as wind. “Did I mention, Nymph, how your eyes are like the sea? They remind me of home. Of freedom.”
For a moment I cannot breathe. Cannot think.
It’s the Isle that’s doing this. Not him. Not me. He needs me alive for one reason only. To find his crown.
My hand goes to his, lightly prying it off my throat, and a small cough escapes me that slices through the illusion. “Where do we find these herbs?”
He blinks as though returning to himself from some far away place. A distant land, a pleasant dream. His cold mask slips back into place. Then the Rhyland I know is there, the vicious, cunning sea captain who cares for nothing and no one.
He turns, his voice like ice. “We’ll have to go off the path some for the best, more potent herbs for laeknir. Keep close and stay away from the black flowers, I mean it.”
“What are they?” I press, finally losing my patience with it all.
He looks at me and a war of emotion passes over him.
Something beats out the other feelings and he sighs.
“Theiosporos Necrotica, more commonly known as godsbane. Mòr’s been trying to destroy it but it keeps growing back.
The plant is deadly to mortals; even breathing it in too close can make you sick. ”
“And to gods?”
His expression slips into amusement, nearly playful but he bears his teeth. “Big plans for me, eh?”
I glare at him.
“It’s called godsbane for a reason, Nymph.”
He leaves it at that and keeps going, though I’m certain there’s far more to it.
As I trail behind him, thoughts wandering aimlessly, and I remember that I should be looking for herbs too.
For the concoction Móeir gave me since infancy to keep me well, a tonic to be taken monthly.
She always feared mortal sickness would be brought by the pirates and slavers who ravaged Aurorae and bring death to her half mortal child.
After the illness that befell me in Helgate, before the Sisters snatched me off the streets, I continued the tonic diligently, every month without fail.
A simple cold had nearly done me in; I couldn’t imagine catching something deadly like the pox.
“Pirate?” I ask tentatively, just as he’s reaching down for a particularly vibrant blue plant.
“Nymph?”
Warmth rushes over my cheeks. “I was wondering if we might gather a few more ingredients, assuming they grow here.”
“Like?”
The list has been all but seared into my memory.
What’s needed. How to prepare it. How it’s to be taken at the same time each month, when the moon is full and brightest. “Berries from a nightshade bush, bitter yarrow stem, the flowerhead from a dowl plant, and at least four vervain leaves. Although if we’re going to be at sea for a time, perhaps I could gather enough for a few doses. ”
His shoulders stiffen and he turns slightly so that his sharp side profile is highlighted in the growing light.
Cold. Beautiful.
“What sort of potion are you making?”
Embarrassment blossoms from deep beneath my breastbone. Halfling. Móeir had always insisted we not tell anyone about the potion—even my sisters—lest it make me more of an outcast. Nymphs, afterall, did not get sick. Ever.
“A monthly tonic my màma gave me. As a halfling child she was very worried I’d catch a mortal sickness.
Take ill and not recover. I know it sounds like a waste of time, but I’d rather not get sick on this voyage if I can avoid it.
I’m due to take it any day now and the last of my supply was left behind at Redwater Cove.
” I shift my weight. Turn my attention to a clump of vines in the distance that look suspiciously like a tangle of serpents.
He studies the long-stemmed thistle plant in his hand, rises slowly to his feet. “Your mother gave that to you?”
I feel myself nod. “The brewing process is complex and time consuming. I should start it as soon as we’re back on the ship.
Màma used to add moonstone shavings but it can be made without them, as they’re so hard to come by.
” It’s a vulnerable sensation, being looked at the way he’s staring at me, his thoughts unreadable.
I can only guess at the judgment on the other side as he realizes how weak and delicate I am.
Playing a hero, fighting sea creatures, spitting in the face of a slaver.
It all shrinks to nothing in this moment.
I feel small. Pitiful. Like the girl who washed up on Helgate’s shores eight years ago with nothing and no one. Terrified. Cold. Hungry—alone.
A long breath escapes him.“The plants you listed are here and bountiful, Nymph, but none of those are meant for healing or keeping sickness at bay.”
“What?” My voice stings through the air like winter winds. My body echoes the cold in them.
He studies me from his full height so that I have to tilt my head back slightly to meet his churning eyes. “The ingredients won’t make a tonic to keep you well, no matter how you cook, or stew, or brew them. But they will do something to you, that’s for certain.”
I falter over a patch of rocks covered in slick black moss, mind reeling. Is this another game? Another trick of his? Force me into a marriage and then twist my mind until it breaks. Until I’m left questioning everything.
Trust no one.
“I–I don’t understand.”
“Avalon, the plants you named….” His words grow raw, hesitant, like he’s afraid he might shatter me with them. Hearing my given name on his lips makes it all worse, somehow.
He tucks the thistle into his satchel without looking away from me, then clears his throat. “When put together they create a potent potion—one that's rare but not unheard of. A potion that suppresses powerful magick.”