Chapter 27 Meet Me on the Eventide
Meet me on the eventide, a world reserved for lovers,
Where twilight's hush descends, and silver moon, it hovers.
A secret garden blooms, with petals sweet as ash,
Where hearts entwine, and passions meet.
We’ll be alone at last.
Meet me’ neath the ancient oak, her shadows sleep,
Her songs are spoke,
We'll share our dreams, and secrets kept,
A gentle breeze, a whispered sigh,
As stars above, they rule the sky.
And night grows old; dawn appears,
Our love pray lasts, through all the years.
A bond unbroken, one that’s true,
For love eternal, me and you.
—Lancel Brim
“You can’t need me, Nymph. You can’t need me and you can’t save me.”
I wake, sweating, panting, and the words are an echo in the hollow room. A dream that wavers and ripples before fading into oblivion.
What had it been? Who had spoken?
The sense of time escapes me. I’ve been at sea too long, become addled.
My mind bent and broken from the constant stress and fear of being on the water.
Of being dragged back down into the wretched deep.
Shattered and ruined from the knowledge that my móeir is a liar, yet I’ll still risk everything to save her.
From the weight of Rowan's life resting in the balance of it all. Another soul depending on me.
The new rune burned into my chest. Rhyland’s now behind my ear….
My stomach heaves in warning.
The back of my hand drags along my forehead, wiping away sweat from another fever as I sit up tall and catch my breath.
Light spools gently between the dark curtains of Rhyland’s cabin, illuminating a path to the hammock set up on the other side of his desk, long deserted.
The hammock he sleeps in so I can have the bed to myself.
A sturdy framed mattress that hangs from chains off the ceiling to ease the ships swaying.
I didn’t realize it before that it's like this. How did I not notice the thick gilded links? It’s artful design, the clever crafting.
We’ve hardly spoken, the captain and I, since the storm days ago, despite sharing quarters. Something changed in us that night. A fragility threatens to topple if we poke or prod at it.
What would lie beneath the wreckage—be born from it—I’m not certain.
And I’m likely better off never knowing.
The desire, what we did, it’s all been carefully packed away, barred and cast into the far corners of my mind where it can never breathe life or take shape again.
I’ve always been good at pushing things down.
Ignoring pain. Abandoning my own feelings to the dark.
Pirate. God. Monster.
I say the phrase over and over. So many times I can see words like they’re seared into the back of my eyelids. So many times it’s replaced the original promise I’d whisper myself to sleep to. Trust no one. Trust nothing. Not yourself. Not your heart.
Pirate. God. Monster. Fool.
You’re a fool, Avalon. A fool of your own making.
My thoughts are scathing. Scaled, hardened little beasts that bare teeth as sharp as a harpy’s. I press the heels of my palms into my eyes, sitting up as my head aches in time with my heart, a splitting sort of pain that’s not left me since the storm.
There’s a soft tapping on the door. I don’t bother to call out but they push inside anyway.
“Vale?” It’s Rowan’s timid voice, wafting through the dim. The light she lets in from the door makes my head throb worse. “I’m coming inside.”
Like every other time she visits, she has a tray bearing food. Never the gruel, salted meats, or hardtack I know the rest of the crew is eating. Always things that don’t make sense—fresh fruit. Warm bread. Porridge with cream. Fragrant hot tea.
“You need to eat,” she whispers.
“I feel too ill.” I don't say it expecting her sympathy, though she has plenty of it. It's simply been a fact these last few days. I’m sick and getting sicker.
Rowan frowns. “I've heard Mattias and the captain whispering but they won't tell me a thing. Are you dying?” Her lip quivers. She's all seriousness, concern lighting every soft line of her face.
“No, I—” I hesitate, longing to tell her everything.
Màma's lie. How the new rune, Laguz, appeared.
Rhyland's theory about how ill someone can get when their magick has been oppressed for so long and suddenly released. How the body views it as a sickness, takes on fever and sweats in an attempt to push it out of the system. He’d whispered the words with Mattias as they hovered over me just last night, attempting to break another wicked fever.
The headaches. The violent chills. He theorizes my magick should return fully—eventually. Maybe with some prompting. But he danced entirely around the subject of what happened in the deep. What the new marking might mean.
I've never been one for maybes. But it certainly feels like death, whatever this is. And, of course, my earliest thought through the pain and sweating and shaking was that he’s a liar.
That the potion I was taking protected me from illness just as Màma said and without it I’m this—weak, fragile, dying.
My shaking hand reaches out to pluck up one of the delicate crimson berries on the tray. “We left Elaris days ago; how is this fruit still so fresh?”
A crease snakes between Rowan's eyebrows. She knows I'm deflecting and a great sigh escapes her.
“The Nymph on that island, the one with the beautiful dark hair. She brought down two small potted trees the morning after your wedding. A gift, she said. They're enchanted. They'll grow on the ship without land, sprout fruits on a whim. Always fresh and a variety of the very best, she said.”
Sora would be able to conjure something so useful and impressive.
A groan escapes me and I reach for my head.
This is it. I’m dying. I let an arsehole of a pirate trick me into believing my máma is a liar, left all the herbs I needed for a fresh potion behind in my shock at his claims. Now I’ve caught some mortal illness and I’m going to die on this wretched ship, all the while trying to assure Rowan that I’m fine.
“Eat, Vale. Please.” Her eyes brim with silver. “It’ll help you get stronger.”
I shake my head. “I can’t. I can’t. I need to sleep.” My clammy hands reach for hers. “You need to find Sabre, stay close to her. Don’t leave her side.”
I’m no fan of the first mate, but I truly believe she cares for Rowan and will protect her while I can’t.
The world gives a sharp jerk around me and pulses. Blessed Trine, this is awful. The berry slips from my fingers and I shift back down onto the pillow to close my eyes against splotches of dark that dance in my vision.
“Vale….” Rowan is saying, but her words scatter, shake, some lost entirely. Before I know it I’m asleep again. Dreaming.
“Nymph?”
It’s almost sickening the way my body responds to his voice now. I may have shored up my mind but the natural reaction—heart quickening, blood rushing—is something I don’t seem to have any control over.
“Nymph, wake up.” He sounds stern, almost angry.
The scent of salty amber and driftwood washes the air.
Every inch of me aches. I think my fever’s returned because I’m shivering like mad.
Slowly, I force my eyes open to find him leaned over, his dark hair windswept, his cold eyes a brewing storm.
He’s grown stubble over the last few days that clings below the hollows of his cheeks to the sharp jawline.
It frames his full, soft lips. Rugged. Captivating.
Why, why, why is he so beautiful? So painfully handsome?
Should he not be as haggard and awful looking as the soul beneath?
A monster in a man's skin.
“Leave me alone, Pirate,” I groan, trying to roll over. He anticipates the movement and grabs hold of my shoulders to keep me in place, the calluses of his hands rough against my too hot skin.
“You need to get up, breathe fresh air. Eat.”
I nearly hiss into the dark. “Why should you care? You’ve done this to me. If I would have taken my potion I wouldn’t be sick like this. What did you hope to accomplish, lying about my máma? Tricking me? I’m dying. Let me do it in peace.”
His sigh is as heavy as the air in the room.
“You aren’t dying, Nymph. Your magick is trying to manifest itself.
The effects of magickal deprivation have been studied in nymph slaves.
” His tone grows bitter, terse. “I’ve seen it firsthand with Sora after Mór freed her.
It’s an unpleasant process, the magick being allowed in when their irons are removed, but not a deadly one.
However, you’re wasting away in here. I can see your bones through this blanket.
You need to get up, get outside. We’ll reach Staygia in less than a month. ”
Anger curls within me, writhing like a collared hound ready to be unleashed. It takes all of my strength to push myself up from the soft mattress, shove his arms away and glare at him. “Why should I believe a word you say? You’ve done nothing but deceive me.”
His features harden before a humorless smirk tugs at the corner of his mouth. “I don’t need you to believe me. I just need you to listen to me. Out, onto the deck, or I’ll carry you, and we both know how much you'll hate that.”
The urge to scream at him is all consuming.
Fresh air. Food. He wants me alive but weakened, I’m sure of it now.
He can’t have me dying in here for fear of never finding the crown piece he believes I have, but he must know I’m still plotting an escape.
If I’m too sick to run, he won’t have to worry about me while he and his crew join the mad queen’s games. I’ll be a much more docile prisoner.
He searches my face for a moment before shifting back, letting me go. “If it’s proof you need, I’ll show you. But you have to come out. Can’t have you lighting my quarters on fire.”