CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“You can’t just leave him there,” I uttered in disbelief as I watched the male thrash against the rope securing him to the foremast. His bound mouth only offered a muffled, quavered sound as the merfolk tried to speak through the gag.
What have we become?
“I can. And I will. He hasn’t exactly proven to be trustworthy, especially after following us back to the ship and hopping on board.
” Noctis glared at the merfolk with disinterest. “I wanted to surprise you with something just as heartfelt as the last gift you gave me… you know, the feral, soul snatching Tide Reaper?” Noctis’s words drawled slowly as if tasting the delicacy in each one.
“Heartfelt?” I turned back to him, forcing myself to focus on the issue at hand. “What are we going to do with him?”
“Darling, your magic was forged by the same tide. You may not feel it yet, but the same energy flows through your veins. You saw it take down Raoku. And he’s going to show you how to unleash yours before we get to Corvenwald and the Aetherkin Bound entrance.”
“I… I have no powers. They were drained from me. I don’t even feel them stirring.
” I turned away from the bound merfolk, eyes sliding to the waves hitting the edge of the ship while the absence of my powers gnawed at me.
My parents stole them with my blood. Their addiction took away everything that made me.
“I feel them. Finding and learning them just helps you survive the kind of world I’d burn for you,” he coaxed.
“Unbind his mouth,” I demanded, and Noctis complied with a twist of his wrist. The fabric fell.
I stepped forward, the mer’s bronzed chest still on display, close-cropped brown hair plastered to his head with sweat.
“Why did you follow us?” I asked.
The mer sucked in breath as if desperately trying to fill his lungs for the first time. His chest heaved before he answered, “Not everyone in the depths is for the tyrant.”
I met Noctis’s harrowing gaze as he slowly shifted his attention to me. Distrust spoke through his features—his squinted stare, the pulsing vein along his forehead, crossed arms that bulged when my eyes flitted across them…
“What’s your name?” I asked, forcing my attention back to the mer.
“Laziel. From Iskavaane.”
I gasped, barely audible, but the god heard it and turned to me like he always did, worry already in his eyes.
“He’s a rebel,” I whispered before Noctis could ask.
Across the seas, the goddess’s name was exalted in prayer, and her demand for child sacrifices was accepted as purely sacred; however, the people in Iskavaane could no longer bear the cost of devotion.
Couldn’t handle the endless loss of their children, claimed one by one to sate a hunger they could neither understand nor forgive.
While most of the depths remained loyal, offering blood and prayer, the rebels turned their backs on the altar, choosing survival over submission.
Though the Ocean Mother’s dominion stretched the depths, the merfolk of Iskavaane chose no altar, worshipped no divinities, sang no hymns.
Not out of ignorance, but defiance. In doing so, they branded themselves her enemies, outcasts defying a goddess who still ruled most of the ocean with fear and fire.
“Who did they take from you?” I whispered. Fear curled tight at the thought of his response, the weight of the answer pressing deep into my stomach.
Laziel must have sensed the hesitation in my voice or the way I swallowed hard once the words escaped my lips. Tilting his head, he silently searched my eyes for a moment. He stood tall, towering over me as he declared his loss. His lips drew downward, eyebrows crinkling.
“My older brother.”
A noticeable weight pressed deep in my heart, understanding the feeling of losing a sibling, even if I did not know the state of my own.
Evelyn was alive, I kept reminding myself, but I’d never believe it until I had her back.
My legs shook as I approached Laziel, unsheathing the dagger the crew had returned after the poison waned. He lifted his chin to expose his throat, the bravery slicing through the air far more than the blade. His calm, brown-eyed gaze trailed the weapon as I stepped closer.
The dagger stayed visible as I walked closer, because I didn’t bother to conceal it. That alone made him flinch. I let him.
I crouched low, and his whole body went rigid. No reassurance. Words would only cast more trepidation. The rope gave way under four quick jerks, falling to the deck with a thud. Noctis’s disapproving stare seared through my back, but I ignored it.
He needed help. And I needed him.
“Will you teach me to yield my magic?” I asked as he massaged the crimson marks around his wrists.
Laziel gave a curt nod, but I didn’t miss the flash of hesitation that crossed his features. The way his eyes darted to the glaring god over my shoulder.
“We can start now, if you’d prefer,” he offered, but I refused.
“Tomorrow. Tonight, you rest before we get to Corvenwald. Don’t make us regret this decision, Laziel.”
I stormed off, dragging Noctis behind me by the sleeve.
“Keep pulling me like this, and I won’t be responsible for what happens next,” the god warned, a bit of mischief lighting his voice.
I whirled on him, a finger digging into his chest.
“How do you know I have power? Why is it that you can hear only my prayers?”
Noctis’s eyes grew wild like a child who realized too late that he said the wrong thing.
I shoved harder into his chest, and the scars along his face cracked audibly as if his cheeks were glass breaking against stone.
They cleaved further past his jaw, rupturing and expelling a faint glow of yellow-hued light down his neck.
And for some reason, Noctis showed no indicator that it bothered him.
“Wha–” The words choked out, shock overpowering my ability to speak watching his flesh splinter.
He trailed his fingers along the fault in his cheek and closed his eyes as if collecting himself as best he could.
“Is this your curse? You said you were dying. Is this it?”
Fear settled in my gut, like an innate part of me scratching to save him. To protect him at all costs.
“Yes,” Noctis replied as he shifted his eyes to the ground. “I am cursed and dying, and this is it.”
“How?”
“Last time I told you I was dying, you said it would be a service to the realms.” His light chuckle did not hide the pain behind the words.
“I was wrong,” I admitted. My teeth found the inside of my cheek, as if I could bite back regrettable words that I already yielded.
Noctis studied me with eyes that held a silent hunger, hesitating at my lips.
There was a softness there too, like he was afraid to break the fragile connection between us as he worked to rebuild it.
In that lingering gaze, I felt both seen and treasured, as if he’d been waiting lifetimes just to study me that way.
“I cursed myself.”
I reared back. “You did what?”
“I cursed myself.” He repeated slower, but he froze before he continued. “When you left to find Evelyn, I set the curse on myself in grief—bound to decay until I found the one person in this god's forsaken realm that loved me.”
“But you found me.”
His lips twitched downward. “But you do not love me anymore.”
Warmth spread behind my eyes as tears gathered, tracing silver trails along my lashes.
“And it wouldn’t be one of my curses if I didn’t make it even more challenging. This curse will only lift when your love calls my true name, the one I’ve shared only with you.”
“Your unspoken name,” I murmured, and he nodded. “Just tell me what it is.”
“I can’t. I bound the name to the curse, too. Only when you speak it first can it safely escape my lips without destroying us both.”
“Us… both?”
Noctis reached for my hand, wrapping his fingers around mine, bringing it up to our faces. He traced the lines of my palm, and my stomach dropped, warmth spreading low.
“This scar,” he whispered in a low heated murmur.
His words faltered as he stared at our joined hands, “is from our Blood Tie. My magic flows to you, as yours flows to me. My heart belongs to you, as yours belongs to me. A vow made with the cleric Grinjuah in the Isles of Yul. I’d bleed a thousand times if it meant I got to be bound to you just once.
Even when you forget, I’ll remember for both of us. You can sense me, too, if you search.”
The concealed truths Noctis seized while leaving me in the dark cut deep, as if he believed I wasn’t worthy of the information.
“Your secrets are becoming infuriating,” I snarled, but I left my hand in his, the contact somehow slightly calming my enraged nerves.
“This one is our secret, though. One I have been hoping would come back to you all on its own. It’s different being told about such a bond versus remembering it for yourself.”
“But how did you hear my prayer before the tie? When you still ruled your realm?”
He chuckled, closing my hand into his and relishing in its gentleness. “Darling, some bonds are woven into fate. I was banished for loving you, even though the gods knew it was written in my destiny long before I was even born.”
“You cursed yourself knowing I was still alive… in the dungeons of the Ocean Mother.”
He paused. “You were so close to death. I could feel you. I cursed myself, because I wasn’t sure the Blood Tie alone would kill me if you perished. And the only way to kill a god is by drastic means. So, I cursed myself, in hopes I could follow you to the gates of death.”
“But I survived instead.”
“By the fates.”
“How can I save you? Save us?” I whispered, and a trembling fear wound its way through my core.
Not for myself. For Noctis. For what our fate would be if I failed. Perhaps we would be bound in death together. If the Blood Tie would take my life, his would be forfeit, too.
“Give it time. I’d bleed the ocean dry if it meant you’d look at me the way you used to.”