In Rising Tides (Tidal Tithe Trilogy #2)

1. Drowning | Wilder

Wilder was unsure if his heart was still beating within him or if the ocean now claimed it.

Sand collected beneath his nails as he clawed his way onto the shore. The wind howled as if it mourned his loss.

Drained of his magic, he was powerless but to shut his eyes against the barrage of sand it hurled at his face.

His mind was empty except for one thought.

She was gone.

They had taken her.

A shudder tore through him, and his throat burned as he expelled saltwater from his lungs.

He’d almost drowned chasing after her—and would never have stopped if the current had not taken him. Like a great beast, it seized him in its jaws and ripped him off course before spitting him out a great distance down the shore like nothing more than driftwood.

Wilder fought for as long and as hard as he could before succumbing to the poisonous agony that seeped into him. It drained more than just his mind.

It stole the strength from his limbs. His arms and legs had stopped obeying his commands, and the saltwater found a home in his lungs. He turned his sights to the land.

But she had been dragged beneath the surface.

“Wilder!” Maelys’ voice carried from down the beach, distant but frantic.

Three figures appeared along the golden horizon. Ridge, Otto, and Maelys were running hard towards him.

With his waning strength, Wilder forced himself onto his knees, lifted an arm over his head, and waved. His wet clothes clung to him like a second skin.

Every movement seemed daunting and impossible.

The sea took more than his strength.

He was alive, but only just.

A sob tore from his lips, and Wilder clutched his chest as if he could hold the pieces of his soul together.

He had lost her. And with her absence, he felt like he had lost his very being.

Behind him, the tide surged and crashed, each wave a whisper of her name. Water rushed towards him like grasping fingers before retreating again, over and over.

Air burned his throat and lungs with each ragged breath. It was hard to breathe. Each inhale brought her familiar sea-kissed scent, only it wasn’t hers. The absence of her hollowed him out—a sinkhole forming in his chest.

He would get her back.

He had to.

Seagulls cried overhead as Wilder focused on his surroundings, sharpening his mind and trying to think past the pain that was enveloping him. He stared at his hands, watching as they sank into the sand.

Footsteps padded on the sand, and he looked up into the horrified faces of Ridge, Otto, and Maelys.

“They took her,” he rasped, fighting off the tremors that shook his voice and body.

It was cold, so unbearably cold, and it had nothing to do with his sodden clothes.

Otto was the first to speak. “I couldn’t see. The water blinded me. By the time I?—”

“Who took her?” Maelys demanded, sliding her booted feet apart as if she were expecting enemies to spring forth from the sand.

The wind whipped her long, golden-brown hair behind her and twisted her pale-yellow dress around her ankles. She squinted against the waning sunlight. It caught the amber in her eyes and turned them molten.

Above her, the seagulls circled and dipped lower. With each pass, they let out shallow cries, most likely drawn to her despair.

Her mouth was drawn up tight, but there was no denying the quiver of her chin as she scoured the shoreline for Lyra.

Ridge brushed a hand against her lower back. The swirls of black ink on his dark, grooved skin drank in the dying sunlight. His gaze flicked between Wilder and Maelys, gauging who would need more support.

Wilder let himself fall backward into the sand. The setting sun burned behind his closed eyes. He was so exhausted already, and he didn’t know how to do the next part without her.

“Drystan took her,” he croaked.

A cry slipped from Maelys, and Ridge tugged her into his arms as she sobbed.

An image of Lyra’s face as they dragged her away pierced Wilder’s mind. He clamped his jaw shut to stop the surge of bile from spewing through his lips. The despair on her face mirrored his own.

The despair and fury at what happened to them. It was fire through his veins, reigniting his desire to get up. To move. To save her.

“I only saw the sea … swallowing you both,” Otto explained.

The beads woven through his hair gleamed an almost identical silver to the silver lining his eyes. That wasn’t the first time Drystan and his allies thwarted his friend’s sight, but it would be the last.

Wilder shook his head, dragging the wet strands against the sand. Tears of anger and sorrow mingled before slipping from his eyes and streaking down the sides of his face. They disappeared in the briars of his crown.

“You wouldn’t have been able to stop it,” Wilder said, doing his best to assuage Otto’s guilt. “I wouldn’t have listened.”

Otto’s swallow was audible as he hung his head. “She would have.”

He was right. Lyra was adamant that anything that involved her be shared, especially after that nasty fall from her horse on their journey to the Wilds.

It seemed like forever ago that he had been her captor. But in the blink of an eye, she was so intricately woven into the fiber of his being. Into the tapestry of his entire life and theirs.

This would not be the end of their lives together. He would do whatever it took to have her returned to him. They hadn’t come close to finishing what they had started.

His heart constricted in his chest when he thought of her saying those words.

She loved him, and it was all he could do in that moment to keep from collapsing at her feet and vowing his life to hers.

Maelys batted her hair out of her face and glared up at the seagulls. They flew to a nearby rock and perched there. She leveled her shoulders as she pulled herself together.

“Wilder,” she whispered and moved closer, collapsing beside him. She gripped his fist like an anchor. “What do we do?”

“We’ll get her back,” he said without hesitation.

Ridge cleared his throat and squatted down on his haunches before offering Wilder a hand up. “And how do we go about that? We can’t exactly walk there.”

Wilder took a deep breath, feeling the entire universe settle upon his shoulders.

He didn’t know how to get her back, but he would do whatever it took. Bend the universe to his will to have her returned to his side.

Lyra saved him.

Used her one chance at freedom to save his life. Lyra despised Atlantis and dreaded what the sea would bring when she returned to break the bargain.

She should have used her power to keep herself from that fate when the opportunity arose, and yet—she’d saved him.

Now she was a mermaid again. Would the magic of her bargain force her to stay in that form until the underwater part of the tithe was unbound?

Her bargain had been to undo the tithe first, and then they would return her to her form.

The clock must have been forcibly started. She must undo the Tidal Tithe soon, or the bargain with the High King would take her life.

Worse than that, though, was that Lyra wielded her magic in front of the new King of Atlantis.

Wilder took Ridge’s offered hand, allowing his friend to pull him up and look each of them in the eye.

“Lyra used her magic to save me.”

All the work they had done to teach her how to wield her power, and she’d chosen his life over her own. And Drystan had watched her do it.

Maelys inhaled through her nose. “She wielded? And lived?”

He nodded. “It was unlike anything I have ever seen before.”

She’d been so strong, so otherworldly, like a goddess emerging from the sea. If Wilder didn’t get her back, she would surely see death or a fate much worse for that power. There would be no telling what horrors Drystan would inflict upon her to harness her magic.

Her own father tried to pry it from her chest.

“We must save her. They will kill her.”

“What do you have in mind?” Ridge asked, a line cleaving his brows in two.

The wheels of his mind spun behind his dark eyes, battle strategies and war decrees all playing out across his otherwise stoic face.

“We need to return to the Wilds,” Wilder said. “The High King must declare war on Atlantis.”

Wilder would wage war against Atlantis for her. He would fight the very gods themselves if it meant repaying her for saving him.

Otto’s eyes swirled like silver smoke. His face went slack, but his hands trembled.

“Your father will not agree to it.”

Wilder hung his head.

Of course, his father would not. That would have been too easy.

But without a formal decree, he could do nothing. He would need ships to reach Atlantis or an agreed-upon decree to even speak to a delegate of the merfolk.

“Would the council?” Maelys asked.

Otto shook his head.

Wilder looked out across the ocean, scanning the endless horizon. She might as well be in another world for his inability to reach her.

But he would not let his lack of knowledge keep them apart. With the right power, there would be an influx of knowledge.

The breeze died as Wilder’s magic thrummed in his veins, waiting to answer his command.

The High King exerted immense control to bind Lyra to a bargain based on magical balance and sacrifice. Only a king could save her now.

No king would wage war for love.

No council would agree to launch a thousand ships.

But he would.

“Then …” he exhaled. It did nothing to lighten the pressure building in his chest. “I will become King of the Wilds.”