Tides of Torment: Chapter 18

Back in the captain’s quarters, Travion made quick work of pulling out the summoning bowl and calling for his brothers. Fortunately, both answered the summons, and the sound of their voices filled the space of the cabin. Sereia perched on the opposite side of the desk; close enough that she could comment if needed, but not so close that Draven could bore a look of death into her flesh.

“Travion! I see you’re very much still alive and in one piece. Splendid.” Zryan’s voice was cheery.

“I’m honestly surprised to see you uninjured,” Draven drawled.

“Not for a lack of trying, trust me,” Travion muttered.

Sereia snorted. They didn’t know the half of it.

“What have you found?” Draven asked, cutting to the heart of the matter.

“Destruction, everywhere we go. The rumors are true. We very nearly lost both our ships to a sea serpent larger than you can imagine. Shortly after that, we rescued a group of fishermen who had been run aground by the kraken. We’ve battled crabs the size of cows, and we are currently in Sahille where an entire village was decimated by one the size of a ship.” His tone was grave and his expression dark.

Both brothers cursed in response.

Someone was leading them on a merry little jaunt along the coast. And Sereia was quite certain they were aware Travion was out here. But were they trying to cover their tracks, or was this all to keep Travion preoccupied and away from Midniva?

“Any luck finding the culprit?” It was Zryan this time, with hope in his voice.

“Not yet. But two men here in Sahille tried to stop him. One was terribly injured and the other killed in the process, but they did manage to wound him with a sword and rip a page from The Creaturae.”

“What have you done to find him?” Draven asked.

Sereia ruffled a little at the question. She realized Draven didn’t mean it the way it came off, but she wanted to growl that they had followed every lead that had come their way.

“It’s why we’ve come to Sahille. We’re hoping to track him from his injuries. I wanted to catch you up quickly on what has happened thus far, and then Sereia and I will go out in search.”

“What can be done on our end?” Draven asked.

“Send aid to Kian. If what Sereia and I have met out here at sea is any indication of what Midniva can expect upon her shores, my forces alone will not be enough. We must be ready, and assume that I will not be back in time for the initial attack.”

“I can send Ruan with my forces at once,” Zryan offered. “Draven can be of aid if the beasts come at dusk,” he quipped, taunting his eldest brother.

Sereia watched Travion roll his eyes and wondered if his elder brother’s expression matched. The two were similar in many ways, and now that made far more sense to her than it ever had before. Draven had been Travion’s only solace for many years while simultaneously being the greatest weapon used against him.

A part of Sereia softened toward the nightmare king, knowing that he had done what he could to be there for Travion.

“Yes, I am useless in the daylight,” Draven muttered irritably. “But if my harpies or wolves are needed, I will send them to Kian.”

“Thank you. I will reach out once we have found the man in question. Once we have him and the book, we can return to Midniva. But keep watch over your own realms and Midniva’s shores. An attack is coming, of that I am certain.” Travion straightened and dragged his fingers through the water, severing the connection. He stood from the desk, running a hand down his face with a heavy sigh.

“They are capable. They will watch the shoreline until you return,” Sereia assured him.

“Well, mostly capable—one of them is Zryan after all.” Travion cracked a small grin.

In return, Sereia reached out and grabbed the front of his shirt, pulling him in to nestle between her spread thighs. She rested both her hands on his chest, looking up at him. “We will find this man. With a wound, he’s bound to slow down and not cover his tracks as well. Now, would you like to begin our hunting party?” Her hands slid up around the back of his neck.

His face was lined with exhaustion, and Sereia echoed the feeling within herself. But it had already been three days between the battle of Sahille and their arrival. If there was any chance of finding his trail, they had to set out now.

Travion settled his hands on her hips and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Yes, let’s go and find our culprit.”

Tracking by lantern with only the shine of the moon overhead adding additional lighting was not ideal. Dusk had just settled over the land when they had headed out, and now there was nothing but night sky above. Too many times, Sereia found herself releasing a string of curse words as she tripped over a stone she hadn’t noticed.

Their one saving grace was that Yon was in no way deterred by the darkness. In fact, it was as if she had come alive, so fully in her element that she moved with stealth and ease over every obstacle. Sereia, not for the first time, was very glad to have brought the former assassin with them.

After young Radomir had been coaxed into showing them where his father battled the man with the book, Yon was like a hound following the scent and located a trail of blood that left the scene and headed south along the coast. From there, it had made sense to let Yon lead the search party.

“We are fortunate that it has not rained since the attack of the crab and that the wielder of the book stuck to the upper portion of the beach,” Yon stated as they made their way through tall sea grass. She paused to show them a heavy patch of red on the tips. “He is not familiar with tracking, that I can tell. He was still bleeding heavily and has left a very easy trail to follow. Had this been me, I would have walked along the waterline so that the tide would wash away any traces of my path.”

Yon was in motion once more, and Travion followed closely behind.

“Small wonders,” Sereia, a lantern swinging in her hand, muttered. Nothing about this journey had been easy, but at least their quarry did not know how to conceal his trail.

“You’d think someone who has run us on such a merry chase would know not to leave his blood like a path directly to him,” Adrik said from behind her.

Sereia snorted. She had to agree with him, though. “It is a fairly amateur thing to do.”

“But it tells us a little more about the man we are following,” Finn added.

Before she could reply, Sereia tripped over another rock. “Bloody seas and stars!” she growled. “If I trip on one more damn stone, I am going to give this man another scar to remember.”

Travion looked over his shoulder at her. “Having troubles?”

“Yes.” She glared at him, and he had the nerve to simply smirk before facing forward once more.

The exhaustion that was beginning to set in from this journey did not help with making her way in the darkness. Constant travel, infused with life-threatening danger and battles, did not leave much time for true rest. She knew her temper was getting the best of her right now, but then, keeping it in check had never really been her strong suit.

However, she continued to make her way along the coast, following the steps that Travion took, climbing over small rocky areas, wading through tall beach grasses, and keeping most of her exasperation to herself.

“It looks like he stopped here,” Yon announced at last, and the four of them gathered around her. “I can see from the indent in the grasses there”—her hand waved to a portion of flattened grass—“that he sat down. There is a heavy pool of blood, and I would assume weakness from blood loss began to set in at this point.”

Together, she and Finn began to walk the circle, their lanterns swaying from their hands as they lifted them into the air, briefly highlighting tall seagrass before returning it to darkness.

“I’m not seeing any more signs of blood,” said Finn.

“Neither am I,” Yon seconded.

“He has the book,” Travion spoke at last. “He likely sat down here to heal himself.”

“So we’ve lost him?” Sereia threaded a hand through her hair angrily, pulling strands free of her braid.

“No,” Yon corrected. “He went this way.” Her lantern swung through the air to highlight the new trail, and she was on her way once more.

This time Finn joined Yon in the tracking, the two of them holding their lanterns forward to illuminate the path. And they lead the way for several more yards, carrying the group along the coastline, the sound of the rough waves upon the shore nearly drowning out their footsteps over the rocky beach.

But then the man’s trail wound farther down to the beach, and his footprints were gone, washed away by the tide currently working its way back out.

“Now we have lost him,” Travion growled, angrily throwing his lantern against an outcropping of rocks. Flames flared, oil burning along the stone where it had splashed, before fizzling out.

Sighing, Sereia gazed at the others. “We’re all exhausted. Let’s build a fire and camp out here for the night. Finn, collect firewood and get a bonfire going. Adrik, Yon, the two of you see what you can catch for us to eat.”

The three of them nodded and quickly dispersed. Sereia, taking a deep breath and pushing her own frustrations to the side, stepped up to Travion, pressing a hand to his lower back. He stiffened, and she could feel the way he almost pulled away to hide his current emotions. In response, her fingers tightened in the back of his shirt.

“This isn’t a dead end, Travion.”

“No?” He spun to face her, anger contorting his features. “It bloody well feels as if it is!”

“Fine!” she snapped back. “By the sea! It’s a damn dead end!” He just glared at her. “But it’s not the end. Velox and his pod are still out there searching, so are the dolphins, and when we’ve got a fraction of sunlight and aren’t at our wit’s end with exhaustion, I’m sure Yon will pick up another trail.”

Travion sighed roughly, some of the anger draining from his shoulders as he ran a hand over his face.

“We’re going to find this piece of tripe, and we will get our vengeance for everything he has done in the name of some twisted purpose.”

Travion slid his arm around her waist and pulled her in against him. “When did you become so optimistic?”

“It’s not optimism. It’s determination.” Travion pressed a kiss to her lips, and Sereia leaned into it, accepting the silent apology for his anger. “Come, your giant has prepared a fire for us.”

Together, they moved over to the bonfire, which Finn had diligently built and then discreetly wandered away from, giving them privacy.

The fire crackled, shooting sparks up into the night sky as she and Travion took a seat in the sand before it. A groan left her lips as she settled on her bottom, the true level of her exhaustion setting in as her muscles were able to rest at long last.

Travion sat quietly beside her, the firelight lighting up his features as he stared into the flames. His expression wasn’t as stern as his older brother’s, but the seriousness was there in the creases around his eyes and the clench of his jaw. While he was not good at saying it, Travion cared deeply. About his people, his family, and his responsibilities. Sereia knew he would not rest until this was all sorted out and his kingdom was safe.

“This may seem foolish to be asking now, but if the book is so dangerous, why didn’t you destroy it? Why decide to keep it around?” The question had burnt a hole in her mind as of late. The more she saw of its destruction, the more she couldn’t help but wonder why it even still existed.

“We tried to once, my brothers and I. Tore it. Burned it. Struck it with lightning and rain. No matter what we did, once the pieces were brought together, the book would be made whole. If I were to place that page where it had been torn from, it would mend itself. Creation lives within its pages, formed when the very first fae roamed the realms. It was a way to contain the powers of life and death, good and evil. And one family was meant to possess it, with the understanding that it should only be opened for necessity.” Travion’s eyes never left the fire as he spoke, and he seemed to grow more distant by the minute.

She had not picked a topic to lighten the mood. Sereia watched him, the intensity within his gaze, as he relived some memory of old.

“It was a gift and a curse, one that was never meant to be opened by just anyone. To use it is to take the risk of releasing darkness into the world.”

“And yet it has been used, and now we need to contain it once more.” Sereia’s shoulders felt tight. This was a task for the foolhardy who wished to die. Without thought, her fingers moved to the pendant, coiling the chain around them as she worked out her agitation.

“Yes, we do.” Travion looked over at her, his eyes troubled, reflecting her own emotions.

She felt a bitter laugh rising up inside her. “You know, when I left Midniva, I never thought it would be something like this that would draw us back into each other’s lives.”

“Me either,” he muttered.

They both fell silent, the crackle of the fire and the crush of the tide the only sounds around them.

“Why did you leave?” he asked at last, breaking the silence.

Sereia’s heart clenched, and she tugged a little at her pendant, the chain biting into the back of her neck. Not at the question that he’d never asked before, but at the unspoken words behind them. The emotion that bubbled just below the surface. It was her turn to stare into the fire, eyes drifting down to the red embers at the bottom. “Because the life my mother had planned out for me felt like shackles pulling me down into the depths of a dark cave I could never escape from.”

She sighed and rubbed her face, then leaned back, burying her hands in the cool sand.

“Was I something you needed to escape as well?”

Her eyes slid shut, and she swallowed roughly before shaking her head. “No. It was the life, the expectations. The thought that I would be tied to that place for the rest of my days, and I’d have had done nothing of importance.” She sat up and turned to face him, her legs folding crisscrossed beneath her. “From the day each of us was born, my mother drilled into us how important it was to be a lady and to wed well. Every day was lesson upon lesson in music, dance, embroidery, language. Anything and everything to make a well-established lady, but nothing about what truly interested us.

“While my sisters soaked up each lesson, I ached deep within myself. I knew that I didn’t belong in that world. That something inside me would die if I were to be trapped on land to live out my days as just someone’s wife. The water called to me, me to go out on it. I wasn’t running from you, Travion, I was running toward myself. You’ve had so many centuries to figure out who you are. To experience life and all that it has to offer. I just needed that time for myself. Needed to discover who I was. To see the world. To actually have a chance to .”

“And did you? Find yourself?”

“I did.” Her eyes fell to the sand between them. “I’ve been able to grow and live out from under the shadow of anyone else’s expectations or rules. I found who I am as a female and as a fae. For the first time, I was able to live for myself and not for anyone else.” Her throat tightened as emotion welled up inside her, and she pondered whether she could be truly vulnerable with him now.

“I’m glad.” His words were soft but honest.

“But there wasn’t one moment out there that I didn’t miss you.” She forced her voice not to crack. “That I didn’t wonder if someone else had come to claim your heart and be there for you in a way I wasn’t able to yet.”

Travion seemed shocked at this admission, but then the shock melded into something warmer. “I never wanted to shackle you or cage you like some exotic bird.” He sucked in his bottom lip and closed his eyes. “Do you remember our first time together?”

“I do. It was on a beach much like this.”

Travion’s eyes met hers, and he closed the distance between them, his hands clamping around her waist to pull her easily into his lap. Sereia went willingly, her knees spreading out to either side of him and her hands sliding over his shoulders and up into his hair.

“I knew even then you were a wild creature that should never be tamed,” he admitted roughly.

“You almost did,” she breathed out on a sigh. Leaning in, Sereia kissed him, her fingers tight in his hair.

“No,” he shook his head, breaking the kiss to nip lightly at her lips and jaw.

Her head tipped back, exposing her neck so that his lips and teeth could continue their travels unhindered. Her flesh shivered at the pleasure, toes curling in her boots. “Yes. Spending time with you . . . By the sea, it almost made me stay.”

His head lifted from the hollow of her throat, his eyes searching hers. There was a question within his blue depths, one that Sereia wished he would ask but also feared in the same breath.

“Ahem, may I present to you a fish?” a voice cut in, breaking through the intimate moment.

Both of them turned their heads to look at Adrik, who stood on the other side of the fire, holding out a large flounder, his finger hooked in its mouth. Beyond him, Finn and Yon stood together, staring off into the distance.

Grumbling at the reminder that they were not alone, and thus could not continue the intimacy that had been building between them, Sereia slid off Travion’s lap. “Did you want me to congratulate you?”

“Maybe?” He shot her a knowing grin.

“Just gut and roast the damn fish, Adrik.”

“Aye, aye, Captain.” Adrik winked at her and then went about preparing the fish for them to eat.

As the fish was roasted and consumed they fell into silence that was both comfortable and poignant.

While there were moments of distraction to be found on their journey, a dark cloud still remained to shroud them. Tonight, they had felt so close to finding the one behind all of this, and their failure felt like a harsh slap.

Sereia hadn’t been lying when she said she wasn’t optimistic, just determined. No matter how hopeless this felt at times, she would not give up until they found the man responsible for these horrors and made him pay.