Total pages in book: 154
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 144411 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 722(@200wpm)___ 578(@250wpm)___ 481(@300wpm)
And I remember, once upon a time, that had been all I ever wanted.
CHAPTER 31
Ramsay
“You’re having a nightmare,” a low voice says breaking through the dark abyss of my mind.
My eyes snap open and the nightmare fades, though the feelings remain lodged in my chest like black tar, slipping into my veins like invasive dread.
I look over at the corner of the room to where Nerissa sits in her cage, her eyes glowing in the dark like beacons, staring right at me. The skin prickles on my neck.
I clear my throat. “Sorry you had to witness that.”
“Mmmm,” she murmurs. “Wasn’t just that I witnessed it, I experienced it. I was in your dream with you, as you.”
I try to remember but I can’t bring up the image of her there. I can’t remember anything of the dream at all but I know it was the same as always. Only question is was I dreaming about Hilla? Or was it Maren?
“Is that something you usually do?” I ask idly, swinging my legs out of bed. “Invade the minds of others?”
She scoffs. “I do not invade, Bones, unless it is an emergency. I was in your dream whether I wanted to be or not. You have a pull to you, as do all of your kind. Your minds can pull me in, similar to how you sometimes look around inside the minds of others.” She pauses and from the moonlight coming in from the window, she smiles and her teeth glow. “I saw my sister in your dream. I saw one of her Kraken.”
I swallow uneasily. “Who is your sister?”
“Edonia.”
I feel like all the air has been sucked from the room. “You’re Edonia’s sister?”
She does one slow nod.
“Did you know about Venla?”
Another slow nod. “Venla was your wife. She was also my half-sister. I loved Venla,” she says, her hands curling around the bars of the cage. “It broke my heart that she died. If she had been a full-blooded sea witch she would have survived.”
I feel like this has to be a trick of some sort. “I don’t believe you,” I say through a harsh breath.
“You don’t have to,” she says. “But ask yourself why I’m here.”
“I have been. I have been asking you and you keep saying it’s destiny.”
“It is destiny. And you don’t need to believe me or believe in it, but destiny believes in you. In all of you.”
I run my hands over my face. I feel like she’s already getting in my head. Witches can’t be trusted, and Venla was the only exception to the rule. “I need to get some air,” I tell her, leaving the room. I can’t lock it behind me because someone, and by someone I mean Maren, shot the lock off with a musket at some point in time, but I hope that the magic continues to hold her in the cage.
I go up to the top deck and immediately feel my heart calm down, my breath returning to normal. The sky is big and dark despite the moon and stars with low clouds coming toward us in the distance. It’s quiet up here too, with only the murmurs of Remi and Horse at the helm, doing their middle of the night watch, the gaurdia de modorra. The steady beat of the wind in the sails and the sloshing waves are the only other sounds.
I sigh and stare up at the sky, feeling immensely helpless. It’s not a feeling I curate, indeed it’s a rare one. But I feel like there are complications in my life now where there weren’t before and I’m not so sure how everything is going to turn out in the end. After Venla died, but especially after Hilla died, I lost one of my greatest assets, which was my positive attitude. In the before-times I was always optimistic that everything would work out. Even after my father died I still believed that everything would be alright in the end if you just kept going.
But then Venla died and I started to lose some of that faith. It didn’t seem fair that she should die not long after my father, that I would have to deal with both.
Then Hilla died and I lost faith in the universe entirely. I lost the ability to assume that everything would be okay, because now I know there is no guarantee. Life doesn’t pull any punches just because it’s already beaten you to the ground. It doesn’t let you breathe just because you’re already drowning. There is no mercy there. I am an immortal and yet even I don’t get to escape death. At times it’s all around me.
The last few years, however, I finally felt a return to my old self.
But now…now…
I let out a heavy exhale, my gaze searching the stars as if I’ll find answers there and then…