Page 125 of Beneath the Veil of Tides
I understood. It was the place that brought her the most pain. Trauma was weird… fickle even. It did what it wanted, even if others thought it odd. Some days it affected lives tenfold. On others, it buried itself so deep that you nor anyone around could tell anything ever happened. And it was dangerous, stealing the lives of many that masked it well enough.
“Then we run now, find the prettiest castle to buy, and live happily ever after,” I responded. My fingers traced her face’s features—her eyebrows, cheekbones, lips.
“With what? Your good looks?” she laughed, and I joined in. I pressed a kiss to her forehead, savoring in the caress, the way my chest fell into hers.
I grinned, a wicked sort of smile. “Or threats.”
EPILOGUE
Two weeks later
Fire crackled in the hearth, and every time, I found myself flinching at the noise. Each pop reminded me of the initial clash of battle, each sparking ember showed me the power of the Ocean Mother, and the crimson color drew visions of pooling blood along the muddied ground.
I despised the needling anxiety that cursed my veins, yet every time I encountered the smallest things, it always took me back to the destruction over sixteen days ago. I tried to force it below—hide it so no one would notice what I struggled with internally—but my mental instability became debilitating.
Noctis refused to light the hearth, realizing my flashbacks immediately and snuffing it out with his powers. When he wasn’t at our mountainside cottage, I set it aflame anyway and stared at it, hoping the exposure would purge the fear away.
It never worked.
I’d been staring into the brick-and-mortar hearth for over an hour, and my heart still raced, hands still trembled, mind still worked. Like always, I splashed the nearby bucket of water across the burning cinders and extinguished the flame.
I shifted to the bathing chambers, attempting to wash off the smoky smell from my body before Noctis returned from the market. The mirror reflected someone I didn’t know—eyes that were too pale and skin that was too flushed. I wasn’t the same person as I was before the Ocean Mother attacked. The deadbodies I saw scattered across the open field plagued my sleep, along with whispers I couldn’t make out.
I felt immense guilt for keeping hold of Noctis. He deserved better. He deserved someone who could leave the comfort of their cottage. He deserved anyone other than me.
After the war, he stowed us away in the mountains, as far away from the surrounding ocean as he could find. It was a quaint home, much more than I’d ever lived in, halfway up the mountainside and far away from everyone.
Evelyn, Jun, and Calvin lived beyond my own trauma of life beyond war. Evelyn found her place in the arts, trading battlefields for canvases and music halls, where she creates instead of endures and turns memory into something beautiful. Jun lives in near silence, devoted to relentless sword practice, training alone for hours, as if repetition can keep the past from ever catching up to him. Calvin, somehow, ended up in a traveling circus—half by accident, half by fate—where his chaos finally has somewhere to go, and his energy is exactly what keeps the crowd laughing.
I’m so proud of them. Even if I couldn’t do it.
Light tapping rapped across the living area window from the side not against the mountain. I froze. No one had been able to reach our new home, and Noctis had a key to enter as he pleased.
I fumbled for my stowed away daggers in the bathroom vanity and peeled around the corner. My hands shook against the blades, and I nearly released them, even in the midst of potential danger.
The knocking rapped again, more rhythmic than the last time. Scuffling started, like tiny rodents running across baseboards, except it sounded as if they were along the wooden door.
Then, the barrier exploded, splintering into pieces. I shielded my face, my heart pounding against my soft pale-yellow dress.
Giant spindled legs entered first. Eight. When I saw the multiple void-like black eyes, I gasped.
The leader Threnai oracle arachnid.
“You have been difficult to locate, child,” her gentle voice chided through fangs.
“Why am I needed?” I breathed. I didn’t want to be needed. I wanted to be left to heal—well at least I hoped I was healing.
“Don’t pretend that you aren’t hearing the whispers, the speaking in your mind. You will not heal here.”
My breath hitched. I didn’t speak a word of the whispers that irritated my mind, awakening me through the night, taunting me through the day. They spoke in hushed voices. Some were women, some men, and some I couldn’t tell.
“I am an oracle, child. I know even the things that never leave the mouth,” the Threnai explained. Her massive legs stomped across the room, kicking door debris from her way. “Are you going to ignore the ones who’ve helped you in victory below?”
Calvin, Jun, and Evelyn.
It had been sixteen days since I’d locked myself in the cottage away from everyone. They sent Raven to spy and leave messages that only piled on the dining table.
“I—I can’t leave.”
