Flood and Fire by Deirdra Eden

Author:Deirdra Eden [Eden, Deirdra]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-26T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

The Accident

Alamar seemed to find comfort in confiding his past to me, and since it allowed me to avoid speaking about my own sorrows, I listened attentively. One clue had guided him over the years on his search to find the man who killed his mother. From his own investigation into it, he knew the murderer sported a tattoo on his forearm of a snake coiled around a human skull.

His story stayed with me as I worked on my dress. The woman it had been intended for was taller than I by several inches and wider as well. I had plenty of free time on my hands to tailor the dress to fit me. My small room in the hold was almost a haven to me as I hummed to myself, sewed, and pondered on Alamar’s plight.

I had misjudged him as nothing but a common, heartless pirate. If I were in his situation, I might be on my own personal crusade as well. There was much more to him than his callous, pirating facade. When we’d talked on the upper deck, all his walls of anger, fear, confusion, and defensiveness that he had spent years building crumbled. I saw the real Alamar when he smiled. Well, at least when he wasn’t smiling in that devious way.

I ran my fingers along the newly stitched hem of my dress. I leaned my head against the bars of the hold and set the sewing needle next to the pile of makeshift thread and a pair of dull scissors.

I was beginning to understand who Alamar was, but he still had no idea who he was. I had to convince him we were truly Watchers and not just mythical demigods. Whatever I did, I couldn’t reveal my immortality. Zacaris said people who sought for immortality lost it. Immortality came to those who made the right decision in the spur of the moment, as if instinctual. That instinct came when one made hard, but correct decisions over time.

Obviously, Alamar, the pillaging pirate, the boy who’d grown up in a tavern, the man whose mother had been used and murdered, had a skewed sense of right and wrong. I couldn’t use the prospect of immortality as an incentive to join the battle against the Dark Rebellion or Alamar might search for immortality instead of earning it. Immortality corrupted those not ready for it. If he knew about that kind of power, he might be tempted to turn to the Rebellion for the “easy” immortality they promised. The memory of the witch, Hazella, writhing in flames, her skin rotting and falling from her bones as she became a Shadow Spirit still gave me nightmares.

I couldn’t let the same thing happen to Alamar. His water elemental abilities were invaluable, especially since the high druids had foreseen Erebus preparing for an upcoming naval battle.

It was hard to predict what Erebus would do. Before he had fallen, Erebus was supposedly the greatest tactician in the Kingdom of Neviah. I bit my lower lip and twisted my hair around my shoulder.

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