drags his head back to my eyes. “I missed you from the last moment I remember.”
Another embrace with his fingers running up and down my back then a heavy exhale from his chest.
“You need to...I already got to say goodbye.” I bow my head in response and pull from his grasp. “I want you to know that I’m okay with everything, Davina. I know you love me, but you love him too, and I’m good with having some of your love rather than nothing at all.”
“You’re too good to me,” I whisper. “Way too—” The red bottle that Taysa was holding is pulled from his back pocket.
“Shut up, Princess, don’t make my head bigger than it already is.” He offers me the small jar. “Your sisters told me to ask if you wanted this to be buried with him.”
I numbly take it and hold it to my chest. “What would you do?”
“I think it’d be a great way for them to get to know each other. Let them be in peace. I’ll be waiting for you outside.” He kisses my forehead before turning on his heels, leaving me to my own chaos brewing in my head.
My own panic that starts to spread through my whole body.
I still have to fully say goodbye to two people, I just didn’t know I’d have to relive one.
The smell of leather and a flowery scent wafts around us together as I gaze down at Dagen’s peaceful face. Laying on a bed of white sheets with yellow and purple petals surrounding his whole body, he looks like he’s already in paradise. The sunlight beams through the windows as a warm breeze brushes some of his long hair into his face.
I push it back, feeling his dry skin and the softness of his mane. My palm skims down the stubble of his cheek, down to the beard he grew along his jawline. I remember the prickled tingle that hit the pads of my fingertips as I studied it. That I loved the roughness and dangerous look about him. It’d be the last time I’d get that feeling, throwing another gut-wrenching punch into my already empty gut.
Clasping my mother’s jar tightly in my other hand, I rub the glass as though she might feel it. Possibly to gain some courage while standing here so I don’t spend the whole time crying at his feet and begging him to come back.
“This is my mother, Kiherena,” I tell him. “She would’ve loved you. Would have chuckled at your broodiness and how you liked to think you were so tough. She would’ve seen right through your softness and tried to coax it through, which she would’ve accomplished. It was hard not to be calm and tranquil with her around.” A soft chuckle leaves my lips. “I mean, I was a rowdy child, she got even myself to quiet down.”
Silence answers me, threatening my self-control to weaken.
“I used your dagger,” I continue to keep myself talking. “I sliced through some tentacles to get out of a bind with Taysa. You would’ve been proud, I held up my part of the bargain.”
More eerie stillness.
“Two giant eels too, my sister and father took them down while I dealt with your—”
Super inappropriate to talk about his mother like that. I mean, Dagen knew what she was but still…
I clear my throat. “I had a ship built for you. It’s not large, but I did an engraving in it. I studied how your clan wrote, all the different symbols and signs that you use, so I carved ‘Blood’ on the side. No one else is going to call me that, so I thought I’d use it one more time.”
Squeezing the glass, I fight back my frustration and the burning sensation of tears.
“Um, my grandpapa said we could keep the island. I can go back and forth when I please, and he made up his own veil, this one won’t be broken, of course, nothing but a Siren can get through it. I don’t know how that would work because Tobias...he’s here.”
More quiet.
“That was the other thing. He wanted me to choose between...I didn’t choose. It was ludicrous. How could I pick between the two of you? I shouldn’t have to choose between the two of you because we should’ve never been here. You should be home with that ugly Edda and running your clan, alive.”
I bite my lower lip, keeping wrecked sobs at bay.
“You should’ve never come here. Just stayed where you were at and