Blood Moon (Blood Rain Book 2)

by Nancy Gray

  Mercy sighed and slumped back into the hammock, rubbing her hands along her arms to fight away the gooseflesh that she was starting to feel. “She was beautiful and graceful. She had the same color hair that I have. And I remember that she died fighting one of the beast men. But past that, I just don’t know. I was so young that I’ve forgotten almost everything about her.”

  “I know that you aren’t going to want to hear this, but what if she was one of the Wood Kin? She could’ve been alive since the war.”

  “I find that very hard to believe.”

  “Just think on it for awhile. Try to remember what you can. If she was alive for that long, she would be very powerful. It would make sense.”

  Mercy sighed. “When I changed, I just wasn’t sure how far I’m going to go. I felt so powerful, like I could do anything. What if I lose control?”

  “I understand how you feel. It’s how I feel every time that I use my power. You’ll learn to control it, Mercy. I’ll teach you everything that I can.”

  Mercy nodded. “I’m starting to understand it a little more. I’m starting to realize there’s a balance between light and darkness. Your shadow told me that I was the perfect bridge between your people and mine. I hope that it was right.”

  Erebus smiled. “Do you remember what you told me on the beach? You said that you would make a place for us, even if it meant that you had to grow your own set of wings. I think that you’re probably are going to be able to grow those wings soon.”

  “I hope so, because we need to unite our people. If there’s another war, it’s going to be a necessity, and even if there isn’t, an alliance would make both of our people stronger.”

  “If anyone can do it, it’s you. I know this is difficult for you to talk about, but I wanted to tell you that you don’t need to feel ashamed of your power. I’m sorry if that’s how I made you feel before.”

  Mercy shrugged. “I know you were just trying to protect me. I don’t regret that I was able to save Pyron and Beryl, but I do regret making that deal. All I can do now is just hope that it might work out for the best. I’m not ready to relinquish my power just yet.”

  Erebus gently pulled her down and lay down next to her. “Then don’t. I trust you, Mercy, and I’ll be here to help you if you need me.”

  Mercy breathed in his sweet scent and sighed. She felt herself curling around him, as though they were sharing a sleeping bag in the desert again, but this time he was pulling her closer instead of shoving her away.

  She smiled sleepily and said, “Maybe I could stay up a little longer.”

  He raised an eyebrow and kissed her gently, running his hands beneath her coat, against her back. Mercy sighed, absorbing his warmth like a desert strider basking in the sunlight. She was no longer worried that she was becoming addicted to his kiss. Ever since the evening when she made the deal with his darker side, it seemed the venom didn’t affect her as easily. In a way, she missed it. Even if she was feeling the effects of the venom at all, she felt she could become addicted to the warmth of feeling him sleeping next to her far more easily.

  They pressed up against one another using the fur of their coats as a blanket. She almost wanted to strip away their clothes, so they could both feel what it was like to have skin on skin, but then she thought about Mirilee. It wouldn’t be fair to her to enjoy someone’s embrace while she was working hard to keep the ship afloat. She was probably feeling just as bad as Mercy. Working was her way of coping, but it was also a necessity, and Mercy felt like all she had done lately was sleep when she should’ve been doing her share.

  Erebus stopped kissing her. “What’s wrong?”

  “It’s nothing. I just don’t feel right about doing this while Mirilee and the others are working.”

  Erebus chuckled and said, “I figured as much. You can’t enjoy yourself if you think you should be helping with anything. It’s one of the things I like best about you.” He grinned wolfishly. “Though this time I wish you would reconsider.”

  She smiled. “This time I wish I could too, but we need to rest. I have a feeling the next two days are going to be pretty rough now that most of the crew is gone. If we don’t get our sleep now, we probably won’t get much of it at all.”

  “You’re right. Honestly, I don’t think the sleeping drug has worn off of me entirely. I think they put enough herbs in that barrel to take out a siren shark.”

  Mercy chuckled. “I thought that your eyes looked kind of glazed over. Before you go to sleep, though, I need to ask you something. I know that you knew that Garnet was a Waterblood, but why didn’t you tell anyone?”

  Erebus shook his head. He looked at the wine bottle and dropped it by the hammock. It was already empty.

  He stroked Mercy’s cheek gently and looked into her eyes as he spoke. “I knew she was a Waterblood, but I didn’t know she was a traitor. I thought she was sort of like my father, someone who wanted to escape her kind and be free. Besides, having that information as blackmail kept her from trying to jump me every time I was alone below decks.”

  Mercy frowned. “So much has happened. I had honestly forgotten how she threw herself at you. That makes me feel a little better that she’s gone, but not about the way that it happened.”

  “I was worried she would try to use the secret about what I really was to blackmail me and get between us, so I made her blood bind herself to me so that we would keep each other’s secret. I should’ve known better, but at the time I didn’t suspect that there would be a mutiny at all.”

  Mercy kissed him gently. “You couldn’t have known, but you should’ve known that I trusted you. I wouldn’t have let her come between us.”

  Erebus inhaled deeply next to her neck, making a chill run down her back. But instead of nipping it passionately like she expected he just gave her a gentle kiss.”

  He grinned. “I thought you were feeling tired. Are you sure you want to go to sleep soon?”

  “Don’t tease me.”

  “If you’re sure.” He shrugged and pulled back, “Anyway, I never suspected that she was the informant. I thought it was Tolbert. Honestly, I thought she wasn’t smart enough. She had me fooled into believing she had nothing but petty ambitions, mostly involving men.”

  “I think she had everyone fooled into believing that,” Mercy pulled him closer, almost protectively, as she suddenly thought about Mirilee’s vision. “How are things between you and Beryl?”

  Erebus frowned. “What made you think about that?”

  “Before we came down here I asked Mirilee if she wasn’t sleeping well. She told me she was still having the visions, and they were worse instead of better.”

  “Hmmm…well, I feel like we’ve become closer since I helped him with his injuries. He felt a little wary of me since his people and the Waterbloods are enemies and we share some common appetites. But I find it hard to believe he would do anything that would make me actually want to kill him.”

  Mercy smiled weakly. “Well, that’s good to hear. Just try to keep that in mind when we get to shore.”

  Even though she wanted to stay awake, Mercy found that with the wine and Erebus’ warmth against the cold air of the room, her eyes were becoming too heavy to remain open. She snuggled up against him and pulled the furs over her head, running her fingers through his hair. He smiled at her and made a raspy sound of pleasure like that of a cat purring.

  She smiled back and murmured, “Don’t worry, Erebus. I’ll make up for lost time when we reach the North.”

  His voice was kind of muffled, but she heard him well enough and the depth of his feelings for her was warm in her belly like the warmth of the wine as he spoke. “Mercy, I love you.”

  “I love you, too.”

  As she drifted off to sleep, Mercy heard the doleful song of whales off in the distance. It reminded her slightly of the vitulae song the night before she left her village to find the source of the rain. It was as though they were mourning the deaths of the crew and the loss of so many dreams.
Something about the sound also seemed to be an ill omen. The whales sung to her the day before she went to the Ashen capital.

  It made her almost wish they would be silent. At the same time, the song was gentle and calming. After the events of the evening, she finally decided that it was an appropriate song and that she would no longer give thoughts to the superstitions of her people. To do so would be like becoming another Tolbert. Instead, she closed her eyes and let the sound lull her into sleep.

  26

  Mercy wished she had spent her evening being intimate with Erebus. She knew that the days that would follow would be tough, but she didn’t realize just how much she would be making up for the few extra hours of sleep she was able to get. She was glad to see that the next morning Tolbert’s body was gone. She guessed that he had been dumped unceremoniously over the side. Still, half of the rope was still hanging ominously from the mast. While she was looking wistfully in the distance for land, she was informed by the captain that everyone was now an “honorary sailor” which meant that they were the ones that would be doing every job on the ship until they finally reached port.

  They took turns breaking ice away from sails, looking out for icebergs, and trying to assist the captain in finding the thinnest areas to break through whenever they reached a thick plane of ice sitting on the water. They even took turns cooking. Despite how good or bad the food was, they all ate it without complaint, if nothing more than to keep themselves awake just one or two more hours until they could, each in turn, take just a few hours of blissful, dreamless sleep. It gave Mercy an entirely new respect for the old crew, and it made her miss them even more. No one spoke about the deaths or the mutiny. They had too much to concentrate on without dredging up bad memories.

  At first, the change in terrain dazzled Mercy. Everything seemed to shimmer around her in the mornings. The floes of ice were beautiful, despite the danger they presented to the ship. She could almost imagine herself skipping across them, even though from what she heard, she would actually be sliding across them, probably in a painful way. She had never seen such a plain of endless white, and it reminded her of the way colored flowers would sometimes take up an entire grove in the middle of the forest.

  There were dark, low-hanging clouds off in the distance in the direction of the land that were somehow thicker but flatter than any Mercy had ever seen before. Captain Morrissey said that they were snow clouds, and after all of the sleet and ice they had endured throughout the trip, he was excited to finally be getting a glimpse of snow. Mercy tried to get him to explain further, realizing that she had never seen snow before, but he said she would see soon enough.

  Everyone was getting on each other’s nerves, and she could tell why. She wasn’t the only one who wanted off of the ship. It seemed that the closer they got to land, the more they wanted to touch the shore, and it made all of them more restless and irritable. Every hour it seemed more and more like they would never reach it at all. Every delay sailing around a particularly dangerous looking iceberg would cause them to curse and mutter furiously under their breath. Every achy joint, every small injury, and every pulled muscle, combined with their exhaustion, made them want to collapse on the deck just so that their bodies wouldn’t hurt for a few minutes.

  Mercy didn’t understand why anyone would voluntarily be a sailor, but Lavirin explained to her that despite the fact the work was hard, it usually paid very well. They had to work hard for weeks, but then would often have several weeks off to recuperate and spend the money that they made. It was work suited for younger men, and if they didn’t squander their money, they could easily afford a house in Concord or really any other city once they were ready to settle down. It was one of the reasons why it seemed so strange for Ailfrius to still be onboard.

  A captain usually would sail until they either went down with the ship or literally weren’t able to stand. There was a bond between the captain and his ship that many people didn’t understand. Even Lavirin admitted that he didn’t quite understand it himself. It was why, even with all of the bad memories, Captain Morrissey would be staying on The Serpent Queen once he gathered enough sailors to move on.

  Despite Lavirin’s confidence, Captain Morrissey didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get back to sailing. Mercy often heard him whispering under his breath about Nicomedes. It seemed that Pyron wasn’t the only one that was craving revenge. It made her wonder if Morrissey was going to sail back to Concord at all. He was also talking to Beryl a great deal, and she cheated and used her ability to listen through the shadows around them to hear what they were saying. Morrissey wanted to come with them on their journey. Even though it wouldn’t be profitable, he wanted to get his revenge for what happened to his crew. In some ways, he even resented that Mercy had killed Garnet. It was the captain’s job to deal with mutineers.

  As for Scrap, it seemed Morrissey planned to have him returned to Concord on a merchant vessel as soon as possible, but not before he was branded as a mutineer. With the brand on his arm, it would be easy for other sailors to tell. He would never sail again. Mercy shivered, thinking of the way she was banished from her tribe. She thought the punishment was almost too harsh, but at the same time, it seemed fitting. Scrap was young enough to find another profession, and he would remember that Morrissey had spared his life.

  In the late afternoon of the second day, land was finally in sight. Mercy gasped as she saw the mountains. Even though she had seen mountains framing the Ashen capital, it was different to see them looming close in the distance like sentinels of pure ice. Everything was covered in ice and snow, and despite the fact the clouds were covering the sun and soon it would be evening, everything seemed incredibly bright. The land in the distance seemed hazy from the ship. She wished that she could see why.

  “Snow,” Beryl said from behind her. “It’s already snowing there.”

  Mercy smiled. It was good to see Beryl. He was the one person on the crew that was allowed to sleep whenever he felt the need, and Pyron insisted that he sleep through all of the first day. What remained of his arm was looking better. He had managed to fight off any infection, but he still tied the sleeve of his tunic around the injury as though he was ashamed of the way it looked. He also complained that it was still tender and, even though he no longer had a hand, he continued to have phantom pains and itching where it used to be.

  “I’ve never seen snow before. I think I saw some of it that night when it was sleeting, but I’m not sure.”

  He chuckled. “That was nothing. It was a flurry. Every snowflake is beautiful and different and they float to the ground like feathers.”

  Kylas groaned and said, “I don’t care if they smell like desert roses and sing a song and dance. All I want is to get off of this ship once and for all.”

  Beryl shrugged. “Enjoy being off of it while it lasts. I have a feeling that we’ll be sailing right into the belly of the beast - erg. That was a bad analogy.”

  Mercy chuckled as he flinched and grabbed his injury in exaggeration, but she frowned and asked, “You mean when we’re going to sail to the Sylvan Islands?”

  “I think so.”

  Kylas glanced in the direction of the foremast, “As long as we don’t have to sail there on this ship. I have an ability that lets me see spirits and to see impressions of things that sometimes others don’t. I haven’t told Lavirin or the captain this, but every time I see that damn rope I can still see Tolbert hanging from it.”

  Mercy cringed and grabbed her neck in sympathy. “Do you mean he’s a ghost?”

  “No, I think it’s just an image, but it’s disgusting. I don’t think I can handle another journey on this boat.”

  Beryl said, “I feel the same way. Don’t worry. If we do sail to the Islands, we’re not going aboard The Serpent Queen. It would be on one of the Northern ships.”

  Kylas just groaned and said, “I don’t want to sail anymore.”

  Mercy smiled. She silently agreed.

  Beryl put a hand on his shou
lder. “Not to worry, Kylas. We would have to go disguised as a diplomatic vessel, and I think there will be a great deal to do in the North before we should even think about sailing again.”

  Mercy glanced at Kylas. He seemed to want to talk to Beryl about something but was having trouble gathering the courage to say what he was feeling. She thought she could guess what it was, so she spoke for him.

  “Beryl, have you thought anymore about Mirilee’s vision?”

  Kylas exhaled and nodded with gratitude. “She had the same vision again last night, of you and Erebus fighting. She’s worried.”

  Beryl frowned. “I need you both to trust me. When we reach port you might see some things that you won’t expect. Some of it you might not understand, but that doesn’t mean that it’s anything you need to fear.”

  Mercy snapped, “I’m not afraid of what I’m going to see. I’m afraid of what Mirilee saw in her vision. Can you at least tell me what might cause Erebus to want to fight you? Maybe I can somehow prevent it.”

  Beryl shook his head. “We’ll be there in about an hour and there will be plenty of time to talk after we reach shore. I will tell you that my people have been allies of the North for nearly a century. While some of us still prefer the city in the sea, many of us have settled there, me included.”

  Mercy frowned. “So, what you’re telling me then is that you and your people really have intermarried with the Northerners, and Captain Morrissey is the child of a Merman and a human. There are probably a lot of children like him there.”

  “You always were very clever, Mercy. Yes, that’s pretty much what I’m telling you. Still, is that such a bad thing? I would think you of all people would want to see our people coexisting peacefully. I was even under the impression that’s your dream for your people and the Blood Wings.”

  “Yes. I do, and so would Erebus, which is why I know that there’s something else you aren’t telling me.”

  Beryl shrugged. “I’ve been sworn to secrecy. I made a vow and I really can’t tell you until we get there.”