Trevain trudged up the stairs after returning from his fishing trip. He was having difficulty processing what exactly had happened. All that he knew for sure was that Arnav Hylas had been killed. The Coast Guard had told them that it was just a bad season. The same thing had been happening to many other fishing boats. Two other boats had been completely lost. There was no sign of them at all, and nothing had been recovered. The press had not even heavily covered these tragedies; it was just the way things sometimes happened in Alaska. It had been that way for dozens of years. “Count yourself lucky,” the man at the docks had said.
“Just a bad season,” Trevain repeated bitterly, pausing halfway up the staircase. His hand on the railing tightened its grip. “Count yourself lucky!” He felt bile rising inside him as he smashed his fist into the railing of the staircase, causing the wood to break and splinter. He was immediately upset with himself, remembering that a child now lived in the house.
He tried to calm himself down, but failing, he decided to take some sleeping pills. He just wanted to talk to Aazuria and go to bed. It had been a long few days. He needed to not be awake for a while. When he reached the landing, he saw that Corallyn was sitting on a chair in front of Aazuria’s room with a book in her hands. This set off alarms of concern in his mind. He moved across the corridor quickly, with a worried expression on his face.
“Corallyn, what’s wrong?”
The young girl closed her book and stood up. She responded rapidly as if the sentence had been rehearsed. “Aazuria has become very ill and cannot see you at the moment.”
“Does she need a doctor?” Trevain asked. “What happened?”
“My sister has already seen her own private doctor. Mr. Fiskel also gave her some of his pain-relief medication. She will be healed before long. We must allow her to rest.”
Trevain stared at Corallyn with puzzlement. He had never seen her act so formal and cross. She was completely serious, and almost unblinking in the deadpan stare she gave him.
“I think I know what this is about,” Trevain said with a sigh. “She’s still angry at me for not listening to her and going to work.”
Corallyn remained expressionless.
“Well, she was right. I should have listened. I need to apologize…” Trevain had started to move forward, and Corallyn stepped in front of him, blocking his path.
“Stop. Aazuria does not wish to see anyone. She is unwell and she needs to rest.”
“Coral, please. What’s going on?” He reached for the doorknob with a frown.
Although Corallyn was perhaps a third of Trevain’s massive size, she resolutely placed herself in front of the doorknob, and pushed her hand into his abdomen to restrain him.
“Uncle Trevain! She is extremely ill. She cannot receive you now. Please respect her wishes and go.”
“Fine,” Trevain said, with slight annoyance. He turned around and headed for his own room, slamming the door behind him. He ran a hand through his hair. He felt a slight pang of concern for Aazuria, but he also felt suspicious that she was not sick and just avoiding him. Yet, he wondered why she had placed Corallyn outside her door standing guard as her pint-sized sentinel.
Trevain walked across the floor to his window, and placed his hands on the wall on either side of the glass. He took deep jagged breaths, causing the window to fog up. He felt anger, not sadness. He had not been able to understand why he had lost Leander and Callder, but now he did. It had not been natural. It had been the work of men, not the sea. Arnav Hylas had been a clever, animated young man with a bright future. He would have achieved great things someday. Trevain had been tremendously fond of the kid. He needed to find out exactly what was going on, and who those women from the submarines were. He wanted revenge.
Submarines. Although Doughlas had been in the navy, and he knew about things like this, Trevain was somehow not completely sold on the submarine theory. He only wished he could come up with some other sort of feasible explanation. The image of the white-haired woman came to mind. He saw her holding Arnav up sorrowfully in the water. “I could not save him.” Although her hair had been the color of snow, he knew that she was not old. It had been dark, but he remembered that her ivory skin had been perfectly smooth. As smooth as cream-colored satin. He vividly remembered her striking steel-blue eyes and the dark limbal ring around her irises. She reminded him vaguely of Aazuria.
Heck, who was he kidding? Aazuria was lovely, but she had nothing on this woman. Maybe it was the mysterious circumstance which was clouding his judgment. Being thrust into a dangerous situation together, having to fight to defend each other—it was a rather thrilling way to meet. Trevain remembered the rush of adrenaline he had felt when he punched the blonde attacker in the face to save the white-haired woman.
Atargatis. That was the name he had heard a third woman call her. He vaguely recalled the name, and had looked it up on his smartphone on the boat as soon as he had been dried off and warmed up. He found that it was the name of a Syrian sea goddess. When he informed his crew of this, Doughlas had shrugged and easily explained it. “Yeah. No big surprise, Captain. The military likes to use fancy code names like that for their covert ops. People always turn to old mythology for naming new technologies. Even new discoveries or whatever—planets, comets, spaceships, and etcetera. You know.”
Trevain had nodded, for it made sense. The women in the water had just been women; strange women with weapons, but women nonetheless. Despite this, he believed that the white-haired woman was the closest thing to a sea goddess which he had ever beheld. She had been trying to protect him from the woman called Atargatis. She was his aquatic guardian angel. Something about her albino-like coloring had been unquestionably supernatural.
Beyond her appearance, there had been such an ethereal quality about her. And her kiss! Her kiss had been voracious. He had never felt such passion from any touch or caress as he had from that one modest, momentary contact. She was a confident woman, not a timid adolescent girl.
Trevain stared out of his window, lost in thought about the enigmatic lady for several minutes. It was a while before he realized what he was doing. He immediately began to scold himself for fantasizing about this stranger he had briefly seen. She had only kissed him to thank him for saving his life—even though she had still gotten badly hurt. He hoped that she was not in too much pain, wherever she was. If he had the faintest clue where she came from, he would be heading there now to make sure she was being well cared for. The look in her eyes, and the sound of her voice were both so unforgettable.
He wondered if he would ever see her again.
He drew a large X in the fog his breath had created in the window. So what if he did see her again? Would he forsake Aazuria, to whom he had grown so close, along with her sisters whom he considered his own family at this point, for a complete stranger? Was he that fickle? No—his fishing trip had been dreadful and he wished to speak to Aazuria to calm his nerves, and she would not even see him. She was the one forsaking him in his time of need, just as she had done before when Callder died. No wonder he was wishing to be with another! He knew this was faulty logic, and that his thoughts could not be justified. He immediately reprimanded himself for holding the unknown woman in higher regard than Aazuria.
Maybe I’m not ready for marriage if I’m going to spend all night thinking about the mysterious woman in the water. I don’t think it would make a difference if I was married to Zuri… I’d still be mentally cheating on her right now with the silver-haired sea goddess.
Trevain cursed and swung the back of his hand into an expensive lamp sitting on a nearby night table. He watched the lamp smash to the ground, and he swore repeatedly in anger at himself and his own inconstancy. Aazuria was sick; that was why she would not see him. He was being completely insensitive to her condition. He hardly recognized the callous person he was becoming. But wouldn’t three deaths do that to anyone?
He turned and walked across the hardwood floor briskly, exiting his bedroom. When he was in the hallway, he saw that Corallyn was still guarding Aazuria’s room—he supposed that she would be doing so all night, or until her sister was better. He sighed, admiring the young girl’s devotion. “Coral, will you do me a favor? Tell Zuri that I’m sorry; I should have listened to her. I shouldn’t have gone back to work so soon.”
Corallyn gave him a soldier-like nod. “I will tell her when she wakes up.”
“Also… could you please tell her that I love her and I miss her?”
The young girl gazed at him for a few seconds, observing his expression. Finding only sincerity there, she allowed the smallest of smiles to barely touch her lips. It was the first time that the hard expression on her face had broken since she learned that it was her own mother who had tried to kill Aazuria. She nodded.
“She loves you too, Uncle Trevain. So for God’s sake, listen to her in the future when it comes to anything regarding the water and fewer people will get hurt… uh, emotionally.”