Page 43 of The Song of the Void

It took a few minutes to calm her down and explain that, yes, my tears were because of Ash, but they weren't tears of sadness. Once she released her hold on the knife and set her tray down to glare at Ash, I grinned and grabbed one of her hands.

“Ash, guess what?” I motioned for him to take my other hand. “Calinia told me she doesn't hate you.”

“R-really?” he cried. “Thank god. I can’t handle more hostility aboard this ship.”

The three of us ate hearty Druinnic stew together, chatting and laughing the rest of the day away. By the time Ash bid us goodnight, Calinia loosened up enough to soften her steely glare, though she regarded the new ring on my finger with distaste.

Our time together was wonderful, but something was missing. I lay on my back on the galley cot, trying to ignore the strange restlessness invading my mind and instead focus on Calinia's warmth beside me. Her slow, even breaths matched the waves against the hull. Maybe that was it. Maybe I just missed the ocean.

Sleep wouldn’t rescue me from the disquiet, so I carefully sat up and tugged on my robe, shaking my hair out of the braid. The wooden stairs creaked beneath my feet as I climbed to the top deck. Darkness awash with streaks of pale-yellow moonlight greeted me, along with a cool, salty breeze. Aside from the welcoming music of the waves and the thump of the rigging against the masts, all was quiet. Most of the crew was probably asleep.

A figure caught my eye, standing alone on the far side of the ship, staring out across the sea. His dark form nearly blended into the night sky, leaving a black silhouette that blocked out the shine of the stars. The cigarette in his mouth lit his downcast expression with a slight orange glow. He fiddled with those gloves he never took off, as if they were making him uncomfortable. My heart went still.

He didn’t acknowledge me as I approached and placed my forearms on the railing beside him, mirroring his stance. We stood in comforting, warm silence. The inky blue-black water before us looked particularly calm and inviting, broken only by the smallest waves and the reflection of the moon and stars. It was like nothing I had ever seen before. And if I never left the Abyssal Deep…I would have never had the chance to take in the beauty that lay on the other side of my home.

The salt-touched breeze lifted my hair off my shoulders, and it ruffled his hair, too. Somehow, Rei managed to look perfect, even with messy hair and bags under his eyes. His lips were drawn in a tight line, brows furrowed. He continued to play with the fabric of his gloves, though not as noticeably as before I stood at his side.

I should…say something.

He didn’t look away from the sea, but Reiven pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and spoke first, blowing a cloud of smoke away from us. “I wasn’t trying to make you cry.”

“I know. I understand what you were doing⁠—”

“No. I should have minded my own business. I’m the last person who should try to tell you how to handle a man who’s so similar to me.” The self-loathing, the bitterness that coated his tone…Maybe I had underestimated how much that one brief comment, that he was like Vaetrik, affected him.

I gently touched his shoulder. “Rei…Look at me.”

He hesitated for a moment, then did as I asked. The exhaustion I saw there in the void of his eyes made my heart crack inside my chest.

“You are nothing like Vaetrik.”

Reiven exhaled, long and slow. Any other time, I would have expected him to retort something snarky, but he stayed silent.

“I mean that, alright? Vaetrik needs to be cruel to feel in control, but you’re just a petty asshole. Unfortunately, that’s part of your personality.” That earned a chuckle from him, thank the Spirits. “You were trying to help me. I’m not afraid of you, not at all, so yelling at you was surprisingly comforting. Pretending that you were the person who really hurt me, who made me believe I couldn’t trust anyone...” I studied the way his tired, slight smile fell away. “But you couldn’t be more different from him.”

Vaetrik had confessed to me that if he didn’t do something drastic, he’d never make anything of himself. He had been a simple fisherman living on a tiny island. Adrift in a sea of mediocrity. Kidnapping me and buying his way into the Eventide Brigade allowed him to indulge in the cruelty that simmered beneath the surface of the kindness he had shown me when we first met.

“He hardly had power over his own life before we met,” I said. Vaetrik had laughed off the bruises I asked him about, but I saw the fear dimming his eyes when he glanced at the island where he lived. The same fear that tightened my throat when I looked at him now. “Selling me gave him control. Keeping me afraid and subservient to him became his greatest obsession.”

Reiven clenched his hands into fists, then retrieved the knife I had acquired from Gatelo from his belt. He awkwardly held the handle towards me, and I took it without a word. Why would he let me have a weapon? He shifted closer to me until our arms were hardly an inch apart. “So…what you’re saying is…that he’s nothing without you.”

My breath caught.

“You’ll have both Ash and I by your side the next time we run into him,” Rei said. “I’ll hold his arms, and you stab. I owe him for two out of three gunshots, anyway.”

“As if I’d ever let you partake in my revenge. You, the second-highest person on my shit list.”

Luckily, he recognized the joke in my voice, and we shared another chuckle. “I wouldn’t expect to be on any other list, Zephra.”

It felt strange, hearing him say my name so naturally. It was almost too intimate. “Look, I really don’t mind when you call me Blue. A-actually, I think I prefer it.”

“But you said⁠—”

“What I said had nothing to do with you, Rei. Besides, blue is my favorite color.” I took a piece of my hair and twirled it around my finger. Standing so close to him was making me flushed and jittery, but I didn’t even mind.

I closed the last bit of distance between us, letting the comforting warmth of his arm seep into my skin. Another cool ocean breeze flowed past us, carrying away the scent of peppery smoke. I reveled in how different the heat of his body felt from the nighttime air.

Reiven chuckled softly. “Blue is my favorite color, too.”