Daughter of the Tides, Servants of the Moon Book 2

Happy Wolf Super Blood Moon to all in the Far North, it is the last Total Lunar Eclipse of the decade for North America.

Nyall sputtered to the surface of the round reflecting pool. Coughing and gasping for breath as Ainsley grabbed his arm and pulled him to the side. She and Essie struggled to drag him onto the edge, and he climbed out of the water. Mamó was lying dead on her mat. The bloody moon was just ending when he looked up. Hours had passed but it seemed like moments. He laid on the stone and stared at the sight as the red blemish of the earth’s shadow faded, leaving a pristine white pearl glowing in the velvet and diamond-sprinkled sky. He felt completely alone and hated it. Moire no longer looked down on him, no longer waited for him. He wanted to curl on his side and weep. Reaching over he took Mamó’s ancient, withered hand, it had never seemed so small when she lived. Ainsley cried silently, but Essie made up for her lack of sound. Nyall forced himself to sit up and howl, across the island many more voices joined him. He hugged Ainsley tight to his side as Essie and Eliazar began wrapping Mamó.

Delilah had crawled a quarter-way around the pool, her knees over the edge while the tips of her fingers rested in the water. Her neck bent forward with her dark hair curtaining her face as her tears fell into the water. Nyall’s muddled mind could not figure out why her tears were like ink. His mind was so addled from being on the Tides that he couldn’t make sense of anything in the shifting light.

The Delphi raised her head to hold up one hand toward the waning eclipse, murmuring, “I accept the cost. He is hers now. I understand I am alone forever.” Delilah was swaying where she knelt over the edge of the pool.

Nyall noticed her sheer white garment was covered in crimson, and what he thought were tears was blood dripping from her eyes and nose and cheek.

“Delilah?” he whispered, rising to go to her.

“You’re free, Comhnyall. I’ve taken her pain and freed you.” Slurring her words, she looked toward him and Ainsley and Essie both gasped, horrified. Horrifyingly, parallel claw slashes were gouged down her face the way they had once scarred Moire’s. As his eyes catalogued Del’s state, he realized she carried all the wounds Moire had carried after the night New Wemyss had fallen.

“Delilah?” Eliazar choked on her name. “What happened to you?”

“I accepted her suffering in this life.” The bleeding red wounds glowed with moonlight looking as the eclipsed moon had looked only a short time earlier. Blood soaked her sheer oracle gown as she tried to rise to her feet, but instead of standing, she pitched forward into the pool.

Without hesitation, Nyall dove in after her. As he swam down, he could see her sinking in the moon-lit water and wondered how deep the pool was. Blood trailed from her wounds like red ribbons in the water. He caught her wrist and pulled her to his chest. His lips covered hers as he pushed the last of his breath into her before he started to swim upward. His lungs were burning as he surfaced, clutching Del’s unconscious body to him. Suddenly, he could feel the floor of the pool rising beneath him and stood. The water was just over a meter deep now.

Nyall waded to where Essie and Ainsley were crying on the edge of the pool. Eliazar quickly laid a blanket. Carefully, Nyall eased Del down, he could hear her heart, but she wasn’t breathing. The horrible bloody wounds were gone. Her beautiful moon-kissed face had ghostly scars glowing exactly like her moon marks. He barely hesitated before he blew breath after breath of air into her nearly lifeless body. Finally, she coughed then inhaled, and her eyes fluttered open. Nyall almost shouted in relief to see her silver-ringed cornflower blue orbs. Delilah rolled on her side and coughed terribly.

As her grandfather patted her back, he looked at Nyall, “Thank you.”

Ainsley and Essie both hug Del for several minutes. “Damn, sis, I thought you were dead that time for sure.”

“It’s fine,” Del whispered, reaching up to wipe Ainsley’s tears as her acolyte clung to her.

“What happened to ye?” Nyall demanded harshly. “Ye came back from the Tides looking like ye had fought in a battle.”

“Did you see her?” Del whispered instead of answering.

“Y-yes.” One word was all it took for all his grief the crash into him like the Tides, then suddenly it was gone, replaced by a numb emptiness that he despised more than his pain.

Del bowed her head, trembling as she explained, “I paid the price for you to see her. I gave her the strength of my flesh to touch you and took her pain from this world onto myself. Now, I bare her scars as part of my marks.”

Nyall tipped up her chin to look at the long glowing slashes down the side of her face. “Just your skin? Not any deeper? Ye are not blind on this side? Or…”

“I am not going to sicken and die as Moire did. The Goddess has too much for me to do.” Del sounded almost disappointed. She said nothing about losing her bond to Luca, but Nyall knew she had paid that price too. He hugged her firmly, she was his fellow book-aholic and, over the last year had become his best friend, if she had died too, he stopped himself from having that thought.

Nyall’s eyes traced the glowing slashes that matched her normally invisible moon marks. His, like all male Servants, were glossy dark but hers were ghostly pale and glowed when she was having a vision or had been on the Tides too long, yet tonight they were practically opalescent. He knew visions sometimes left marks on oracles, but this was something new to him. Del had taken all of Moire’s scars. Looking in Del’s eyes, he realized that she cared for him enough to die for his future happiness. He cared deeply for her even though she drove him crazy sometimes; he wondered how easy it would be to love her. He also realized sadly that neither of them could love the other as much as they loved their lost mates, mates that now belonged to each other. But perhaps they could try some day and his wolf agreed, it would accept Delilah if she was who Nyall wanted.

“Comhnyall,” Del pushed his hair to the side the same way Moire always did.

“Yes, Del.” He breathed out, wondering how could he feel such numbing grief and such overwhelming passion at the same time.

“Why are you still standing in my reflecting pool?” Del asked quietly.

Essie’s bark of laughter interrupted them, then she started ranting, “Oh. My. Goddess! Del, you almost died. Twice! The Gate to the Tides opened in the bottom of the pool. First, he fell in, then popped back out. You were practically convulsing, then you were bleeding and fell in, and Nyall dove in after you and swam down as you sank! We watched you drift further and further down, but the water wouldn’t let any of us in. You weren’t breathing when he pulled you back to the surface then the bottom of the pool was just there again! Goddess dammit, I need a cig and a drink! And you want me to become a full oracle again, after all the freaky stuff tonight, just nope. I’ll pretend to be you while you go bury Mamó, then I’m out! My nerves can’t handle it anymore! Come on Ains, Grandpapa, you look like you need a drink too. You two should just get a freaking room and get it over with!” Huffing, Essie picked up Mamó’s frail, silk-wrapped body like it weighed nothing and carried it down the outer stairs to the pyre they had prepared. Nyall lifted himself out of the water to sit on the edge next to Del.

“Why did you do this, Del? You could have died or worse been lost on the Tides.”

“I... I just needed to give you what you wanted. To make you happy, even if it was only for a little while so you could move forward and find a choice mate. Mamó and I had this one chance. We never stopped feeling guilty that we couldn’t figure out what the Moon meant so we could save Moire. We failed you… I failed you.” She paused and turned to put her feet in the pool too. “We wanted you to have a chance to see her again, to say goodbye… She died so quickly.”

“You could have gone to see Luca, said goodbye to him,” he argued, feeling guilty she had used this for him alone.

“An oracle can’t use her power for herself, Comhnyall. You know this. No, it was always meant to be for you and Moire. To give you a moment of happiness with your true to say goodbye, so you could move forward and be the king the wolves of this land will need, to be the Moon’s Champion when the burning ones rise... I just want for you to have a chance to be happy here, to love s-someone...” She stuttered the last word as a tear followed the glowing scar-line down her cheek.

“I need to sing a prayer for Mamó.” She rose and swaying slightly, went to the largest censer, throwing in a handful of incense before kneeling to sing the song of a healer called home.

Comhnyall just stared into the distance, listening to the lilt of Del’s voice. Below, the reflection of the moon made a sweeping arc above the Eye of the Goddess lake as a bonfire burned.

“Goodbye, Mamó.”

The water seemed to make patterns out of the light, Comhnyall recognized the symbol and swallowed. He looked up at the Moon, an oddly shaped cloud passed across Her face, the same rune, love between mates. Then the clouds blocked Her light and the wind began to rush in as a thunderstorm approached from the distant sea.

Del wasn’t singing anymore, she had laid down, forehead pressed against the marble floor, unconscious. Gently, Nyall lifted her and carried her inside, through the empty halls. A guard and an acolyte on watch dutifully bow as they walk past, they eyed them and Del’s disheveled state only for a moment. It was not unusual to see one of the Servants taking a fatigued oracle back to their rooms after a difficult vision. Being an Oracle was a harder labor than most believed. His wolf was already healing his battered body, in a day the bruises he received on the Tides wouldn’t even be visible. He felt ready to sleep but her injuries were more than just the marring of her skin, her fatigue and scars were of her soul.

A rumbling growl of thunder startled her awake, she clung to him terrified for a moment before relaxing, “Nyall?”

“It’s alright, Del, I am taking ye to your room.” Lightning cracked the sky again and rain started as she flinched.

“I hate storms, I hate what I see when they come.” She buried her face in his chest.

“I know, but ye need to rest now, and not go wadin’ in the Tides through a storm,” he reminded concerned. Mamó’s teaching reminding him that to seek visions in something without a finite edge was dangerous because an oracle could get lost in the Tides and never return to their body.

“Your accent is back,” she answered wanly, yawning.

“Did ye know how hard it would be?” He needed to know if she knew the cost.

The night had been too traumatic for his soul to have willingly chosen to do. He thought of what Moire had told him and what Luca had asked. It made his heart ache but if he had to choose anyone in the world, he would choose Delilah while he was here. He pushed the door to her rooms open and closed it with his foot. She felt so warm in his arms, her breathing shallow and soft as if she was almost asleep again. He remembered what she said about wanting him to be happy again.

“Del, do ye know what would make me happy here?” he whispered, forcing the words out. It is time to move forward, and he couldn’t bear to be alone.

She looked up at him with large, glossy eyes, shaking her head slightly. They looked like deep blue jewels set in silver moonlight and fringed black silk, almost too big and dark for her pale face; the doe-eyes of the Naphtal oracles.

“I want to sleep with ye tonight.” She stiffened in his arms, so he hurried on, “Not like that. I just want to hold ye. Can I just hold ye tonight?” He gently set her on her feet next to her bed then added quickly, when a boom of thunder made her jump. “Until the storm passes?”

“Okay,” she nodded, then blushed, “Um, I sleep naked, even when I’m not in my wolf.”

He grinned at her, amused, “So do I.”

Her blush deepened as she turned her back on him, dropping her damp gown on the floor and crawling under the covers quickly. Both had been submerged in the pure water of the reflecting pool, so there was no need to bathe again before bed. It amazed him that the oracle who fought to stop a war and saw all kinds of horrors in the wolf world and beyond, was afraid of thunderstorms and embarrassed to be seen naked. Her normal attire was the flowing linen gown of an oracle that would tear away easily if she shifted during a vision and was almost as translucent because it was so thin. Everyone had seen her body whether she realized it or not. He climbed in next to her, carefully keeping the sheet tucked between their skin, as she curled her head onto his chest and arm across his stomach.

He kissed the top of her head, “Thank ye again, Del.”

She hummed in response. It seemed like only moments until they were both asleep. The love between mates was more than sex or passion, it was friendship, loyalty, comfort, and a deeper companionship. Something she thought he could have with a choice mate until they go to the Moon, but he knew better. Mamó had told him, they would share something that felt as real as it did with their trues, because they could become true mates. He dreamed about Del standing next to water reflecting the sky-blue of his eyes, holding a pup in her arms, far to the south black smoke billowed from an inferno on the horizon.

A/N : The entire eclipse will last nearly 3.5 hours, starting with the partial eclipse phase, when Earth’s shadow takes its first bite out of the moon, at 10:34 p.m. ET (03:34 UT). The last hint of this shadow will leave the lunar disk at 1:51 ET (06:51 UT). Totality will last a full 63 minutes, with the maximum eclipse—when the moon is at its deepest, most dramatic coloration—occurring at 12:12 a.m. ET (05:12 UT).

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