Sea and Sand Read online

  Sea and Sand

  Tides Book 3

  Alex Lidell

  Danger Bearing Press

  SEA AND SAND

  Copyright © 2018 by Alex Lidell.

  All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places, events and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  For information contact :

  www.alexlidell.com

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  First Edition: January 2018

  Contents

  Also by Alex Lidell

  Map

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Tracing Shadows cover

  Tracing Shadows Preview Ch 1

  Tracing Shadows Preview Ch 2

  About the Author

  Also by Alex Lidell

  Also by Alex Lidell

  TIDES

  FIRST COMMAND (Prequel Novella)

  AIR AND ASH (TIDES Book I)

  WAR AND WIND (TIDES Book II)

  SEA AND SAND (TIDES Book III)

  TIDES Book IV - Coming 2018

  SCOUT

  TRACING SHADOWS - coming April 8, 2018

  UNRAVELING DARKNESS - coming 2018

  THE CADET OF TILDOR

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  Chapter 1

  Kyra

  “That price is ten times what I paid for passage here to Biron,” Kyra told the merchant skipper. The sympathy she’d tasted emanating from him minutes ago now oozed with irritation, but she pressed on regardless. She needed to go home. “Has the eastern archipelago moved in the last three months?”

  The chubby man took a long drag of his pipe, the embers glowing red in the well. He blew a smoky breath out one side of his mouth, disturbing the hanging corner of his mustache. “Three months ago, girl, the People’s Republic of Tirik had its tail tucked between its legs. Three months ago, the Tirik were too busy piecing their supply chains together to hunt Lyron merchantmen. That is no longer the case. Something evil sails the high seas under a Tirik flag now, and no merchant skipper with half a brain will venture into open ocean without a naval escort. And most won’t go even with one.”

  It was an effort to avoid staring at the tiny flame. The magic in her blood longed to call the heat as desperately as her heart longed to leave this shore, where neither Kyra nor her magic were welcome. Home. Yes, for all its traps, home was better than here.

  Kyra clutched her threadbare cloak tighter around her slender frame, warding against the merciless wind tangling her long black hair. She should never have left the only family she had—no matter how isolated their island, how vile her brother’s tastes, how dull the people. Home was far from war and accepting of all those born to it—be they normal or Gifted. Here, Kyra was different, like a stray cat wandering unfamiliar streets. Even her skin, olive like a deep tan, didn’t fit, not in a place full of cold fog and little sun. With each day, Kyra’s mistake seemed more impossible to correct. She had been bored, curious about life on the main continent, drunk on stories of markets and libraries, of scholars meeting in coffee shops and science men gathering to create the future. Instead, she found hate and loneliness and death and war. Kyra’s fingers toyed with the cloak’s metal clasp.

  The skipper’s face softened, and he puffed his pipe once more before taking it out of his mouth to speak. “Don’t fret, lass. There is nothing worthwhile in the archipelago. Scattered villages in the midst of a wet jungle. You are better off here in Biron. If—storms take me!” He jumped, staring at his pipe. The flame, gently dancing atop the glowing embers moments ago, was suddenly hand high.

  Hand high and stretching toward Kyra like a snake.

  Kyra jumped back, her heart pounding against her ribs.

  Yesssss, the magic in her blood whispered to the heat. Come. Come.

  Kyra’s pulse quickened, the blood coursing with increasing speed even as she struggled to snuff out the magic’s call. Not fast enough. Not well enough. “The wind—” she started to say, her mouth dry.

  The merchant skipper backed away, his face a storm. Bitterness coated Kyra’s tongue. Bitterness mixed with the coppery tang of fear. The man was furious and afraid. A bad combination.

  Stars. Kyra knew better than to let the hold on her magic slip around here, she did. But she was cold and upset and tired. And…

  “You’re a flame caller.” The captain spat on the ground.

  Kyra raised her palm in a placating gesture. “It’s not what you think,” she said quickly, truthfully. “I’m not like other Gifted. My magic is weak. Very weak. Just think—I’d have incinerated myself in infancy if it were stronger.”

  “Stay away from my ship.” The captain’s voice was hard, his shoulders thrown back as if protecting his ship with his body. Behind him, a deckhand pushed a clanking wheelbarrow along the docks, and a pair of fishing men secured their boats, the ropes complex and alive in their weathered hands. A man called for a hammer. A woman giggled. The day was moving on, uncaring of Kyra’s plight.

  Kyra bit her lip and swallowed a lump in her throat.

  A small trace of pity slithered into the bouquet of the captain’s emotions, intertwining with the fear. Kyra held her breath and her hope.

  The man shook his head. “Stay away from all ships here, girl. Before you have an accident and burn us to cinders.” The taste of pity disappeared. “You’ve some nerve coming to the docks, knowing we carry timber and gunpowder, putting our lives at risk for your selfish whims. Mark my words, by day’s end, every merchant in Port Mead will know who you are, so don’t think you can trick some other poor sod into letting you near a ship.”

  “Please,” Kyra whispered, the words fading away as the merchant skipper turned on his heel and strode to a cluster of other captains. Within a minute, Kyra tasted jolts of bitter anger. The villagers in Kyra’s home had despised her empathic ability, but at least no one feared her weak affinity for flame. Not in a wet jungle. Here in Biron, the Gifted were pitied as cripples at best, feared as sparks beside gunpowder at worst. At least she’d been smart enough to keep her empathic sense hidden.

  She walked away from the pier. There’d be no hope of finding passage today. Or tomorrow. Not with the merchants.

  Fear. Desire. Fury. The pulsing
emotions of passersby melded on Kyra’s tongue. The approaching evening herded people away from Port Mead’s docks, where crowds gathered by day to read posted newsleafs or wait for loved ones who would never return. Nine months ago, when the great earthquake rewrote the coastline, Kyra thought that things had changed. The People’s Republic of Tirik had eased off its aggression, the resources of the archipelago became valuable, the traffic between the islands and mainland had increased. Kyra had thought peace had come.

  The reprieve lasted six months. Six glorious months after a decade of war. And then, just after Kyra arrived on the mainland, something had changed, as if the reprieve had injected new life into the Tirik Republic, made them more ruthless and resolved than ever. Each day’s postings carried new accounts of the dead and lost and captured. Kyra understood little of warfare, but surely such a massive enterprise should have winds both fair and harsh. Yet there were no Lyron victories, no accounts of heroes who faced down the Republic and came home to glory. Not in months.

  Something—someone—pushed Kyra from behind. She stumbled, barely keeping herself from falling into the cobbled path. That wasn’t new either. She was small to begin with, and her large brown eyes, tan skin, and unusually patterned skirts gave her the appearance of an exotic pet that men found amusing to prod.

  “No need to run like that,” a soldier called, slurring his words while one of his companions pinched Kyra’s behind. “I can give you all the exercise you want.”

  Soldiers—that was another new challenge for Kyra. Men far from family, unburdened by concerns of reputation, rewarded for violence, living each day as if it were their last. Port Mead swarmed with them: soldiers, sailors, marines of every kingdom—as if Biron didn’t have enough of its own troublemakers. For a heartbeat, she considered setting the men’s britches smoldering, but that would require touching them.

  Kyra kept her pace brisk until she cleared the docks, which gave way first to the fish market, then to rows of indoor shops and inns. The town of Mead sprawled just beyond that, extending south along the ocean shore. Northward along the same shore lay untamed wilderness edged by a brown, fifty-foot-high limestone ridge that stood like a natural fence between the ocean’s rocky beach and the forest.

  Until two weeks ago, Kyra had a warm room in one of the southside inns. Then half the bloody Felielle Kingdom’s navy arrived for war games at Port Mead, and Kyra’s rent tripled overnight.

  So, instead of turning south at the end of the fish market, Kyra headed north into the woods. The limestone was sheer, neck-breaking cliff on its ocean side, but sloped more gently on the forest side, creating paths and nooks and caverns. One of the latter, Kyra had called home for the past two weeks.

  Snatching up dry branches as she walked, Kyra let the magic in her blood rouse and seek the heat inside the wood, coaxing it to the surface. Night came more quickly in the woods, under the cover of light-blocking trees, and it was best to prepare early. Kyra stopped once before a large blueberry bush to fill her pockets for dinner, and once more to collect mushrooms peeking from beneath brush. The mushrooms she would sell tomorrow. The people at Port Mead were fishermen and knew little of edible plants. So long as Kyra demonstrated the mushrooms’ safety by taking a bite in front of a customer, they were willing to hand over coin.

  By the time Kyra slipped into her cavern, a small fire bloomed on the tip of the smaller stick. She fed the flame carefully while surveying the space.

  The cavern looked exactly as it had when she’d left it this morning: a bedroll tossed into the corner, a few scattered clothes, a pot turned on its side and getting underfoot. The far wall sloped gracefully toward a dirt floor, beautiful ridges patterning the stone. All looked well.

  But it didn’t feel well.

  At first, Kyra thought the salty anguish she tasted was echoing her own soul. The day’s failures crashed atop her like waves, awash with loneliness and despair. A quarter hour later, however, when her own feelings had calmed but the taste did not, Kyra acknowledged the shiver racing up her spine. She examined the cavern again, assuring herself that she was, in fact, alone. She was.

  Except…she wasn’t. Someone was nearby. And in agony. The feeling was so raw and intense that it gave Kyra a headache. Banking the fire, Kyra slipped outside.

  The pain was louder outside, its salty tang heavy on Kyra’s tongue. Still, she saw no one but a large stray dog, a muscular, shorthaired beast with a square muzzle and angry eyes, lying at the base of a path up the ridge. Kyra stepped closer to the cliff face, and the dog growled.

  “Hello?” Kyra called up the stone. “Is someone here?”

  Silence. She walked farther, but the pain’s taste weakened as she did, and soon she’d returned to the original spot. And the dog.

  Kyra sighed. If no one was to the left or right, the only way remaining to go was up. And if she was going to climb, better to do it now before darkness set in. Giving the dog as wide a berth as she could, Kyra grabbed on to the jutting holds in the stone face and began to haul herself to the top. She took the easiest route she could, but her muscles still burned by the time she’d cleared the top of the ridge, its rough edges scraping her knees. The ridge top was miles long but only ten paces wide, an uneven plateau of limestone spanning the space between Kyra and the drop-off on the ocean side. Bracing her hands on her thighs, Kyra panted as she took in the view.

  The sky glowed orange, the sun bleeding as it slid toward the abyss of the horizon. Silhouettes of ships, large and small, swayed on the dark, gentle waves. And, at the edge of the cliff, kneeling on the hard stone, was a man.

  Seemingly in his early twenties, just a few years older than Kyra, the man was as still as the stone beneath him, only the mist curling off his breath and a fine shiver racking his lean body providing proof of life. His dirty blond hair hung loose to his shoulders, brushing a wet shirt that clung to sculpted muscle. He looked like a hunter caught in the jaws of his own invisible snare.

  “Are you all right?” Kyra stepped forward slowly so as not to startle Hunter. She didn’t expect a response, not from someone half-frozen and kneeling on stone. But she needed to say something. “Are you cold?”

  “Yes.” The answer came immediately, calmly. At utter odds with the salty pain flowing from him. “On both counts.”

  Kyra jumped, her foot sliding on wet stone.

  Hunter’s arm shot out, steadying Kyra’s shin before she could fall. His green eyes met hers, each movement feline smooth. Calm. Steady. Betraying nothing of the truth lurking inside him. “If you insist on climbing stones you cannot safely navigate, could you do so elsewhere, please?”

  Releasing Kyra’s shin, the man returned to his vigil as if Kyra no longer existed.

  Kyra rubbed her arms. She had been born an empath, just as she had been born Gifted to attract heat and flame. It was a miracle she’d survived childhood, and she’d certainly never met anyone else like herself. Was it possible her empathic sense malfunctioned with certain people? Spardic people, perhaps? Hunter’s accent placed him in the Spardic Kingdom, and, on closer inspection, his black clothes proved to be the uniform of a Spade, one of the Spardic’s elite warriors. Kyra had met a few Spardics before and might have overlooked the discrepancy in a crowd. Perhaps the man was training. From the glimpses Kyra saw of the Spades’ nearby camp, they were a sadistic bunch with an absurd habit of inflicting as much suffering on themselves as on the enemy.

  Now that she stood beside him, Kyra felt nothing more from the man. Not relief from pain—if it had ever even been so—but rather a shield blocking her reading of him. She’d felt shields from people before, a by-product of a tight rein on emotion they’d developed for reasons of their own. Hunter’s shield was unusual, though, woven tightly enough that it blocked Kyra’s empathic sense completely. When it was up. She thought it was likely up whenever other people were around.

  A new gust of punishing wind hit the stone platform, and the man flinched as the freezing draft cut into his flesh. This was ridicul
ous.

  “Why are you out here?” Kyra asked.

  Hunter slowly turned his head toward her. Just his head. Nothing else. His gaze gripped hers, never straying to her breasts or hips or anywhere men’s eyes usually enjoyed journeying to. “Because it is cold here.” His voice was low and dangerous, as if the limit of his patience had finally been breached. “And, until very recently, private. I would very much like to reacquire the second condition.”

  Kyra only caught the split-second slip of the man’s guard because she was curious and had been looking for it. A fleeting, accidental drop of his shields when a bird’s call sounded overhead. Salt, harsh and potent as the sea, washed over her mouth. Yes, she’d been right. Hunter was in pain, and as alone as she.

  Taking off her cloak, Kyra laid it down on the stone and backed away, taking her intrusion with her. On the beach below, the rolling waves cascaded onto the shore in a steady lub dub woosh, lub dub woosh, lub dub woosh.

  Returning to her cavern, Kyra hunkered down by a warming fire and wondered whether, now that he knew Kyra was here, Hunter might come calling. Whether it might be safer to gather her things and meld into the night. She was still considering it when the soft patter of paws sounded outside the cavern entrance, a sad whimpering following in its wake.