by Sarah Hawke
“I guess that shouldn’t be surprising, considering the source,” I murmured. “Still, I was hoping for more than a few old fencing lessons.”
“Just wait,” she said, touching my arm.
I frowned, skeptical, but continued watching anyway. After demonstrating another few motions, the projection abruptly shifted. This time the elven man was unarmed, at least initially. But when he thrust out his right hand, a shimmering blade of pure Aetheric energy abruptly sprouted from his palm. An instant later he repeated the same technique with his other hand, and soon he was whirling back in forth in another dizzying dance that made me nauseous just thinking about it.
“You told me that the Dal’Rethi had a unique ability to combine sword and sorcery,” Kaseya said. “I have never seen anything like it.”
“No one alive today has,” I murmured. The longer I watched the dance, the more I understood that the motions were as much about fencing as they were about channeling. In between parries and ripostes, the Blade Dancer would leap back and unleash bursts of flame or lightning from his swords almost like they were focusing his power.
“He eventually conjures a shield,” Kaseya said. “It is even more concentrated than your spell armor. He seems capable of deflecting anything.”
“It’s fascinating,” I said, “but I’m not sure how useful it will be since we can’t understand a damn thing he’s saying.”
“The longer I watch it, the more it makes sense to me. It’s difficult to explain…” Kaseya sighed and shook her head. “Zalheer must have given you the crystal for a reason.”
“I’m sure he did, but—”
I cut myself off when I heard shouting from the upper decks. I belatedly grabbed my clothes, wondering if we had come under attack, but the voices sounded more surprised than frantic. I had one leg in my trousers before Valuri appeared in the doorway, her brow creased with concern.
“You’re going to want to see this,” she said gravely.
We were topside less than a minute later, and every single one of the crew members on the main deck was already staring out into the distance. Despite the darkness, it was immediately obvious why.
“Zor kalah ,” Kaseya hissed. “We’re too late.”
I swallowed heavily and braced myself against the ropes. The billowing sails of dozens of Vorsalosian warships were visible on the moonlit horizon, complete with the red-gold banners I had seen day after day while growing up.
“Jensen counts fifty-two ships, give or take,” the ship’s captain, a bearded, willowy man named Ferroc, said from behind me. “Thankfully, they don’t seem to be in much of a hurry.”
“I’m less worried about the ships than I am about those bloody things,” Valuri said, pointing upwards. “Look.”
The sky was mostly clear, but as the moonlight filtered through the wispy, diaphanous clouds I caught the occasional glimmer of movement. If not for our recent battle at Icewatch, I might not have recognized what I was seeing so quickly.
“Now we know where the Roskarim got their wyverns,” I muttered.
Getting a precise count under these conditions was impossible, but I spotted at least a dozen of the dragon-like beasts circling over the water. From this distance, their moon-cast shadows almost looked like sea monsters flitting back and forth beneath the waves.
“But where in the bloody hell did they all come from?” Valuri asked. “The breeders in the mountains only produce a few a year!”
“I don’t know, but I hope the amazons are better equipped to handle them than the soldiers at Icewatch.”
“The moshalim are more than a match for a few flying beasts,” Kaseya said, a hint of wounded pride in her voice. Despite everything we had learned from Zalheer, her faith in her people’s prowess remained unshaken.
“Unless the Senosi break them first,” Valuri replied. She hissed between her teeth and glanced over at Ferroc. “We might want to tuck in the sails. If one of those things spots us—”
“Without the sails, we’ll drift right into that armada by morning,” Ferroc said. “I’ve half a mind to turn around and head straight back to Greygale.”
“The Black Mistress won’t be happy about that,” I warned him.
“The Black Mistress is two hundred miles away, and those Vorsalosian galleons are right there,” Ferroc countered.
He stared hard at me for a moment, and I started to wonder if I might need to weave an enchantment spell on him before he did anything stupid. But he eventually grunted and crossed his arms over his chest.
“Those beasties must have spotted us by now,” he said. “If they wanted to sink us, they would have already attacked.”
Several of the nearby crewmen shot him a surprised look. Apparently Ferroc wasn’t normally this brave. Had coin changed his mind, or was he more afraid of the Black Mistress’s wrath?
“You were right about the sails,” Valuri put in. “We should stay on course and push as hard as we can. The faster we get to Nol Krovos, the better.”
“We’ll put them behind us, don’t worry,” Ferroc said. “I just hope her people are willing to protect us.”
I glanced back over to Kaseya when I belatedly realized that she hadn’t spoken for a while. She was still gazing off at the fleet, her forehead creased in concentration. I stepped up behind her and touched her shoulder.
“What is it?”
“Ayrael,” she whispered. “She’s on one of those ships.”
I grimaced. I couldn’t sense anything, of course, at least not until I activated my bond ring and used her as a conduit. It took a minute, but I clawed out through the Aether until I could feel her sister’s strange, void-like aura.
“You’re certain it’s not another Senosi?”
“I am certain,” Kaseya said. “But there are dozens of them as well.”
Valuri cocked an eyebrow. “Dozens ? There are only a few hundred Senosi in total, unless she’s spread the gift around a hell of a lot more in the past few months.”
“Which seems unlikely, given the vatari shortage,” I said.
“The Inquisitrix must have emptied Vorsalos. She’s committed everything to this attack.”
“She knows about the Fount.”
Valuri hissed softly between her teeth. “And here I was still holding out hope that the old man was wrong about all of this. I guess not.”
“I wish he were still here to help us,” Kaseya said. “No matter how much trouble it would have caused with my people.”
“I have a feeling that by the time this is over, they’re going to wish he was here too,” I said gravely, watching the ominous shadows of the wyverns dance across the waves. “One way or another, life on Nol Krovos is about to change.”
2
We outpaced the Vorsalosian fleet easily enough, and by dawn the wyverns and warships had completely disappeared over the horizon. Captain Ferroc predicted that we would reach Nol Krovos by the end of the day, so I returned below decks and tried to get some more sleep. It wasn’t easy; my stomach twisted into knots every time I thought about speaking with the Matriarch. Kaseya insisted that her people would respect me—she had chosen me as her Maskari , after all, and that alone would make me “one of the tribe” whether I was an outsider or not. Plus, her friend Hestiah would have already told them what happened, so it wasn’t as though our relationship would be a surprise.
The problem was that we weren’t just visiting the island for some kind of Maskari honeymoon—we were planning on walking right up to the Matriarch and telling her that she was full of shit. Even if she accepted the truth about the Fount of Velhari and the imminent attack from Vorsalos, that didn’t mean she would want to hear anything else Zalheer had told us. I would have preferred to deal with one problem before the other, but I wasn’t convinced that would be possible. When we brought up the Fount the Matriarch would almost certainly ask us about the source of our information, and the instant we mentioned Zalheer I imagined a lot of swords being drawn and shields being readied…
Through our bond, I tracked her down in the cargo hold where I found her mimicking the techniques from the Dal’Rethi stone. I watched in silence for a while, appreciating the form and grace of her movements.
“You know, you should probably try and get some sleep before we reach the island,” I said once she had finished a set. “There’s still time.”
“Not enough,” Kaseya muttered, lowering her blade and wiping the sheen of sweat from her brow. “The fleet will not be far behind us. Even if Matriarch Lysara is willing to listen, she won’t have much time to prepare the island’s defenses.”
“Your people have their own ships, and you said yourself that many of the moshalim possess the gift of foresight. I bet they’ll have their defenses ready.”
“Perhaps, but they will not understand the true scope of the danger my sister represents.” Her face hardened. “I’m not certain they can.”
“They will after we explain it to them. Hopefully.”
Kaseya sighed and closed her eyes. “What if they refuse to heed our warnings about the Fount? What if they try and turn us away…or worse?”
“I don’t know,” I admitted. “But we can only do so much. If they don’t want to listen…”
Her cheek twitched. “I wish Zalheer were still with us, if only to see the Matriarch’s face when she laid her eyes on him again.”
“I’ve been thinking about this a lot over the past few days,” I said. “We need to have a plan for how we’re going to bring this up. We can’t just stroll off the boat and say ‘hey, nice to meet you…by the way, everything you believe about sorcery is bullshit.’”
Kaseya frowned. “I will not lie to my people.”
“I’m not saying you should lie. I’m just saying we need to pick and choose our battles carefully.” I nibbled at my lip, wishing I had been smart enough to come up with a plan for this conversation ahead of time, too. “Look, our first priority is to defend the Fount. Everything else will have to wait until we’ve held off the Vorsalosian fleet.”
“So you do want me to lie,” Kaseya murmured. “You want me to hide my sorcery. You want me to conceal what we know about how Matriarch Lysara treated Zalheer and Marcella all those years ago.”
“I want to avoid spitting in the Matriarch’s face on the eve of a battle,” I corrected. “We’re not going to have a lot of time before Ayrael’s fleet shows up. Do you really want to be arguing about the moshalim when those wyverns start dropping soldiers on the island?”
“I am a warrior, Jorem. I am capable of fighting more than one battle at a time.”
I blinked. “You can’t seriously think that—”
“I will not allow Lysara’s lies to poison the minds of any more young amazons,” Kaseya said flatly. “For all we know, every single one of them can touch the Aether. They need to understand their potential. They need to understand how they have been betrayed by their own people!”
I opened my mouth to argue but promptly decided against it. She wasn’t really quarreling with me; she was just waging an internal war with herself out loud. It wasn’t surprising. Her entire worldview had been smashed to pieces, and it wasn’t like she’d had a lot of time to work through all the implications.
Still, it was difficult to overstate the stakes here. If we strode off the boat and started calling the Matriarch a liar, Ayrael and her fleet would be the least of our worries. We needed to be methodical about this if there was any hope of defending the Fount. The social and political struggles of one little island paled in comparison to the horror the Inquisitrix could unleash upon the world.
“I do not see how we can tell them about the Fount without mentioning Zalheer,” Kaseya said after a moment. “And the instant we mention Zalheer, Lysara will dismiss our concerns.”
“They don’t need to know where we got the information,” I said. “It’s not like we have proof either way. We’ll just need to find and show them the Fount in person. Hopefully they’ll be able to draw the right conclusions on their own.”
“What if the moshalim already know about the Fount but don’t care?”
I pressed my tongue hard into my cheek. I had considered that too, and the implications were…not good. “Perhaps they simply don’t understand its full power,” I said. “We’ll just have to explain it to them. Val will be there—she’ll be able to demonstrate what the Senosi are capable of. Assuming they’re willing to listen.”
Kaseya sighed. “When I left Nol Krovos, I promised that I would not return without my sister. Some of the other amazons will no doubt insist that I have already forfeited my honor.”
“That’s…dumb ,” I said, trying and failing to come up with a less offensive description. Though in my experience, warrior cultures deserved all the scorn they could get. “We can explain that we fought Ayrael multiple times. We can explain her new powers and how we have a way to defeat her.”
“I am not convinced that such details will matter.”
“They’ll have to,” I said. “Otherwise this whole trip will have been for nothing.”
Kaseya’s eyes lost their focus as they stared at the Dal’Rethi stone. “Even if we are victorious and repel the Inquisitrix, the consequences will be dire once they learn the truth about my sorcery. I do not know if I will be able to shield you from their wrath.”
“One imminent catastrophe at a time, sweetheart,” I replied dryly. “I’m sure we’ll figure something out. Maybe we can shout the truth at them from the safety of the ship. If they get pissed, we’ll just pull up the anchor and cut our losses.”
She arched a red eyebrow at me. “While there are many things about you I admire, your sense of humor remains…bizarre.”
“It’s an acquired taste,” I said. “Just ask Val.”
Kaseya smirked and pinched my chin. “Speaking of Valuri, did you enjoy your reenactment last night?”
“You know I did.”
“As much as the first time?”
I snorted. “That’s a trap question if I’ve ever heard one.”
“Not at all. You are my Maskari , Jorem. If you say yes, I’ll know that I need to continue improving my craft.”
“That still sounds like a trap question to me.”
Kaseya smiled and kissed me on the lips. “You know that I love Valuri, too.”
“I would hope so, given how many times she’s eaten you out these last few days.”
“She is my friend, my sister in battle, and my lover. I am overjoyed when her body brings you pleasure.”
“Why do I sense a ‘but’ coming?” I murmured.
Kaseya leaned in close enough that her knee was rubbing against my crotch. “But you are my Maskari ,” she said. “Your safety is my responsibility. Your pleasure is my purpose. When you are lonely, it is my embrace you should seek…and when you are aroused, it is my body you should crave.”
I swallowed heavily. “Well, when you put it that way…”
She leaned up on her tiptoes and kissed me. Her tongue was as soft and smooth as ever, and thanks to our bond she predicted my movements and desires with flawless precision. I placed my hands on her thighs and hoisted her up into my arms, planning to carry her back to our cabin where I could fuck her in private. But the moment I started moving towards the door, she pulled away and shook her head.
“Here,” she said. “Take me here .”
I swallowed. “The door is wide open. One of the crew could—”
“Fuck me, Jorem,” she insisted, placing her hands on my lips. “Fuck me right here.”
As usual, I didn’t need to be asked twice. I hoisted her up onto the closest crate as she locked her ankles behind my back. Her tongue plunged back into my mouth as her hands worked at my belt. She freed
my cock with practiced ease, and I had never been happier for her decision to stop wearing a thong. It took me less than five seconds to bury myself inside her, and five seconds after that whimpered moans were echoing throughout the bowels of the ship.
I slammed into her so hard the crate almost broke. As much as I loved fucking her tight ass—as much I loved fucking her sweet mouth and sweltering throat—at the end of the day there was still nothing as satisfying as the hot, wet grip of her perfect amazon cunt. The primal feeling of conquest, the natural, inexorable desire to spill my life’s essence inside her…
“Inside me!” she begged as she chewed at my ear. “I want every drop inside me!”
“Shit!” I blurted out.
As my cock erupted, I had to clamp my hand over her mouth to keep the entire Silver Sea from hearing her orgasm. I didn’t have a problem with Ferroc and his men knowing how often I fucked my companions, but I didn’t want him to throw us overboard out of jealousy or spite, either.
“Maskari …” Kaseya breathed as she came down. I slowly withdrew, my legs already wobbling from exertion. I leaned forward enough to kiss her again, but when I pulled away I could actually feel her strength waning.
“I said you needed to get some sleep,” I teased.
She smiled faintly, tiredly, as if she were the most content woman in the world. I hoisted her back up into my arms and carried her to the cabin for real this time, and she was asleep even before I had a chance to lay her head down on the pillow.
“And you always say I’m the one who needs to be drained before bed,” I replied, patting her cheek. Valuri still hadn’t moved either—she was every bit as sprawled out as before. I watched them sleep for several minutes, still wondering what I had possibly done to deserve the affection of two beautiful women. Perhaps the horrors of the battle at Icewatch had been my penance…or perhaps the coming battle for Nol Krovos would be even worse.
You really are a cynic. Why can’t you just sit back and relax for once?
Sighing, I closed the cabin door and returned to the half-empty cargo hold where Kaseya had been practicing. The Dal’Rethi stone was still sitting there atop the crates, though apparently it had deactivated itself during our little interlude.