Starborn

by Katie MacAlister

  She pointed to the forward mast.

  “Thank you,” I told her, and drew a blessing on her. She shied just as I completed the blessing, leaving it floating on the air before it dissolved into nothing.

  “Kiriah has no love for me,” she told me, and started climbing upward.

  I bit back the comment that I knew just how she felt.

  “What exactly is a suman?” Hallow asked, an audible thread of worry in his voice. I know he was trying to remain calm for my benefit, but I was strangely at peace.

  “Magic woven into cloth used to protect the wearer. Hold it for a minute, will you? I want to make sure Buttercup is comfortable before we hit the storm.”

  “I’ll come with you,” he said, and we spent a few minutes in the close, dimly lit hold, where a few goats, a handful of chickens and geese, and Buttercup and Penn were stabled.

  “This is going to be rough,” I told Buttercup, whispering into her ear as I risked a bite to give her a hug. “If the worst happens, I will see you in the spirit world. You may not be the best mule who ever lived, but you are my favorite.”

  She snorted snot on my back, clunking her head against mine when I released her, which I took as her way of telling me she loved me, too. I untied her lead, just in case that made it easier for her to maintain her balance, and found Hallow blinking back tears as he patted Penn.

  “You’re just as soft as I am when it comes to animals,” I told him, my admiration for him going up yet another notch.

  “More so, I fear. Are you ready for this?” he asked, taking my face in both of his hands. “We can change our course. We can wait for Lord Israel.”

  “And risk losing Deo and the queen?” I closed my eyes for a moment, then shook my head. “I can’t, Hallow. I’m the reason they are there.”

  “You’re not, but I will admire you to the end of time if for no other reason than you would risk everything to save them.” He kissed me on my nose and then pulled me up the stairs to the upper deck.

  I don’t know how long it took us to sail past the small clutch of islands that made up Maquet and reach the storms, I only know that by that time we were wet, cold, and tired of being tied together, the three of us bound to the base of the mast by the suman that Dexia had created.

  All the ghosts had come up to watch as we sailed so close to the shore of the northernmost island of Breakfront that we almost came to grief twice. Ahead of us, an ebony miasma blotted the sky, dark storm clouds hanging over it, flashes of light, and occasional branches of lightning illuminating what appeared to be a solid bank of wind, water, and the fury of Alba herself.

  And we were sailing right into it.

  “This nasty cloth is supposed to save us how?” Idril yelled over the howl of the wind. We stood on either side of Hallow, both of us clinging to him, Idril with her cloak hood up to protect her delicate self, while my cloak had wrapped itself back around the mast, leaving me exposed to the rain that lashed us like whips.

  “It’s magic.” I pulled a thick clump of hair from my mouth and shouted across Hallow’s Adam’s apple. “Dexia says it will protect us.”

  “It’s disintegrating as we speak,” Idril argued, turning to snuggle tighter into Hallow.

  I made a face, but couldn’t blame her. He was strong and warm despite being soaked to the skin by the storm flying around us, and just being plastered up against him made me feel infinitely better.

  “From what I understand of such things, that’s the magic working,” Hallow said, his eyes so narrowed they were only slits of dark blue as he stared into the oncoming storm. “It is consumed by the act of protecting us. Which means, my heart, I’m going to need my right hand free.”

  “Why?” I asked his wet, salty neck, pressing a kiss to it, and sending a little prayer to the twin goddesses to please help see us through this trial.

  “Because that’s the hand I draw protection bubbles with. If you would just move slightly—no, not away from me. Here, across my chest. That’s better.” He shifted slightly, pulling me into position. Despite the storm, despite our almost certain imminent deaths, I managed to shoot a look of pure cattiness across him to Idril. She made a face in return and tugged her hood down so that it completely covered her head.

  Quinn shouted orders from the ship’s wheel that were almost immediately lost in the wind. But his cry of, “We’re for it now, my lovelies! Brace yourselves, and may the goddesses have mercy upon us all!” reached us just as the ship, sailing parallel to the island, turned slightly and pointed toward the tip of a long spit of land that stretched across the storm barrier. The bow pierced the thick miasma of wind, rain, and magnetic charge, and we were slammed back against the mast.

  A wall of needle-like points hit me, screaming in my ears and eyes and body, until it tore away bits of me, sending the shredded pieces of flesh flying into the chaos, leaving nothing but bleached white bone and misery.

  Chapter 13

  It was the voices that poked little holes of awareness through the thick layers of cotton wool that seemed to envelope Hallow in a warm, slightly rocking embrace. He nuzzled his face into the warmth, the scent found within tantalizingly just out of reach of his memory. It was something pleasant, something that he associated with the top of a cliff, one with a green field filled with yellow flowers that bowed and waved under the afternoon amber light of Kiriah.

  Allegria. The scent was Allegria, and he smiled into the cotton wool, pleased that if he had passed into the spirit world with her, at least the scent that clung to her physical form had gone with them.

  “—don’t appreciate you touching him. He’s not yours to touch.” The woman who spoke was as familiar as the scent, but as his mind was at that moment consumed with considering just how much he enjoyed Allegria, how he planned to greet her, and what suggestions he’d make for their life together in the spirit world, he didn’t give it too much of his attention.

  “He saved us with that bubble thing he did. I owe him my gratitude.” That was the voice of another woman, also known to him. Less pleasing that the first, but familiar nonetheless.

  “That doesn’t give you the right to put your hands all over him. And stop trying to take off his jerkin! If anyone gets to touch his naked chest, I do. He’s mine.”

  “Your what? You know, I think it’s quite telling that you married him, and yet you don’t ever refer to him as your husband.”

  “That’s because husbands can be refuted and divorced, as you well know, whereas what Hallow and I have will never be sundered.”

  Hallow smiled at the acid archness in the last sentence. “Never, my heart. You are as vital to me as breathing is. Or was, rather.”

  “Hallow! You’re awake at last! Does anything hurt? You have a big bump on the back of your head, but all the rest of you seems unharmed.”

  “I helped check,” Idril said indignantly. It had to be Idril to make Allegria growl softly to herself. “As much as the mad priest let me.”

  He opened his eyes to find Allegria bending down over him, her nose bumping against his, those lovely black eyes with the gold flecks filled with concern. “I don’t hurt anywhere but my head, and you, my darling wife, are the very best thing in this new world of ours.”

  “New world?” Her nose scrunched up in a wholly delightful manner. She pulled back so she could gently feel the back of his head. “Kiriah’s ten blessed toes, that blow scrambled your brain.”

  “That’s just perfect. Here we are trapped on Eris with no boat—”

  “It’s a ship, love,” Quinn said as he stumbled past Hallow, dragging a waterlogged chest behind him.

  “Ship,” Idril continued without pause. “And now both the priest and the arcanist are mentally unhinged. I see I shall have to take charge of this journey. Luckily, I am quite excellent at making plans. Now, let me see…if we leave Hallow and his wife here, Quinn, you and I should be able
to make quick work of finding the queen.”

  “Find the queen?” Allegria asked, frowning. “Why would we do that—not that you are taking charge of this expedition. Hallow and I will decide what is to be done. Stowaways have no say in plan-making.”

  “The queen is the answer to it all,” Idril said with lofty disregard for Allegria’s statement. “Where she is, Deo is sure to be.”

  Hallow felt as if he was about five minutes behind everyone else, conversationally speaking. “We’re on Eris?” He sat up, wincing as his head throbbed at the movement, and glanced around, his eyes widening at the sight of lush, broadleaf plants that bobbed in the breeze. The light was strange here, reminding him of the times when Kiriah and Bellias drew together for the briefest of moments, leaving the land in varying shades of darkness. “We didn’t die?”

  Allegria brushed a strand of hair back from his forehead in a gentle caress. “We’re very much alive, thanks to your fast thinking, Dexia’s suman, and Quinn’s cleverness in hugging the shore.”

  “You could have put me first on that list,” Quinn said, staggering past them in the opposite direction from which he’d come.

  “I said you were clever,” Allegria yelled after him, getting to her feet.

  Hallow carefully turned his head, noting through the odd twilight that he was located on a sandy beach that glittered a dull gold, deepening to brown where the waves lapped it. Beyond the shore, he could just barely make out a dense line of storm on the horizon. “By the goddesses, we made it!” he exclaimed. “I hate to admit that I didn’t think it was possible, but…well, I was wrong. Wonderfully so.”

  “Stay there and let your head rest,” Allegria said, shooting Idril a warning look before she hurried off after Quinn. Hallow turned his body so that he could see the sharp, black shapes that stabbed upward into the dusky sky. It took him a moment before he realized that they were what remained of the ship.

  “She’s very jealous,” Idril said in a conversational voice, and eyed him thoughtfully. “I must admit I don’t see why. You’re certainly talented, and I’m extremely grateful that you are as learned as you are, because despite what Quinn said, I don’t think we would have survived simply by sailing close to an island—”

  Quinn, who had been approaching with an armful of wet gowns that Hallow assumed belonged to Idril, stopped, looked indignant, and dropped the gowns onto the sand before spinning on his heel and marching back to the ship.

  “—so I can see that she values you for those abilities, but judging by the noises that emerged with regularity from your cabin, there must be more to you than meets the eye.” Her gaze dropped to where his jerkin covered his groin. “Much, much more. Perhaps, since the mad priest didn’t bother to check your lower limbs for injury, I should do so now.”

  With the knowledge that Allegria would again be likely to make references to gelding should she find Idril attempting to examine him for supposed hurts, Hallow managed to scramble to his feet just as his wife emerged from the ship’s watery shadow. He stumbled toward her, calling, “Penn! And Buttercup! I am mightily pleased to see you both.”

  “Stay away from Buttercup,” Allegria warned, releasing the lead rope on Penn so that the horse could go to him. “She’s a bit annoyed about the ship sinking while she was still on it—stop that! Don’t you even think of lifting a hoof to me, you monstrous beast. You’re not harmed in the least bit, and Quinn has already found your grain barrel, so you can stop pretending that you’re a heroine who starves to death in a tragic tale.”

  Hallow ran his hands quickly over Penn, suffered the horse to snuffle his hair and bump him several times in the chest before he led him close to where Allegria had tethered Buttercup.

  By the time they had pulled from the wreckage all that was salvageable and lit a fire to both give them warmth and light as the dusk turned to inky blackness, Hallow’s head felt much clearer.

  “So the bubble spell worked,” he said some time later, when they were all clustered around the fire clutching cups of warmed, spiced wine. Hallow sat on a driftwood log, while Allegria made herself comfortable on the sand, leaning back against both him and the log. “I wasn’t sure if it could protect us against the magnetic elements of the storm. I’m pleased to know it did, though, and will need to take notes about our experiences so I may share them with other arcanists.”

  “Are we to stay the night here?” Idril asked, looking around with distaste. She’d managed to spread her garments upon all the broadleaf shrubs that marked the boundary between what appeared to be particularly fertile ground and the beach. “If Bellias graces us with a moon, we should be able to start our journey to Skystead.”

  “Skystead?” Allegria asked just as Hallow slid a hand into his jerkin to reassure himself that the oiled silk envelope he’d placed there prior to sailing into the storm was safe. He was loath to lose the few sheets of information arcanists had gathered about Eris.

  “That is the Shadowborn capital city, where Dasa and Deo are likely being kept,” Hallow told her, then addressed Idril’s statement with a little shake of his head. “Bellias may send a full moon to the zenith point in the night sky, but we wouldn’t see it any more than we will be blessed by Kiriah Sunbringer. I am not a fearful man, but even I would hesitate to set off in a dangerous land filled with Harborym with only a few lanterns to light our path. We will wait until morning for what light the god Nezu grants us before we proceed.”

  “We must leave now,” Idril argued, getting to her feet. “You heard Lord Israel say that he could feel the clouds drawing over Dasa. The danger to her and Deo might already be upon them. We have no time to sleep.”

  She gave the last word a full serving of contempt, but Hallow remained unmoved. “It would be folly to go without some light. We have no idea where Skystead is. We will likely find small settlements and towns before we reach the capital, and I do not relish running headlong into Harborym camps.”

  “Why do you want to reach the queen so badly?” Allegria asked. “You claim it’s Deo you’re worried about, so why go to the queen first?”

  “Because she is the reason he is here,” Idril said with a note of impatience in her voice.

  “And if they aren’t together?” Allegria asked.

  Idril gave a slight shrug. “It matters not. We must find her. Deo will be most intractable unless the queen is with us.”

  Hallow had his own opinion about that, but kept it to himself.

  Allegria, on the other hand, nodded. “He can be stupidly stubborn about things.”

  “And that is why we must move now. There is no time to waste,” Idril said with a derisive yet ladylike snort. She turned to Quinn. “You agree with me, surely.”

  “I’m afraid, my glorious one, that in this, I am with Hallow and Allegria. A night’s rest will give us the strength to tackle whatever we find in the light that is granted to us with dawn.”

  Idril made a disgusted noise, and turning, snatched up some of her gowns, rolling them and stuffing them into a satchel.

  “Which brings up the question, Quinn, of whether or not the crew will accompany us. Will we just have Dexia and you?” Allegria asked him, smothering a yawn.

  The captain, who was reclining on one of the few dry blankets that he’d seen fit to thrust into a barrel and seal before the ship passed into the storm, waved his wooden goblet in the air, his gaze firmly affixed to Idril’s back as she gathered her things. “The crew has returned to the spirit world.”

  “Blast. They would have been useful,” she answered.

  “And to that point…now that I’ve brought you safely to Eris, my obligation to you is fulfilled, and thus, I am no longer at your beck and call. In other words, I’m all yours, sweetheart.” The last sentence was spoken to Idril, who turned to look back at him, but said nothing.

  “Well…we’re grateful you got us here, of course,” Allegria said, slanting a l
ook up at Hallow before leaning into his leg. “But I assumed you were with us for the whole thing. Finding Deo and Dasa, that is. Your abilities—and Dexia’s, even if she is a bit scary—would be very welcome to us.”

  Hallow’s gaze rose to the crotch of a short, stunted tree where Dexia had curled up. Only the occasional glint of firelight reflecting in her dark eyes could be seen in the blackness that had swallowed the land. He made a mental note to have a long talk with the vanth about the history and creation of the suman.

  Quinn sent Idril another look of mingled adoration and blatant lust. “That depends on what she who holds my heart decrees.”

  “Indeed,” Idril took the blanket Quinn had placed on a barrel for her, and said, “Since I am once again being forbidden to do as I desire, I will remove to a location further down the beach. I expect that a dawn start is agreeable to all.”

  “Let me help you make a comfortable bed,” Quinn called after her, quickly scrambling to his feet and picking up his own blanket.

  “I’d rather sleep with that repulsive wad of seaweed,” Idril told him in a scathing tone, turning and marching off to settle herself a little way down the beach.

  Quinn sighed to himself, then drained his goblet. “She’s just a bit prickly, and will no doubt be more agreeable in the morning. Since I can see you two want to be alone—although again, I’m happy to share in the action should your tastes swing that way—I will go make my bed in what remains of my cabin.”

  He snatched up the jug of wine and hurried off whistling tunelessly, disappearing into the blackness that lurked outside the circle of their fire.

  “And so we are alone,” Hallow told Allegria, sliding off the log to sit on the sand next to her. “Shall we make use of the two blankets that the captain has kindly provided us?”

  Allegria said nothing for several seconds, her brow furrowed in thought.

  He leaned over to nibble on her ear. “Wife?”