“Watch out!” I screamed. Talon turned, too slow. Razel was on him, her moonblade swinging in a low arc. It slashed across his thigh. He screamed, his knee buckling, and Razel lifted her other blade to cut his throat.
The snap of my bowstring was all the warning she had. With a twist, she knocked my arrow aside, continuing her momentum through with a swift kick to Talon’s head. He sprawled across the deck, unmoving.
“Talon!” I lurched for him, but Razel stepped between us. The wind whipped loose pieces of blond hair around her face, her bright eyes two chips of ice ringed in kohl. The rain tracked black tears down her pale skin. Behind her, Malkin had reached Caylus, who stood frozen as if before a demon, his back pressed against the forecastle.
“You’ve been busy.” Razel shifted, eyes angling toward Caylus and Malkin. “What a delightful enemy you’ve made. He was quite motivated to hunt you down again.”
Malkin held a coiled whip. Caylus’s chest rose and fell, his eyes filled with the fear of a trapped animal.
“I promised him he could have your friend in exchange for information.” Razel’s voice cut through the storm. “You won’t believe the story he spun about a crow that can do more than he should. A weapon like that might actually be able to stand against me.” She lifted her moonblades. “Why don’t you call down your pet?” she hissed.
Malkin unfurled the whip. I seized an arrow, but Razel launched herself at me. I caught her moonblade with the black gold limb of my bow. She swung through with her other blade, knocking the bow from my hands. I stumbled back. Malkin lifted his hand as Caylus slumped to the floor.
“Caylus!” I screamed, but a howling wind carried the word away. The gust flung Malkin aside and pushed Razel back. A piercing screech ripped through the air. Then Res was on the deck, his wings flared wide, the funnel of wind still barreling from his body. It pinned Malkin to the side of the ship and shoved Razel back inch by inch. She raised her hands to protect her face and, through sheer strength, forced a step forward.
I turned for Res and shoved a foot into a stirrup, swinging onto his back.
“Let me show you what Malkin saw,” I growled.
Res leapt onto the ship railing, then took off.
The storm swelled around us as if welcoming an old friend. Res banked hard and came back at Razel’s ship, and like a rolling thundercloud, an ocean wave rode with him. It grew and grew, rising above the other ship a moment before it slammed into it.
Several soldiers were thrown overboard into the raging sea, water drenching the deck and pouring off the sides. Those who’d survived yelled orders, frantically trying to recover. I exalted in the rush of power that flooded the link between Res and me, even as part of me recoiled at the destruction.
On the Aizel, Malkin had recovered, advancing on Caylus. But something had settled in Caylus’s eyes. Something hard that turned their soft green to jade.
Malkin lashed the whip, and Caylus caught it, letting it wrap around his forearm. Then he jerked it. Malkin stumbled toward him, and Caylus caught him by the throat, throwing him back against the ship railing. A wave crested over the top. When it pulled away, Malkin was gone.
Overhead, the storm grew, expanding in a flood as it fed off Res’s energy. Lightning snapped down on the blockade ships, shattering wood and sending soldiers screaming over the edge. Flames erupted to life, their hunger fed by Res’s power. The rain turned to shards of hail.
I searched the melee for Razel, but she’d vanished from the main deck.
An arrow clipped Res’s wing and sliced open my arm.
Res screamed as our pain flooded the link, and he turned erratically. Unprepared, I tumbled out of the saddle, seizing one stirrup at the last moment.
The wind buffeted me as Res tried to pull up, but my weight pulled him off balance, the line of the stirrup crossing over his wing and impeding his flight.
Razel stood high on the quarterdeck, my bow drawn with the second arrow she’d plucked from the ship’s side. Kiva rushed toward her, sword drawn, but she wouldn’t be fast enough.
Razel aimed for Res’s heart.
I didn’t think. I let go.
Res’s piercing cry filled the air. I felt his power erupt a moment before I struck the water and everything went dark.
Twelve
My vision swarmed back in a flash of images. Dark water closing overhead. Snapping, flickering light. A shadow looming over me.
My lungs screamed for air, and I inhaled reflexively, but only water rushed in.
Then a pair of strong arms seized me. Disoriented, I was aware only of the heat and pressure of an embrace and the strange, weightless feeling of being hoisted from the water. But those arms never let go.
Someone rolled me over the railing, and I hit the deck hard. Turning, I coughed up water and tried to choke down air to my burning lungs.
Then the ship pitched, and someone tumbled atop me.
I wheezed at the sudden weight, shoving at the solid form that had pinned me. My fingers curved around a muscled waist, pushing at the same time as the person sat back, his knees on either side of my hips.
Ericen stared back, blue eyes bright with concern. And…was the bastard smiling?
My heart tore in a hundred different directions. A rush of things rose to the tip of my tongue, but before I could pick one, a screech rent the air.
We both looked up.
Perched atop the broken remains of the mainmast at the center of the ship, wings spread wide, was Res. His body crackled with electricity as the storm surged around him, wind spiraling out to catch the debris of the ship, sending splintered wood and discarded blades into a vicious spin.
Below him, the battle had waned. Kiva slid her sword free from the chest of the last Illucian soldier. The rest of the crew ducked for cover from the rising storm as Samra screamed orders over the howling wind, yelling at me to make him stop.
A flash of gold—then Razel was sprinting for the ship’s edge. A soldier flung a rope to her, and she grabbed it. With one final, furious glance at me, she swung to the safety of the other ship. The ropes were cut, and the roiling ocean thrust us apart.
One by one, the feathers from the tip of Res’s beak to the edge of his tail hardened into metal. The wood began to creak around his claws, pulling up from the deck. The masts bent and groaned, cracking like splintering bones.
At Res’s back, a dark mass gathered, swirling like a turning disk.
“Is that—” A crash of thunder cut off the rest of Ericen’s words.
I gaped at the forming storm. Estrel had told me stories of storm crows powerful enough to create hurricanes on their own.
She’d never said how to make them stop.
“Res!” I yelled, my voice torn away by the wind. I reached for the cord, and emotions hurtled back down, flooding me with Res’s fear and panic. He grasped for control but couldn’t lock the magic back inside.
I shoved Ericen up, and he rolled aside, but something pulled me back atop him. Scowling, I shoved him down and pried at the rope around my waist. The other end trailed up to the harpoon embedded in the Aizel’s mast—the source of the rope he’d used to get me out.
Ericen slid a knife free from his boot and sheared through the rope with a clean snick. One of the sailors who’d hoisted us up helped me to my feet, and I stumbled toward the mast, but my legs felt weak and my lungs were still starved of air. My knees buckled and struck the deck.
Res, you have to stop! I called down the line.
Desperation echoed back, beating through my mind—help help help. Once, in the quiet of Caylus’s workshop, I’d pushed Res’s magic free along the cord. Maybe if I could do the reverse, if I could shove it back inside him before it tore us all apart… I closed my eyes and concentrated on the link. I focused on the feel of it strung between us, on the snap of wild energy darting through it. On Res’s own fe
ar at not being able to stop and the magic raging through him, as wild as the surrounding storm.
Then I seized it. Pain shot through me, sharp and radiating like a shock. I gasped, unable to grab the cord. Too much magic sizzled through it.
I forced myself back to my feet. The wind buffeted me back, snapping at my skin with debris. I could barely keep my eyes open.
Ericen appeared at my side, sliding under my arm just as my knees gave again. I fought to keep my feet as he towed me forward through the wind, one arm wrapped like a vise about my waist, the hand of the other clasped about my own.
My wounded arm stung viciously, and everything ached from the fall, but I pushed ahead. If I could just reach him—something sharp sliced along my back, and I gasped.
Res! Pain seared through my back and shoulder. A new emotion shot down the cord: horror.
Res let out a shrill, anguished cry, struggling to withdraw the magic. It kept flowing. A piece of shrapnel sliced my cheek. I tore free from Ericen’s hold, forcing step after step toward Res. Then I was before him. The cool metal of his armored feathers was hard beneath my touch. I seized him, wrapping my arms about his neck and pulling him close.
I’ve got you. I clung tighter to him. He shook in my grasp, alternating beats of emotion pounding inside me. Fear. Pain. Confusion. Fear. Pain. Horror.
I’ve got you, Res. Let go.
The cord shuddered, then slackened. The magic zipping along it slowed, the tornado of wind and wreckage around us dying. Then all at once, it stopped.
Debris clattered to the deck. The wind fell still. Res’s feathers turned from metal to silken black, and he collapsed into my arms. I dropped to my knees.
“I’ve got you,” I repeated, clinging to the words, to him, to an ancient, powerful beast too big to hold that shook in my arms like a hatchling. “I’ve got you.”
* * *
The storm had pushed us nearly to shore. With the distance between us, Malkin’s ravaged ship couldn’t catch up, and we coasted into Trendellan waters with the last remnants of our sails.
I hadn’t moved from my spot on the deck, Res still clutched in my arms. Echoing emotion like racking sobs trembled down the bond.
In that moment, I understood. Res had blamed himself for my fall, and he’d lost control. When I’d resurfaced, he couldn’t rein himself in, and he’d only hurt me more. A dozen nicks and grazes joined the slice of Razel’s blade and the cut of the arrow, and my entire body felt weak from the fall, and Res blamed himself for all of it.
“I’m okay,” I whispered, but Res could feel my pain as I could his. It spiderwebbed through my heart, filling me as if it were my own. I wanted to soothe it, to take it away, but it was so raw and full of fear. Like if I touched it, he would scream.
Hot tears trailed down my cheeks, and I knew Res felt the turmoil inside me. He could feel my desperation, my fear, my shame at not being able to help.
Guilt rocked between us, a second, darker link that bound like a chain.
“We’re okay,” I breathed, the words half prayer.
Footsteps sounded, and I looked up into Samra’s grave expression. I expected her to yell, to blame me for her decimated ship, but she only nodded at the presence at my side. The one I’d been ignoring, even as I felt the heat of his gaze searing into me.
“He belong to you?” she asked.
Something like a laugh choked out of me. I looked up into Ericen’s concerned face. Only then did I notice Kiva standing to one side of him, Sinvarra leveled at his throat. He’d disregarded the blade’s presence as if it were a gnat.
I expected him to quip back at Samra, but he didn’t. For some reason, that made my heart skip.
“Why are you here?” Kiva demanded.
“Traitors tend not to be welcome on Illucian ships,” he replied.
“Traitor?” Kiva scoffed.
“I do believe that’s what they call you when you change sides.” One corner of his lips turned up in a familiar smirk, and a spark ignited inside me. I hated when he smiled like that. Like this was all a game.
I knew better.
If he’d truly changed sides, if he was being honest, it meant he’d turned his back on everything he’d once served. This was not a game.
“Why are you here, Ericen?” I forced myself to my feet, Res rising with me. “What do you want?”
“Those are two very different questions.” His voice dipped low, and I felt the intent behind his words pulse between us. It sent a thrill coursing through me despite my exhaustion.
One of the crew shifted aside, and Caylus stepped past him. Like Kiva, he had scratches along his forearms and on his face, but he was otherwise unharmed. Completely oblivious to the tension of the moment, he said, “I managed to get Talon belowdecks. He’s with his sister,” he said. “Everyone else’s injuries are manageable.” He lifted a hand, offering me my bow. Relief washed through me. “Kiva took it back from her,” he told me with a smile.
“And nearly got stabbed again for my trouble,” Kiva muttered.
I looked toward Malkin’s retreating ship, making slowly for the waiting blockade. More than one had been abandoned, destroyed by Res’s magic.
I did that. I expected the thought to turn me raw, but I felt only a hollow pit of exhaustion. People were dead because of me, because of Res’s power, and yet some part of me had actually enjoyed that battle. Unleashing Res’s magic, getting revenge on the Illucian soldiers who’d shattered my home—it’d felt good.
It’d felt powerful, and that scared me.
“Will they follow us into port?” I asked Ericen.
“No, not without dragging Trendell into this war,” he replied, and for the first time, I really looked at him. He wore a simple tunic and black pants, leather vambraces pulled tight at his forearms. The twin swords usually strapped to his back were in a heap at Kiva’s feet. He looked exhausted. “My mother’s not prepared for that.”
“According to you,” Kiva said, tilting Sinvarra threateningly. “I’d say the same thing if I wanted my enemy to be unprepared.”
“Yes, what a fantastic strategy,” Ericen snapped back. “Rescuing my enemy from raging seawaters in the middle of hurricanes. Keeps me fit.”
“He did save me,” I noted.
“Because Razel doesn’t want you dead,” Kiva replied.
“So she traded us her son as a bargaining chip?”
Kiva shrugged. “Wouldn’t put it past her.”
Something sharp flickered through Ericen’s gaze, the emotion shut down as quickly as it surfaced. He held out his hands. “Let’s skip to the part where you jump to conclusions and go straight to the cuffs, shall we? We’re almost in port.”
No one protested as exactly that was done. Even I couldn’t argue that leaving one of the most highly trained soldiers in Illucia unrestrained wasn’t a good idea, even if he had saved my life. Ericen’s loyalty had been called into question too many times for me to vouch for him with total confidence.
By the time we docked, a small crowd had gathered on land, murmuring among themselves. They probably wondered what we’d done to incur the blockade’s wrath.
Caylus, Kiva, and I gathered our supplies, Caylus tucking a folded bundle into his pack that I didn’t recognize. Something about him seemed different, like he stood a little bit taller.
When I pulled him aside to ask how he was, he looked almost guilty. “Is it wrong that I’m happy he’s dead?” he asked.
I didn’t know how to answer. Malkin had torn Caylus’s life apart. He’d tortured him mentally and physically and murdered his younger sister.
Instead, I squeezed his hand, only to find that it wasn’t shaking.
Samra planned to come with us, leaving what remained of the ship under her first mate’s command. Onis had been locked in the brig. She’d wanted to turn him over to the Trendellan guard
or at the very least strand him in Terin, but I’d convinced her he’d only been afraid. In the end, she ordered the crew to let him go with his money and belongings after we were out of town.
Luan tended to my shoulder and back. The cuts weren’t deep; only the one on my shoulder needed stitches, and even then I wasn’t sure it was necessary. Once Res recovered, he could heal me.
We gathered together as two crewmen lowered the gangplank, Res moping along beside me like a kicked dog. I brushed my fingers along his neck, wanting to comfort him, but he didn’t respond. The moment we had a second of quiet, I’d talk to him.
Kiva had happily volunteered to take first watch of Ericen, one hand settled on Sinvarra. He didn’t seem to mind, far more fascinated by the crow towering over him.
When Samra joined us, I did a double take. Perched on her shoulders like a bird sat Aroch.
“You’re bringing the cat?” I asked.
Samra lifted a brow, but before she could respond, a commotion rose from the gathered crowd below. I turned, expecting pointing fingers and awed expressions and instead found the crowd parting for a retinue of soldiers on horseback, led by a small, thin girl clad in elegant green and gold armor.
A thrill of excitement whirled through me. I knew her.
Her short, dark hair had been gathered into thin braids curling along one side of her head, threaded with tiny glass beads. She sat with a rigid, proud posture, her eyes set on us.
Kiva lurched forward a step. “Auma.”
She rode with a small group of Jin soldiers, many of their faces bearing intricate designs in subtle colors. Tama, marks that indicated which guilds they’d once belonged to in Jindae. I recognized the rounded, swirling design of the gem guild tattooed on one man’s face, but I’d never had the mind for remembering these things. If Caliza were here, she could have named each one and decoded the marks for everyone’s rank and specialty.
Auma slowed her horse at the base of the gangplank. Kiva was the first to move, forcing Ericen forward, the rest of us following a second behind. The whispers rose as Res reemerged fully, eliciting several gasps. I expected him to puff out his feathers and lift his head for the praise, but he remained subdued.
The Crow Rider Page 10