And did it matter if he was? He had Mari.
The closer we got to the docks, the more the metallic scent of fish saturated the air. Even the drizzling rain couldn’t dispel it. Brownlok slowed as the docks came into view, tying his horse to a post and walking next to us, Mari on his other side. He studied the boats rocking in the turbulent sea—most too small to hold all of us. Even if we found a boat large enough and a captain who would take us, would we survive the storm?
“Well, well, well, Brownlok. What have you brought for me?”
My gaze snapped forward, and I tucked Chiara behind my shoulder.
Koranth stood in front of us around the bend in the docks, his black eyes as bottomless as the sea behind him, his skin as gray as the sky, black blade at his hip. Redalia stood beside him, black cloak rustling in the wind coming off the sea, slits of red flashing underneath.
The scene beyond the mages was worse.
Jenna lay still in the bed of a cart—too still—her hair tangled behind her. Enzo slumped against a wheel, purple bruises stark against sallow skin. Cris stood guard over them both.
The Medallion switched from hot to ice-cold so fast it pulled the air from my lungs.
Years—we’d been the best of friends for years. Cris had helped me scare Jenna’s untrustworthy suitors away. Snuck into the kitchens with me. We’d rescued each other from punishments countless times. And now he preened with these mages, standing over my sister as if he’d won some prize.
He’d betrayed me once, and I’d let him get away. He wouldn’t escape again.
My hands clenched so tight that Chiara gasped, and I loosened my hold on her. But only a little. I needed her here, grounding me. Keeping my head in the present, and not focused on gutting Cris with whatever mildly sharp instrument I could find.
Jenna was supposed to be safe in Turia with Enzo. Her magic was like nothing I’d ever seen—how had Redalia captured them?
“I thought I told you to find the Black Library,” Koranth said to Brownlok, his voice scraping like a rusty spoon against stone.
Brownlok set a hand on his hip as though he hadn’t a care in the world. “And that’s what I’m about to do. I told you I needed more pieces to find it. I’ve got the pieces now. You have a boat?”
Koranth gestured to a medium-sized ship at the docks. A small crew of rough men stomped between the dock and deck, preparing for departure despite the waves coming in.
“I don’t think we should get on that boat,” Chiara whispered.
“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” I muttered.
Chiara couldn’t stop staring at Enzo and Jenna. “Is she…?”
“No,” I whispered. “She’s breathing.” Though I didn’t know what ailed her. Had they stolen her memory, like they’d stolen Marko’s?
“Everything is prepared for our journey,” Koranth said, raising his hands like he addressed a crowd. “Lord Cris will relieve you of your weapons and artifacts, and then we’ll be on our way.” He gave us a terrifying smile. “It’s thanks to his keen tracking skills we are having this delightful reunion.”
I wanted to kick myself. Getting Marko out of the palace had been too easy. We were the targets all along.
I stared down Cris as he approached with coarse rope looped over his shoulder. His features hadn’t changed, yet I barely recognized him. Darkness had settled into his eyes, into the shadows of his face. He flicked my empty belt. “What, no sword?”
My jaw stayed clenched tight. He didn’t deserve an answer.
A man—huge and rough—grabbed Chiara from behind, wrapping a thick, meaty arm around her neck. I lurched for her, but Cris drew his sword, stopping me.
Chiara shook her head at me, like that would get me to stand down. Too many threats, from too many angles. How could I possibly keep everyone safe?
“Your crest,” Cris grunted, ready to attack. Crest? Oh.
I ripped the chain with the Medallion off and thrust it into Cris’s hands. Then swung hard, my fist ramming into his jaw. Cris fell back two steps. He swung his sword. It arched toward me. Mari screamed. But the mages needed me. And Cris knew it.
At the last second, Cris changed the angle, and the blade sliced through my shoulder, the cut deep and long. I flinched, but uttered no sound or cry of distress. Cris didn’t deserve the satisfaction.
“What are you doing?” Redalia spat. “We need him whole.”
The man holding Chiara shoved her forward and joined his crewmates.
“If he had a weapon, he would have used it. He’ll be good as new soon, won’t you?” Cris glared at me, then shoved his sword back into its sheath. He might as well have been shoving it into my chest. I’d confided in him. He put the Medallion over his head and tucked it into his tunic. I’d trusted him. “You are king no longer.”
And from the heat in his glare, I didn’t think I’d be alive much longer, either.
No one protested that he’d taken the Medallion. One of the keys. Did they…Was it possible they didn’t know its importance?
Koranth pulled his hood forward, leaving only his glittering eyes visible. “While it is kind of you to join us, Princess,” he said, dipping his hood toward Chiara, “you do not have the blood of Kais in your veins, nor do you have magic that could assist our journey.”
My mouth dried out. No. No no no no—
“You are therefore of no value.” Koranth nodded to Redalia. “Kill her.”
Chiara
Redalia held her hand up, and searing pain like I’d never felt before stabbed through my chest. Like she had my heart in her hand and was pulling it out through my skin. My face tilted to the sky. My thoughts fragmented. I couldn’t even scream. Raindrops that tasted of fish and salt dripped into my open mouth.
Then something changed. Her power released me. I collapsed in a heap on the dock. Phantom echoes of pain lanced through my bones.
Ren stood in front of me, arms out, one sleeve dark red with his blood. He shook his head, as though shaking away Redalia’s tentacles. “We need her if you want to find the Black Library,” he growled at Koranth. “She’s your best chance at interpreting the map.”
I lay unmoving, afraid the pain in my chest would return. What was Ren talking about? I had no clue how to interpret the map, and he knew it. I groaned. My hand wouldn’t unclench from the stone box that no one had bothered to take from me.
“What do you mean?” Koranth asked. Redalia’s hand stayed on her golden dagger.
Ren’s stance never changed. He stood over me like he’d fight anyone who came near, even without a weapon. “We found the map to the Black Library. She can interpret the poem written with it.”
Koranth glared. “Search her.”
“She has no weapon—” Ren started, but Redalia held her hand out and he froze in place.
Cris gently pried the box from my grip. “No,” I muttered, too weak to push him away. He flinched when he met my eyes, but he dug into my pocket and pulled out Jenna’s book.
The book still had the clue in it.
“Only these.” He handed them to Koranth.
Koranth lifted the latch on the box with shaking fingers, and the wind tugged his hood back. The black caverns of his eyes seemed to glow, and his lips twisted up in a fearsome grin. “I’ve searched for hundreds of years,” he muttered. “Finally!”
Hundreds of years? How ingrained was Graymere in Koranth?
Redalia took the book and began to flip through it. “It’s blank,” she said with a sneer. “Nothing worth writing about?” She hadn’t seen the loose page. My legs trembled too much to stand, but I propped myself up to sitting.
Ren glared at her, still standing over me. Blood dripped from his fingers. “There was another part to the poem. Chiara memorized it.”
Koranth’s teeth ground together as he thought, and his
eyes twitched. “Fine. She’ll live. For now.”
A dangerous glint appeared in Redalia’s eyes as she considered me, and Ren’s words from before came back—how I could be used for leverage against my father. Now, I’d be leverage against Ren, Enzo, and Jenna.
Redalia tapped the book against her hand once, waited until I followed the motion with my eyes, then tossed it into the sea.
My heart—my hope—sunk along with it.
Then Mari was by my side, and Ren, too, each with a hand under my arms to help me up. Brownlok hovered next to Mari, arms folded, glaring at us.
“Chiara?” Mari asked, her eyes huge brown pools in her face. “What happened? When did you get here?”
I hugged her close, unable to speak yet.
Ren held his hands in front of him to be tied. No fresh blood dripped over the knots Cris jerked tight around his wrists.
It had been Cris I’d seen at Lessia’s inn. The rocks that had loosened from the cliffs in the fog—had he descended after us?
One of Koranth’s men picked up Enzo and began dragging him toward the ship. Another hefted Jenna over his shoulder like a sack of grain and followed.
Ren’s chest rumbled in the start of a growl, and I slipped my hand into the crook of his elbow and leaned against him, still weak from whatever Redalia had done to me. “Not yet,” I whispered hoarsely. “Not yet.”
Koranth turned to us and held out his arm like he was welcoming honored guests onto the ship. “This way, if you would. I’d hate to see anything happen to your family.”
I tucked Mari to my side and followed Ren over the narrow gangway and onto the vessel. Brownlok stayed right on our heels, then Redalia and Cris. One of the ship’s crew pulled the board onto the ship and tucked it against the railing. The deck swayed and bobbed with the waves below, and my vision spun along with my stomach.
Koranth pointed to where the mast rose from the deck. “You’ll enjoy the journey much more from right here where I can keep my eye on you,” he said. His voice sounded funny—deeper and more slurred than when he’d been ambassador in our palace.
Crew members came behind us with clubs, herding us to the center of the deck. Enzo was already settled against the mast, and Mari and I sat quickly, huddled against the rough wood at our backs. I hoped that if we complied, they wouldn’t tie us up. They didn’t. Not that Mari or I were a threat to anyone here.
Jenna wasn’t with Enzo. The man holding her must have taken her elsewhere on the ship.
A man with a dark beard—the one who had grabbed me earlier—shoved Ren back so he fell next to me. With his hands tied in front of him, he couldn’t catch himself and his head smacked against the mast. Mari flinched into me. I helped Ren sit up as he shook the pain away.
Mari put her hands on Enzo’s face, gently prodding his bruises. “He’s so cold, Chiara.” Her tiny voice wavered. Her curls fell into her eyes when she turned to me and Ren. “He needs Yesilia. And Jenna, she’s…” She choked up and couldn’t speak. I wouldn’t tell her about Father. She didn’t need more troubles.
Ren swallowed and his lips tipped into a smile. He leaned over me and Mari, grabbed Enzo’s arm with his bound hands, and closed his eyes. Only Brownlok paid us any mind, and he didn’t object.
Ren leaned into me more and more the longer he held on to Enzo. His skin took on a grayish hue. The words from the cave in Riiga came back, how he had to be touching a person to heal them, how if he gave too much magic, he’d—
I wrapped my arms around him and pushed. He didn’t budge. I pressed my back against the mast and shoved with all my strength. Ren tumbled onto the deck, away from Enzo.
He lay still for two long seconds, then pulled himself up with a groan.
“Don’t you ever do something like that again.” I kept myself from yelling, but only barely. His brows furrowed like he didn’t understand me. “We need you,” I whispered, my words choked and broken.
His normally sparkling eyes were bleak, dull. “I don’t have a sword. Don’t have the Medallion.”
I took his face in my hands. “I don’t care. Be. Careful.”
Enzo began to shift and groan, and my attention snapped to him. My bottom lip trembled as his eyes opened slowly, then fell closed again. The crew bustled around the deck, unconcerned with us now that the docks faded in the distance.
I wrapped my arm through Ren’s and helped him sit. “His face still looks like it’s been smashed,” I whispered.
Ren nodded. “He was more broken than I expected. It’s good he still has bruises. I don’t want them to think he needs to be tied up.” He leaned against me, heavy again. “Thank you. For stopping me.”
I breathed out slowly, tamping down my jumping thoughts and stomach. My mind shifted, looking for opportunities. Mari and I weren’t tied up. Ren had the ring. Maybe we could leverage that for Jenna. “I don’t like this,” I whispered, tears mingling with rain on my cheeks.
“I don’t, either.” His head dropped, and he blinked slowly. “I…I may have overdone it.”
My fingers dug into the muscles in his arms. “What? What do you need?”
He leaned into me. “Sleep.”
Jenna’s energy had been drained when she used her magic to help us escape Brownlok’s men during the palace invasion. It seemed so long ago, yet it had been only a few months. And now we were on a ship off the coast of Riiga with Koranth and his mages. Jenna wouldn’t be able to help us now. Ren’s head fell onto my shoulder, heavy with sleep.
I studied the men around us. Each was barefoot and kept his balance easily on the waves. Each had a knife in his belt, sometimes a sword or club as well. Five in total, all busy with their tasks—raising the sail, tightening ropes. The waves here were even bigger, though we stayed within sight of the Plateau’s cliffs rising from the foaming sea.
I couldn’t tell how fast we traveled as we rode the waves, only that we headed west. Toward the Wastelands.
My stomach turned and rolled with the waves. I didn’t want to move and disturb Ren, though I wasn’t sure he could be roused after using so much magic.
Helpless.
Alone.
Useless.
So tired. Hungry. What Redalia had done to me, the pain had been like she’d taken a knife to every part of me at once. But I hadn’t forgotten like my father.
“He hasn’t stopped watching us,” Enzo muttered. My eyes shot open. Had I fallen asleep? Enzo stretched his back and neck.
Full night had descended, and with the clouds blocking the stars, we may as well have been in that windowless room in Janiis’s palace. I had no idea what time it was, how long we’d been at sea. But at least Enzo was awake. Alive. I leaned over Mari and hugged him. He squeezed back gently.
“Who’s watching us?” Mari asked loudly. A couple of men looked over at us, like they’d forgotten we were there. One glared at Enzo, then ducked into a door at the other end of the deck.
Brownlok stood on the one raised portion of the boat—the captain’s quarters. A crewman steered the ship with a great wooden wheel, making small adjustments and calling out to the men at the sail. Brownlok silently watched us from under the hood of his cloak, which he held tight against him in the wind.
“Up on the bow,” I whispered to Mari. “The others are in the captain’s quarters, but he’s still here.”
“Where?” she craned her head around. Brownlok was smirking by now, so I just pointed him out. No use being subtle with Mari around.
“How do you know so much about boats?” Ren asked. He still rested against me, but his hands were in his lap, working at the knots. He needed more rest—he shouldn’t be awake yet.
I shrugged. “There’s a whole shelf of books with pirate stories in the library.” I pointed to the rope. “Do you want help?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t want you getting in troubl
e if someone catches you.”
“Well,” Mari said, shifting next to me on the hard deck, “I’d rather have Brownlok watching us than anyone else. He’s the only nice one.”
My brow furrowed. “Mari, what happened at home? And what do you mean, he’s nice? He kidnapped you!”
She shook her head and frowned. “He didn’t kidnap me. I ran away. You got to come on the adventure, and I wanted to help Father, too.” Her shoulders dropped and she tucked her hands under her arms. “Everyone always leaves me behind,” she finished in a whisper.
I pulled on one of my braids that had fallen over my shoulder to keep from screaming. She was eight. She really thought she could run away and there wouldn’t be consequences? My head and stomach ached, and I rubbed my forehead. Hadn’t I done the same thing?
“What about you?” Ren asked Enzo. “Did you get my message? Do you think Janiis will attack even though the mages are here?”
Enzo rubbed his forehead, prodding his bruises. “What message? What do you mean, attack?”
Oh no. What would all those villagers do when Riigans overran them?
Ren sighed. “Janiis is amassing troops. He built three gigantic pulley systems to raise an army onto the Plateau and invade Turia.”
“Cavolo,” Enzo muttered, holding his head tighter. “If you sent a message, my mother would have received it. She’ll…she’ll know what to do.”
Would she?
“How were you and Jenna captured?” I asked. Maybe it would help me piece together a solution. A way out. I pulled Ren’s hands into my lap so I could pick at the knots. I didn’t care if someone caught me. I needed to do something.
Enzo sighed long and low. “Jenna was going to go after Mari. I knew she was—she’d never let anything happen to her. But I didn’t want her to go alone, not when she faced everything alone last time. So we chased after Mari for days, following her trail into Riiga.”
He didn’t say it, but I could see Mari connect the pieces on her own—she was the reason Jenna and Enzo had been captured and were in danger, which put all of Turia in danger.
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