“What is it?” Storm asked.
I glanced at him over my shoulder. The link between us was going to make my life easier. “I’m wondering about Tommy. Did you get to see him?”
“No, lass. I regained consciousness on our way here, but Nerissa said he was still under Moira’s care.”
My eyes met Nereus. “Tommy is my brother.”
“You have another one?”
“No, just the one.”
“I don’t understand,” Nereus murmured. “I heard your brother died when Tully’s men tried to get him.”
I grinned. “No, that was Tully being a tool. I pretended I didn’t know Tommy was alive, and he said he’d been killed. But, Tommy is very much alive on Vaarda.”
The people ahead stopped, forcing us to stop, too.
“What’s going on?” I asked.
“We’ve arrived,” Nereus said. He walked ahead and squeezed past the others.
Storm put an arm around my shoulders and tucked me beside him. Because of the link between us, I felt the emotions from the others.
“They’re worried,” I said.
“You can feel them already?”
I nodded.
He grinned. “The bond grows stronger the longer we link.”
“Is that normal?”
“I don’t know, but it’s more than I expected.”
“Can you tell what they’re worried about?”
He chuckled. “Usually no, unless I’d already talked to the person or knew their personal problems, but this time I can say with certainty the people above the ground are worried about us. They’ll be okay now that we’re all here.”
We went up a set of stairs, through a trap door and a short hallway, and into a room packed with islanders seated on chests and barrels, eating and drinking. My stomach growled. I never got to eat the sausages at the marketplace, and dinner had been a bust. I was starving.
When they saw us, the islanders raised their tumblers in silent salutation, left their food and drinks, and traded hugs. There was not much talking.
Storm had said he’d brought enough people to cause mayhem, yet I counted twenty-four and the four captains—Storm, Nerissa, Levi, and Kheelan. That was six people per captain. Where was Zale?
My stomach growled while I hugged Kheelan, and he laughed and shared his warm loaf.
“Thank you. I’m starving.”
“I’ll get you a drink.” He turned to walk away, but I caught his arm.
“Where’s Zale?”
“Getting the ship he’d commandeered ready,” he said.
“I thought he destroyed all the ships.”
“Oh, yes. He and his team torched the ships and disabled the rudders of the merchant ships in case the army tried to use them to come after us,” he explained.
“Oh. What ship did you use to get here, and where is it?”
“We came on the Mac Lir. It’s waiting for us miles from here, little sister,” Nerissa answered, joining us. “We swam with Levi. Then Storm flew us over the cliffs of Dumha na Aine so we could sneak into the city.”
Dumha na Aine. Where had I heard that name? Ah, the mountain across the valley from Port Hy’Brasil where Lachlan’s farm is located.
Nerissa put an arm around my shoulder. “So I just heard about the tongue whipping you gave the generals. I can’t believe I missed it.”
“What tongue whipping?” Kheelan asked.
“There was no tongue-lashing,” I protested and bit into the bread.
“There most definitely was. At the palace gates. You need to hear it from them, Kheelan.” She indicated the group who’d arrived with us. “Storm also gave a speech to his supporters that brought tears to their eyes, revealing a few family secrets. Next time, I’m staying with you two. You can’t start a revolution without me.”
“There was no revolution,” I said.
“You told a general to shut up and listen, or you’d finish him with a silver-tipped arrow.”
“Okay, I admit to saying that. He was pompous and called Kelpies mules,” I mumbled and took a bite of the bread.
“Was Levi there?” Kheelan asked.
“Yes. You know his version will be one sentence. Ask the others.”
“You guys don’t know how to talk to him. I’ll get you a drink, lass, before I work my magic on the dragon.”
“I want you on my ship when you finish training, Lexi.” Nerissa rubbed her hands and grinned. “We can cause mayhem on the seven seas, break hearts along the way, and become legends.”
“You are already a legend, Red. You see those two guys over there.” I pointed at Nereus and Banan. “They wanted to know about you from the moment we met. I think they both had a crush on you before meeting you tonight. Why don’t you go make their dreams come true? Storm is trying to get me attention.”
Storm was having a deep discussion with the healer near a doorway, and both of them kept glancing my way. Storm didn’t look happy. While Nerissa headed toward Nereus and Banan with a gleam in her eyes, I skirted around people on my way to my mate.
People patted my back or my arm as I walked past them. I nodded and smiled, but my gaze kept going to Storm.
“How is she doing?” I asked the second I reached them.
CHAPTER 16
“Come inside,” the healer said and stepped back. “She has the chills and should be awake by now, yet she still continues to sleep. I don’t understand why.”
The room had at least a dozen beds, and the queen mother was on one of them. Gwyn sat on a chair by her side. On the floor was a bottle of elixir like the one Athol had given me earlier at the market. I pulled up a chair and joined Gwyn.
Sweat coated the queen mother’s skin, yet she was shivering.
“Her reaction seems normal, lass, yet she does not wake up,” the healer said. “I’ve never seen anything like this before, but then again, I deal with herbs. A fractured mind and a shattered soul cannot be healed with herbs.”
I wanted to tell Athol to shut up. With every word that left his mouth, Storm grew paler under his tan.
“Come.” I extended my hand to Storm.
He hesitated, fear filtering from his psyche.
“She needs to hear your voice, he’lahn,” I said. My eyes met with Gwyn’s, and I indicated the door. She understood and nodded. Standing, she firmly took Athol’s arm and nudged him out of the room. I waited until the door closed behind them before I spoke again.
“Sit, please.”
“I don’t know what to tell her,” Storm said.
“Everything. When I talked to her, I told her about the islanders, you, and the other captains since she remembered them. Just talk to her. About the past. When you were young. The things that happened after she left. Anything she might have missed when you were growing up. How you found the island.”
He still hesitated.
“Please. It will be good for her to hear your voice and about your life, Storm. And you’ll feel better once you share your past with her.”
Taking a deep breath, Storm took my hand and came to sit beside me. He was so large he dwarfed the chair. Like earlier in the tower, he stared at her.
“I’ll wait outside—”
“No.” His grip tightened. He shook his head. “I can’t.”
“Yes, Storm. You can.”
“I can’t do it alone. Not without you.”
My heart melted. “Then I’ll stay.”
He didn’t speak right away. Instead, he reached out with the other hand and lifted the wet strands of hair from her sweaty forehead.
“She’s not like I imagined,” he said. “As the king’s mistress, I expected her to be powerful. Unbreakable. Cold and mean. Instead, she’s frail. Fragile. I must start by erasing everything I thought I knew about her. Let go of the anger. The loathing.”
Holy crap!
He frowned. “No, there’s no basis for such feelings. I want to start at the beginning. The morning I woke up and found her gone. My grandfather had to
ld me she… you had taken Tully to see a healer because he wasn’t feeling well. Since he was sickly as a child, I didn’t question this. But every day I waited for you to come back. I climbed the tree, the lookout Tully and I used whenever we wanted to see if Father was coming home. I climbed it every day after lessons and waited for you and Tully to come home. I checked in the morning before I left, then in the evening after the instructor let us out. I couldn’t even let Nerissa, Ryun, or Deck come up, yet that had been our tree. I guess I didn’t want them to see me so vulnerable and hurt. The tears. The anger.”
Tears filled my eyes, and his hand tightened around mine as though to console me.
“After the first week, I stayed longer and longer, until sunset, and Grandma would beg me to come down. When that failed, Grandpa would take the ladder and get me down. I didn’t understand what was taking you so long. Tully was never sick for that long.”
A deep sigh left him, and he went silent. I wasn’t sure he’d continue.
“Then I overheard Grandpa and Grandma talking. They said you weren’t coming back. You couldn’t because you had to choose only one son to live with you. I didn’t understand why. But I understood one thing. You’d chosen Tully, not me.”
He chuckled, and a sob escaped me, tears rolling down my cheek.
“I figured something had to be wrong with me and that was why you’d chosen him. Was it my wings? I had them, and he didn’t. It was the only thing physically different about me. Was it because I always bothered you and Father with questions about everything I saw and did while Tully was the quiet one? Was it because I was competitive and loved to win when we played games or a sport while Tully was content watching from the sidelines?”
He let go of my hand and picked up his mother’s, his touch gentle. I rested my chin on the heel of my hands and cried for the child he once was and the pain he’d endured.
“For months, I searched for answers, but my grandparents stuck to their story of Tully being ill and needing you. I asked them if Tully needed our father, too, since he stopped coming.”
He paused and angled his head, and for a moment, I thought he would stop.
“Then one day we were playing a game at school, where the chosen leaders could pick other students to join their team. This snooty girl in my class I had secretly liked pointed at me and said, “I don’t want Storm Orath on my team. He’s unlovable. That’s why his mother left him. She couldn’t find anything in him to love.”
My breath hitched as another sob escaped, but I doubted Storm heard me. He wore a tiny smile as though looking back and finding the moment funny while my heart shattered into tiny pieces. And I’d thought my childhood had been shitty. Mine had nothing on his.
“I remember standing in front of the group and staring at her and not once thinking she was lying or trying to hurt me. She’d given me an explanation for something that had eluded me for months. While Nerissa jumped on her, pounded her, and ripped out her hair, I turned and walked away. I never climbed that tree again. I never asked Grandpa and Grandma about why you left me. And I never shed another tear, not even when the fire gutted our home and they died.”
He paused and angled his head again. This time, he put his mother’s hand down and got up.
“Stay here,” he said.
Before he reached the door, it flew open, and a heavy-breathing Levi stood in the threshold. I’d say he looked worried.
“We need to go,” Levi said. “The ship is here, but trouble followed it.” His eyes went to the queen mother. “Is that…?”
“My mother.” Storm turned and, without hesitating, walked to the bed, scooped her up, and handed her to Levi. “Take her to the ship.”
I raced toward the door. “Gwyn! We can’t leave without her.”
“We’ll find her,” Storm said and swept me off my feet at a run. “On to my back.”
I grabbed on to his neck as he heaved me to his back without slowing down. Outside the room, swordsmen and shieldmaidens already had their weapons drawn. They raced toward the stairs.
“Gwyn!” I yelled.
“Over here.” She was at the other end of the room with Nereus.
“Take her to the ship, Nereus,” I called.
We followed the others to the front of the building, up a set of stairs to an open trap door. It led to a huge room with a high ceiling. From the barrels and sacks piled and secured in rows around the room and the sounds of sloshing water, we were in a warehouse by the docks. We headed to the wide doors leading outside, where several ships docked. All had broken masts, except the one at the farthest end. It had lanterns on the deck, and the sails were open.
The crew sprinted toward it. Shouts and sounds of hooves pounding on the ground reached us, but I couldn’t tell the direction they were coming from.
Storm went into a partial shift while in a full run. His chin, mouth, ears shifted and changed shape. Hair sprouted from his pores as a Kelpie muzzle replaced his human face. His neck corded and grew bigger, forcing me to adjust my grip around it. Bones snapped, his shoulders expanding as muscles trembled and spasmed as they rearranged themselves.
A rip filled the air as his wings broke through his shirt and expanded. Then, we were in the air. Below, the crew sprinted, lugging the chest and sacks of loot from the palace. I tried to find Gwyn, Nereus, and Banan, but it was impossible to identify them in the darkness. Levi cradled the queen mother close, but he and the captains were in the rear, probably making sure no one was left behind.
Storm landed on the deck, where Zale and his crew of six were getting the ship ready to sail. Two were hauling up the anchor. Another was up mast opening the last sails. I hopped off his back.
“Need help?” Zale called out from near the helm.
“Pull away from the pier. They’ll jump, shift, and make it. Go to the cabin,” he told me then took off again.
I ran to the cabin as lightning split the sky. Someone had lit candelabra. Instead of stepping inside, I dumped my bow and bag of arrows inside and ran back to the deck, my eyes searching for those chasing us.
Flashes of lightning split the sky as Storm flew above the crew racing to the ship. The ones carrying the loot were in the rear by the captains, who helped with the chests. Storm dipped, then shot up again, carrying someone. I knew it was his mother.
“Leave the loot behind,” he yelled down to his people. “Get to the ship. All hands on deck.”
I held the cabin door open as he approached. When he landed, he took her inside and left again. Our pursuers were now on the pier. Dark figures on horses with swords raised. The first bolt hit the ground in front of them, and their horses reared.
Some veered to the left and right, away from the bolts, hoping to escape being hit. From our interaction at the palace entrance, they should know we wouldn’t deliberately zap them, but only a fool would tempt fate. A barrage of white flashes cut them off. This time, they backed off. Or so I thought.
More came from behind the first group. They must have found Tully, and he or the generals must have ordered them to stop us.
The new arrivals jumped off their horses and raced toward the water. If they made it and shifted, they could climb our ship and attack. Storm cut them off, the clouds spitting bolts and striking the ground around them until they were surrounded.
It looked like a cascading effect in a fireworks display, except the bolts came from the sky and they were real and lethal.
The hero of the moment didn’t even miss a beat. He grabbed the chests his people had left and brought them on board one at a time. He plucked someone from the ground and flew back. It was Gwyn.
When he landed on the deck with Gwyn, the others were right behind him. The ship was already pulling away. Some jumped onto the deck, rolling as they landed, while others ran across the plank before it dropped.
“In here, Gwyn,” I called.
The woman entered the room and went straight to the queen mother. I stayed on the deck, joining the crew in their victorious chee
r as the ship pulled away from the docks. The barrage of lightning continued.
My eyes connected with Banan. He wore a wide grin. I searched for Nereus among the crew on the deck, but I didn’t see him.
“Where’s Nereus?”
“He wasn’t planning on coming, lass,” Banan said. “He chose to stay and work with Lord Conyngham and the underground movement. He meant to tell you, but he didn’t get a chance.”
It took a great man to walk away from what he’d been seeking for a very long time when it was within his grasp. And to do it for a greater good made him a hero in my eyes.
“He said you should never stop practicing with your arrows because the next time you meet, you’d better not miss. He said you’d understand.”
Yep, I’d missed quite a bit of my targets during practice. I hugged Banan.
“Thanks, Banan. I know I’ll see him again.”
“Welcome to our band of merry pirates, Swordsman Banan,” one of our shieldmaidens said as she walked past us. She turned and winked at him.
It was Donnelly, the feisty shieldmaiden who’d wanted to slice off Tully’s tongue. The look on Banan’s face as he watched her had me shaking my head.
“I think I’m in love,” he whispered.
I laughed. He was going to fall in love every day at this rate.
“Go after her,” I urged, and he took off.
Sighing, I watched the port grow smaller. “Be safe, Nereus. Be safe, Lord Conyngham. We’ll meet again.”
Turning, I searched the deck for Storm and found him talking to Levi, Zale, Nerissa, and Kheelan by the wheel. Since it appeared they were having a mini captains-only conference, I went to join Gwyn in the cabin.
This time, I looked around the cabin and laughed when I recognized the two lounges by the massive desk and the huge bed.
“Are you okay, lass?” Gwyn asked, peering at me from behind the bed canopy. She was removing the queen mother’s boots.
“Yes. Do you know whose ship Captain Zale commandeered?”
“I don’t believe I do, but from the grin on your face, I assume you do.”
“Lord Conyngham’s.” The irony of it didn’t escape me. This was the ship that had brought me to Hy’Brasil, and now I was leaving on it. “He said it was his favorite ship. He’s going to be livid.”
Storm Unleashed: Phantom Islanders Part III Page 21