by Nhys Glover
“The mess was cleared up, the spirits returned to the decanter, and I was sent off to bed, weaving a little and smiling sleepily by that time. I hadn’t died. My Papa would be none the wiser because of the servants’ intervention, and I was feeling very pleasant indeed.
“I didn’t feel so pleasant the next morning, though, when I woke up with my first hangover. Needless to say, it was a very long time before I tried spirits again. I can still remember thinking my papa must be a very odd man to enjoy burning his mouth out like that.”
“He never found out?” Prior asked, when he stopped laughing long enough to get the words out.
“No. He never did. I imagine a great deal went on around our home that my parents never found out about.” He looked a little sad then, and I caught a flash of another memory. Another time he was not found out.
He’d discovered his little sister being tormented by some of the lads. Beila was a big lumbering lump of a childling, but as gentle and kind as they came. When he was just coming into his magic he’d found her encircled by childlings her own age, eight or nine suns old, calling her names and pushing her from one side of the circle to the other.
The nastiest lad—taller than the rest, but still a half a head shorter and much less heavy than Beila—grabbed her hair and yanked it back hard, making her cry out.
“Such a big, fat crybaby. Are we being mean to yer, crybaby? What’yer gonna do about it, crybaby?” he taunted her mercilessly.
Laric, who was just starting to grow into his height, and was all gangly limbs, broke into the circle and grabbed the lad’s arm.
“You need to know what it is to be scared like my sister! You need to know what it is to have nightmares that make you pee your pants, you little shite!” He said in a very low voice, so angry he could barely think straight.
He didn’t even know where the idea had come from. To taunt someone with nightmares. Maybe waking up to hear Beila screaming in the night, with nightmares about these same lads. He certainly didn’t believe he could give anyone nightmares, that was for sure.
The other lad let Beila go and ran off with the rest of the jeering group, while Laric had held Beila as she cried out her pain and fear for what felt like many turns. Later, he heard that one of the kitchenlads had fallen into a strange sleep that he couldn’t be woken from. The healers were called, but no one knew what ailed him. Laric did, though. He remembered what he’d said to the lad and just knew he was the cause.
But nobody else had a clue. Or guessed, until he’d taken revenge on several more of his sister’s tormentors. That’s when the priests were called. That’s when he was sent away. The abomination. The mistake of nature. And then... an essential part of the Godling’s secret army.
He’d been so proud of himself. So full of himself. He’d bragged about what he’d done to those tormentors. Those lads he’d killed. Murdered. Because that was what it was. A terrible, endless torment that eventually led to death. And he’d been proud of himself for doing it.
I received all this in one terrible load, much as I had received Zem’s story, so long ago.
My heart bled for Laric. Bled for his self-loathing. The things he called himself in his head. The things he wished had happened to him back then. In retribution. But they never had. He’d never gotten what he deserved for his cruel crimes.
No wonder he did everything he could to attract disdain from others now. He felt that was what he deserved!
As I was trying to think of something to say... or not to say, I heard the call go up. A sharp whistle blasted the air, and we were all instantly on the alert.
Laric jumped to his feet, and I jumped up with him. He raced for the ladder to the deck above, but I got to him before he took the first rung. Grabbing his arm, I dragged him to a stop.
“Be careful up there. Don’t...” I didn’t have the words. “I love you. Don’t leave me.”
We could have been the only people in the world, in that moment. All my worries for him, all my understanding of his self-torture, was in my mind—an open book to all of them.
Laric was furious I knew his deepest secrets. Furious I pitied him.
He sneered at me with all the bravado he’d developed over a lifetime to keep people away. “Keep your sympathy for someone who needs it, sweetling. I’m a man, and men don’t need women feeling sorry for them.”
It was a slap in the face. My first reaction was to hit back. But that was what he wanted.
“You are part of The Five. You are my husband, whether we have said the words or done the deed. You are my husband! We cannot do this without you. This is how you make restitution. This is how you cleanse your soul. Live to fight beside us. Do not throw your life away tonight,” I snarled at him with all the fury inside me.
His eyes flew open in shock. He gave a little nod of acknowledgement, before bringing his mouth down hard on mine, desperate and punishing. But who he was punishing I wasn’t sure.
In the next moment, he was gone.
While he clambered upward, the ship began toppling to one side. I clung to the ladder until it righted itself again.
“Flame!” Zem called out, reaching for me.
I scrambled across the tossing deck and fell into his arms. There I huddled in his warm and comforting embrace, with Landor and Prior pressed in close at my back
And waited.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Like a scared little child I clung to Zem, as the deck pitched and rolled beneath us, and my men clung to the splintering railings of the airlings’ stalls and each other. All the while, the terrified creatures squawked and squealed in ways I hadn’t heard since those terrible days when Airshin had used magic to make them turn on each other. Gods, just remembering that time upended my stomach.
And my stomach was already turning, and turning again.
“It’s all right Flame, it’s all right,” Zem kept saying to me, though I wasn’t sure if his calming words were meant for me or him.
Oddly, I wasn’t scared for me. I was scared for Laric on the deck, and Spot as he crashed against one side of his stall and then the other. And for the men around me in this barely floating box that might soon become our coffin.
By the time the sea began to calm, my arms ached from holding Zem so tightly. The lamps were all out. One of the others must have seen the sense in it and extinguished them before they set the place alight when they rolled against a wall and broke apart.
The airlings began to quieten as Zem pried my arms from around his waist. I sat up and stared around the darkness, trying to make something out. Anything out, in the pitch blackness. But it was still so dark.
“How long did it last?” I asked nobody in particular, trying to shake out my tense muscles a little before rising.
“Not long. Half a turn. No longer. It came on fast and was gone just as fast,” Landor said from next to me. He shifted over so he could keep contact with me. In the dark, it was the sensible thing.
But Zem wasn’t being sensible. He’d moved away from us. Feeling his way toward the ladder and the deck above. Gone to see what the damage was. Gone to see if we had lost anyone overboard. If we’d lost Laric.
My stomached turned again and it took all my willpower to keep from losing its contents. If I hadn’t lost them when the world was turning upside down, I wasn’t doing it now.
I saw a sliver of light as the hatch squeaked open. Was that the moon? If it was the moon then it meant the clouds had already passed. The storm was really gone.
I made to go after Zem, but Landor held me in place. “He’ll tell us what we need to know. Stay here. It’s dangerous moving around in the dark. Cargo may have shifted. You could fall over and break something.”
“But you’d fix me if I did,” I said jauntily, trying to cover my dread.
Laric. Please. Laric. Be all right.
An eternity later—or it might have been only a few moments, it was hard to say—the small hatch opened again and someone started down with a lit lamp. Onl
y when he was down and turning in our direction did I see that it was Laric. Wet through, exhausted, but gloriously alive!
I jumped to my feet, stumbling over everything between me and him, and finally fell into his arms, crying and laughing, all at once.
“I’m glad you did as you were told, you stupid, arrogant bastard!” I cried, in between my tears and laughter. I was a crazy woman. I knew it. But I didn’t care. I was just so relieved. Just so happy.
I had been sure he would do something stupid. With his memories of his past so fresh, it would have been so easy to end it up there. He wouldn’t even have had to do it intentionally. It could have just happened because he was careless, lost in his recriminations and his past.
But here he was. Alive, icy cold and wet. But alive.
His mouth was hot and hungry when it closed over mine. I half sobbed into it at first. Then I was kissing him back with everything I had. Gods, I thought I’d lost him. I thought we were all lost!
“Don’t be an idiot. You can’t get rid of me that easily. We have a job to do. A world to save. A daemon to confront. Do you think I’d let you do that with only this bunch of brainless weeds to look after you.”
“I don’t need taking care of. And watch who you call brainless. These men are some of the brightest and best our world has to offer. Don’t you know the Goddess wouldn’t have given me anything less.”
He was kissing me again then, and all words faded. I knew only an intense sense of... peace.
After we broke apart and Landor and Prior had pounded on his shoulder and told him they were glad he survived, we all went up on deck to check out the damage. It was two turns past midnight, I discovered. In the bright moonlight, I was pleased to note that, although the sails were still lowered, the two masts remained stiffly upright and in good order.
When the captain gave the word, the sails were raised once more. They immediately filled with the last of the storm’s wind.
“No damage. We sustained no damage. Caught the edge of the storm, and we were well prepared for it. So no damage,” Zem was telling us as he came up to Laric and me.
I hadn’t let Laric go for an instant—except to climb the ladder—since I found out he was alive.
Zem, seeing me wrapped in Laric’s arms, nodded his acknowledgement. “She nearly killed me down there worrying about you. Don’t do that to her again.”
Grinning like a crazy woman, I let go of Laric and flew into Zem’s arms. “Well done! I’m proud of you.”
“It’s a losing battle, I know when I’m done. Just don’t...” He paused, as if trying to decide what to say. I couldn’t read his mind, so all I could do was wait. “Just don’t leave me out. I can’t live without you, Flame. Just don’t start being able to live without me.”
I pulled back and scowled up at him. “Sometimes, for a very intelligent man, you’re really stupid. I can’t leave you out. I can’t live without you. I’ll never be able to live without you! Or the others. This is not a ‘them or me’ situation. This is an ‘us’ situation. All the way. Us!”
I turned to find Laric hovering nearby. Motioning him over, I pulled him into the hug with us. Though I could sense neither man was particularly happy to be embracing the other, they put up with it. For me.
For the rest of the journey the skies were clear and bright. The airlings explored those skies by day and roosted every night on their perches. I spent every night sleeping beside Shardra when I would have preferred to be beside my men. But, for all that, I was content.
Maybe having me out of the picture helped Zem bond with Laric. Maybe finding out his dark secrets through me had modified Zem’s impression of the man. For whatever reason, Zem and Laric seemed to be getting on better.
Redin had weathered the storm, though he’d been sick for most of the time. He’d been pulled in to the hag once a day for the whole journey, and each time we were relieved by what we learned. The Devourers had limped back into port. They’d spent several frustrating days finding another ship that was willing to carry them across the sea. Which meant they were at least four days behind us. That distance might be lessened by the speed of their craft, but there was still time for us to do what we needed to do and be on our way again.
We had no idea what we would do once we found the key. We couldn’t use it until it was needed. And a new, jarring possibility had started to take over my thoughts.
What if the daemon was the key, as he claimed. But what if the Devourers wanted to find him so he could open the way for their master? The Godling wasn’t working out. That was clear. Or maybe he was never meant to work out. What if he’d always been a misdirection? A way to take our focus off what was really happening. What if he was simply part of a long-con the Devourers and The Jayger were playing? They couldn’t get the door open any other way, so they tricked us into revealing the key.
What if that was what this daemon wanted too! Why he’d let us find him. Surely he’d be furious to have spent eons locked away from the world by the Goddess. Anyone would be, especially a cruel daemon. What if, once he was released, he opened the gate and let The Jayger out? It had already taken far longer than anyone had expected for them to free their master...
Gods, I wished I had never learned to be a conster. I hated that I could never take anything at face value. That my mind had a way of coming up with so many variables that worked in any situation.
I was standing at the poop deck railing as I thought all this anew for the umpteenth time. As I did, I watched the deep blue waves crest, growing white lace fingers of froth, and then disappearing again, leaving the froth to mark their passing. It calmed me and kept the roiling thoughts at bay a little. But not enough.
“You make problems where there are none,” Landor said companionably, coming to stand at my side.
“I know. But doesn’t it seem suspicious to you that they haven’t opened the way yet? It’s been nearly a moon since we were given the warning.”
“Not nearly a moon. Still a quarter moon short. And we know they are having problems with their incantations. They are ancient. And if what Shardra said was true, the people who knew most of their secrets were killed long ago. These ones have been trying to put the pieces together without a real understanding of how the picture should look.”
“But the hag has been in contact with The Jayger her whole life. Surely he would have told her what needed to be done.”
“True...” Landor paused thoughtfully and reached to capture a stray curl that had escaped my harem knot in the wind. He fingered it for a moment, enjoying the texture, and the way it curled around his fingers like a living thing. All this he let me see in his mind.
“But making yourself sick worrying about what might be, does not serve you. Doesn’t serve you. We have committed to this path. We do the Goddess’ Will. We have to trust that She knows better than we do what must happen. From what you have told me of the war, She was with you every step of the way, bringing events into being that at first glance appeared disastrous.”
That got me fuming.
“Like Trace. But we now know that his death was not fated. The Devourers did it!” I raged.
“And mayhap that was out of the Goddess’ control. Mayhap She has rules she must follow that we do not know about. I do not... don’t know. All I do know is that we found each other, we are so close to being a unit that it barely seems to matter that we are not formally The Five yet. We have been led to the key, or will arrive shortly. And when we have it, we will work out how to put this monster back in his prison if he manages to escape it.
“If...and that is a big if. If this daemon is not on our side, then we will cross that bridge when we come to it. How can we cross a bridge before we have even reached the ravine that bridge crosses?” He kissed my brow. “It is part of your nature to want to be one step ahead of where you actually are. But Earth magic teaches that everything happens in its own time. You cannot... can’t hurry the seasons, a featherling’s hatching... or a seed’s sprouting
from the soil. We must trust that they will happen as they will.”
I nodded, just as I heard wings overhead. Craning my head back, I saw Spot heading our way. Where the others were, I had no idea.
Landor and I—that still felt weird to say, not just the I part but the Landor part. It had always been Zem and me—Landor and I made our way down to the airling perches. A gnawing worry ate at my gut. What if something had happened to the others? We had seen nothing but ocean since we left sight of land a quarter moon ago, yet anything could be out here with us. A sea monster that had risen up and swallowed the low flying airlings whole? Maybe The Jayger was free and had done it, and Spot was the only one to escape?
I gave myself a shake, knowing I was doing just what Landor warned against. Until Spot landed, I couldn’t know what had happened. I was jumping off the ravine before it was even in sight.
As soon as I was in range, I picked up Spot’s excitement. This wasn’t a bad thing. I saw the other airlings grazing on fresh grasses along the edge of a sandy cove. Above them rose a monstrous smoking mountain. Spot had come back to let us know.
We’d found it! Or we’d found a volcano. Whether it was the right volcano, only time would tell us. I felt Landor’s smug grin in my mind.
Rushing back to the stern, to tell the captain what we knew, I felt excitement skitter along my skin. Enforced inaction had contributed to my worries. I was a person who needed to be doing something. Now we could start to move forward once more I was happy!
Within a few turns we saw the outline of land on the eastern horizon. The crew let out a wild whoop and we joined them. We had found land! We hadn’t fallen off the end of the world, and we’d found land! Now all we had to do was find this hidden key.
Shardra was a nervous wreck when she came up on deck. In the last quarter turn she had filled out a little. Good eating could do that for you, I knew from experience. But now I could read in her agitated mind that she was worried about meeting her daemon in person. What if he didn’t like the look of her? Maybe how he saw her in his world was nothing like what she looked like in the physical realm.