For that matter, he wasn’t even sure how he felt about Maggie having witnessed so much of his past, thanks to the Faith. When he got back into the bed, she shifted until she was pressed against him, and she felt soft and warm, her arm resting across him. He breathed in the faint fragrance clinging to her skin, the scent he could never quite identify.
He was still relieved he hadn’t told her—well, anything he would regret later. As soon as the Eldred let them go, the entire bizarre experience would be at an end, and she would return to the refined routine of her life. Hell, they’d probably dock at Half Moon to find a man waiting for her on the wharf.
The meal combined with the lingering effects of his injuries took him down fast, though once again he couldn’t tell how long he’d slept, because the monotone light hadn’t changed at all when he opened his eyes. Maggie sat propped against a rolled-up fur. Her flute—intact now—was in her hands and she drew her fingers down it.
“I won’t ever play this again,” she said quietly, as if continuing a conversation they’d begun a little while ago. “One of the Bleakhaveners repaired it with a little of the Faith, but it’ll never be the same.”
Vinsen thought he was dreaming, and it took him a moment to shake off the disorientation. “Why?”
“Here, I won’t be able to keep from drawing on the Faith, and anywhere else, the magic will be gone.” Her smile was resigned but resolute, as if to assure him that she’d come to terms with that. “I’ll send this back home. My sister will love it.”
She laid the flute aside. “If you’re feeling better, I’ll get some clothes for you.”
It took him a long time to dress one-handed, and the Bleakhavener clothes weren’t anything he’d seen before. Probably just as well there were no mirrors. He could only imagine what he looked like, especially since he hadn’t shaved for days. Jahrlin Adelcy, when he came to escort them, wished them both a curt good morning and commented that Vinsen’s borrowed coat was laced up wrong. “Well, wrong for a man.”
Thankfully they didn’t have far to walk, because Vinsen’s leg ached every step of the way until he longed for a crutch. Jahrlin led the way through the fortress—not to the pedestal chamber, but to a smaller room with another Bleakhavener guard at the doorway. The scent of warm bread made Vinsen’s stomach growl, but when he caught a glimpse of the woman who sat eating inside, he forgot about breakfast. He thought the fortress was producing illusions again, because the woman was bald. Light from the moonglass windows shone off her head, and all he could think was that blazes looped over the scalp as well.
Then the guard thumped the butt of his spear on the floor, and the woman looked up. “Let them in,” she said. “Thank you, Jahrlin.”
Was that baldness natural for Bleakhaveners? She certainly looked as though she could afford a wig, because delicate traceries of gems hung from her earlobes, swaying as she rose. The thick fur cowl of her gown lay low on her shoulders, as if to emphasize the long neck and the smooth contours of her head.
She smiled as if she’d noticed his surprise and was amused by it, then indicated empty chairs at the table. “Captain…Solarcis?” She had the same difficulty with the s sounds as Ruay had, so it came out as “Solarshis”, but he only nodded and she went on. “Please, be seated and break your fast.”
It was a relief to be off his feet, and the food made his mouth water, but first things first. “And you are?”
“Eldred Felmira of the Church of Bleakhaven. We tracked down this iceberg three days ago, and we’ve been told of how you kept Greoc Rund from obtaining a ship.” Her head dipped slightly. “We are most grateful, because if he had taken a Denalait ship, it would have been that much more difficult to find him. Regardless, you need have no further concerns about him. He’ll be dealt with.”
Vinsen only knew he had heard that correctly when Maggie paused with a chunk of bread raised to her mouth. “You mean he isn’t dead? After a spear through the chest?” Maybe Bleakhavener hearts were located somewhere else.
“He drained the lives of thirty people, from what I’ve heard.” There was no change in Eldred Felmira’s porcelain-pure features. “He was seriously injured, but I don’t think he can be killed by such means.” Her tone suggested the Eldred would want to experiment to see what methods could kill him. “He would probably have healed, given a little more time, but we reached him first.”
Or maybe they would keep him alive deliberately, Vinsen thought, not so much because they didn’t believe in execution, but because Greoc Rund was too valuable a source of the Faith. He’d absorbed all those people, after all—why waste that?
Now he would be the one locked away and milked whenever Bleakhaven had need of him. And people think there’s something strange about the Unity.
A man behind Eldred Felmira’s chair came forward to set cups before them, pouring from first a silver ewer and then a slender bottle of blue glass. “Please, have some,” she said. “We call this wine Winter’s End.”
Under the table, Vinsen moved a foot until he found the toe of Maggie’s boot and pressed lightly down on it—not in a playful nudge but a warning. He guessed from her fractional nod that she’d understood. “Thank you,” she said, and raised the cup to her lips.
Vinsen pretended to drink as well. The liquid was the color of sapphires but the smell was only too familiar. Rum with a lime squeezing and a dash of sugar, just the way he liked it, and it would taste sharp and bittersweet, cool to his lips but scorching as it spread through his body. He was suddenly aware of how thirsty he was.
He set the cup down a little more quickly than he had intended, but Maggie spoke up as if to cover that. “What about those people he was using as fuel? Can you heal them?”
“Who told you he was using them as fuel?” Eldred Felmira asked, as if Maggie had made a minor lapse in etiquette, like sneezing at the table.
“Why, he did.” She looked back with limpid eyes. “Was he lying?”
Although Vinsen could see Eldred Felmira didn’t appreciate a foreigner knowing anything about the Faith, the Bleakhavener woman shook her head, earrings throwing off splinters of light. “He wasn’t lying. The people will be cared for, though I can’t say whether they will ever return to what they should be. Greoc was profligate in his use of the Faith, which was the only reason you could drain off the excess. We are more careful, and there are certain safeguards we use which he would not have had access to. I doubt we can correct all the wrongs he has done, but we will try.”
She turned to look at Vinsen. “Which reminds me, Captain. You have our gratitude for bringing those people to safety, and for doing what you could to stop Greoc without any excessive loss of life.”
“I don’t think that will be much comfort to the families of the men he murdered.” Vinsen couldn’t feel relieved, not after he’d sent Jak Tuller and the rest of them to their deaths. It would have been different if he’d commanded a warship—men signed up there knowing the risks—but if he could have returned to the day when Ruay had come aboard, when he had agreed to a mission of mercy…
Would I? he thought. Would he have stood back, making safe choices, allowing someone else to take the risks?
“No amount of compensation would suffice for their loss,” Eldred Felmira said in practiced politeness, “but we will send a delegation with you to the mainland, to discuss terms of reparation. And for you yourself, Captain, Bleakhaven is in your debt.” The speckled flesh above her right eye rippled, arching a nonexistent brow. “Enjoy that, because it doesn’t happen too often.”
For whatever it’s worth. “And Greoc’s guards?” he said. “The ones he didn’t kill.”
Maggie nodded. “Artek and Ruay. Will they be punished?”
“Not as much as they deserve to be,” Eldred Felmira said dryly. “You feel pity for them, do you? Reconsider. Unless the Faith strips a mind, like what happened to those unfortunates, we have the free
dom to choose, and they chose unwisely.”
She was colder than all the ice, and Vinsen decided not to imagine what might happen to them in Bleakhaven, though he was curious about whether the Church had tried to revive the Tree of Life. And, of course, if the attempt had succeeded. He hoped not; fighting mortal Bleakhaveners had been bad enough.
Though the news of the Tree was something the Admiralty would want to know, which was why he’d avoided drinking any witchwine. Unity knew he had memories the Bleakhaveners might feel were best forgotten.
“I’d like to return to my ship as soon as possible,” he said.
“Of course,” Eldred Felmira said. “If you’re finished with your breakfast, there’s a sled ready. In any event, you would have needed to be off this iceberg by noon.”
“Why by noon?”
“You’ll find out. The ship was damaged, but it doesn’t seem likely to sink, and the rest of your crew should be on board, including those you left behind along the way.” One corner of her mouth quirked up in what was perhaps the first genuine smile he’d seen from her. “Astalda—our vessel—will tow your ship back to the mainland. You’re going home.”
Maggie thought it must have been obvious to the Bleakhaveners that Vinsen would have crawled back to Fallstar if he had to, but she suspected there was another reason for the subtle urgency that ran through their actions. As soon as Eldred Felmira rose, her manservant cleared the dishes away into a cloth sack. He finished their untouched drinks himself, without comment, by which time Eldred Felmira had already summoned another man. This one wore grubby white furs and had a whip at his belt.
“This is Rondon,” she said to them, “one of our sled drivers. Goodbye, Captain. We won’t meet again until we stand on another shore.”
“It’s been a pleasure,” Vinsen said, and Maggie was grateful he wasn’t her older brother Darok, who had a habit of blurting out exactly what he thought under such circumstances. Though Vinsen didn’t seem in much condition to keep speaking, and his mouth was drawn tight. She took his arm as Rondon led the way, and he was leaning on her by the time they reached the outer doors.
She didn’t look forward to crossing the narrow bridge, but Stillwater Lake was frozen over and the sled stood outside. The animals harnessed to it weren’t the dogs she’d expected; they were larger, with hindlegs longer than their forelimbs, and teeth that protruded past their lips. There were only five of them, which hardly seemed enough to pull a sled with three people, but she noticed the muscles rippling under their pale fur.
“We call ’em frostbites.” Rondon’s grin was almost as wide as the lead animal’s, and the rest of the pack turned their heads with flared nostrils scenting the air. Thankfully the sides of the sled were low enough for Vinsen to climb over without difficulty, and she sat beside him while Rondon took the driver’s seat. Her pack had already been placed in the sled; the Bleakhaveners hadn’t wasted any time.
Rondon flicked his whip and the frostbites loped together. Their wide, sharp-tipped paws bit into the ice, giving them all the traction they needed, and the sled’s runners slid along as though they had been oiled. Wind rushed whistling over them, and she pressed against Vinsen’s side as he put his good arm around her. Though she forgot about the cold when the sled continued along a flat path cut through the peaks that hid Palemount from view. The cliffs towered up on either side.
“Was this path here before?” she called out, to be heard over the rush of air.
“Does it matter?” Rondon shouted back.
The frostbites raced on, leather traces dark against their pale fur, the smoke of their breaths scattered by the swiftness of their run. Ahead was the first glimmer of sunlight on water.
“Whoa!” Rondon shouted, and the pack braked its forward rush. They came to a stop with the lead frostbite’s claws a few yards from the edge of the path—beyond, it dropped off to the ocean—and Fallstar loomed up before them.
The ship was charred. The flags were gone, and the sails hung in scorched shreds from the masts, which were burned black as well. Vinsen started up so fast he had to put a hand on her shoulder to keep his balance.
“What the hell happened to my ship?” he said.
Rondon gave him an I-dunno shrug. “Still there, innit?” he said. “Go on, quick. I got to get back to Astalda before—well. You watch.”
Maggie took her pack and slipped her other arm through Vinsen’s. What looked like the entire crew had gathered topside, so at least the deck wasn’t damaged too badly. They’d extended a gangplank out to the edge of the cliff. Behind her, a whip snapped and the sled raced away, moving faster with only one man to carry.
Hands extended on all sides for Vinsen, and Joama was waiting in their midst. “Welcome back, sir,” she said, and a ragged cheer went up from the rest of the crew. Vinsen hadn’t been expecting that, Maggie knew, and despite the ship’s condition, he smiled.
“Would you help me to the quarterdeck, Doctor?” he said to Dray. “We were told to watch.”
Maggie went with them. Ropes had been extended from Fallstar to the Bleakhavener vessel; it was wide, with a rounded hull strengthened by iron bands, and Vinsen speculated that the rudder could be retracted into the ship to protect it from ice. Maggie wasn’t looking at the ship any longer, though, because she saw Eldred Felmira on the deck, facing the iceberg.
Beside the woman was someone who didn’t have the distinctive blaze. Watching them through a spyglass was likely to be rude, so she only pointed that out to Vinsen and he called Joama over.
“Is everyone present or accounted for?” he said.
She nodded. “Something wrong?”
Vinsen shook his head, so Joama left. “Must be a foreign servant of theirs. Or a slave.”
As long as the person wasn’t Denalait or being saved for emergency rations, there was nothing they could do, so they kept waiting. A long boat rowed out to Astalda, crammed with frostbites. Cutwater brought cups of coffee, and Vinsen took his gratefully, holding the hot mug in both hands.
Thunder rolled across the iceberg. A spiderweb of cracks raced over the glistening ice, and the peaks came apart as though a giant unseen hammer had plowed into them. A gasp rose from the crew, the sound lost under multiple splashes as chunks of ice hit the water. The entire iceberg fell away, crumbling like dry bread.
So that was why the Bleakhaveners had wanted everyone off the iceberg fast. Maggie was relieved, but also regretful; there had been a strange beauty as well as cruelty to the place. Palemount with its ice filigree galleries and pedestal chamber and blue-grey windows, the maze of hollows beneath the surface and the giant bear which had hunted in them, Stillwater Lake. All gone now. She wasn’t sure how she knew those names, only that they would always be in her memory, the last cold touch of the Faith.
Fallstar rocked a little with the impact of the ice striking the water, but none of the fragments scraped her hull. Beyond them, the longboat had been winched in, and Astalda’s sails unfurled to fill full of the wind. The ropes between the two ships began to tighten.
“No wonder they wanted us to watch,” Vinsen said, “to show us just how powerful their Faith is. What one of them created, the rest can destroy.” Holding on to the gunwale for support, he got to his feet. “Thank the Unity it’s over.”
The iceberg had drifted further than they had expected, and Vinsen estimated it would take at least eight or nine days for their journey to Half Moon, not that Maggie minded. After Palemount, she would have been happy on any Denalait ship. Besides, that was eight or nine days she could be with Vinsen, who was under doctor’s orders not to exert himself topside, especially since there was nothing he could do for a ship that was being towed. Maggie’s cabin was even less habitable thanks to a layer of coal dust that had settled on every surface, so she stayed in Vinsen’s quarters.
She had looked forward to that, but although they slept in the same bunk, he nev
er mentioned what they had gone through together. After a few days, she wondered if he wanted to put all that behind him. She didn’t expect him to make love to her until he had recovered, but it felt strange to engage in casual conversation that glossed over whatever he might feel for her.
The wind stayed in their favor—which might or might not have been due to the Bleakhaveners—and they made good time, sailing past fishing trawlers and whalers which told her they were well into Denalait territorial waters. Even if she hadn’t been counting the days, she would have known their time was running out. Finally, on what she guessed would be the last night of their journey, she decided to do something about it.
They had finished supper by then, and although Vinsen’s arm had healed to the point where he worked on carvings, he read her copy of Across the Ocean instead. The corners of his mouth kept twitching as though he was about to laugh, but when she asked what was so funny, he said the author had confused a cathead with a jib boom, not to mention increased Alyster’s height by three inches.
Then he straightened up and cleared his throat. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to insult your brother.”
“I’m not offended.” Maggie knew now that he wasn’t envious of her brothers in particular—it was more that he didn’t want to be reminded of people who’d been in as much danger as he had, but who had brought their ships out of it. Though perhaps his willingness to read the book was a sign that he felt a little differently. Besides, he’d survived the Bleakhaveners without losing Fallstar—though from the ship’s condition, that might not matter.
But she had plans for her last night with him, so she began to tune her violin. It occurred to her that she hadn’t needed to consciously stop herself thinking about Anthny; he hadn’t been more than a memory to her for some time. It was Vinsen she would miss when she arrived in Half Moon Harbor, and when she’d thought he was dying, she would have done anything to save him.
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