There’s more going on here than we expected, I said to Tyrak.
With Mieshk’s fortress, you mean?
Well, that’s part of it. I hadn’t imagined she’d be organized enough to build something like that. The fused walls… Have you ever seen something similar?
She commands the fire, Tyrak said. No doubt she used her power to seal the stones together. But that’s not what’s bothering you, is it?
I shook my head. Why are the strands gone? At first, I thought they might be hiding from Mieshk somehow. But I guess I’m worried it’s more complicated than that.
Tyrak remained silent as he considered my words. Before he had a chance to respond, Raav joined me at the rail. On this side of the island, the waves were smaller, maybe because the mountain’s flank stood between Mieshk and us. And the shoals and shallow reefs had petered out, allowing us to sail closer to the shore.
“Not far now,” Raav said as he laid his hand over mine. “I admit there were times over the last few weeks when I worried we’d never return to Ashkalan. Especially not together. I know we have a lot ahead of us still, but we shouldn’t forget how far we’ve come.”
He lifted my hand from the rail and laid it on the back of his neck. I turned into his embrace while he lowered his lips to mine.
“We’ll rebuild it together, right?” he whispered after the kiss.
I wanted to share his optimism. It would be nice to fall into fantasies about living here after the Ulstats were vanquished and the island healed. But dozens of doubts whispered in my thoughts, a fog of muttering phantoms. How was I going to find Paono? He could be anywhere on this huge, night-bound island. How were we going to get past Mieshk’s defenses? Where were the strands?
And even if we had all those answers, we couldn’t forget Trader Ulstat and his mercenaries.
I forced a smile onto my lips. I did appreciate Raav’s words and his dreams for the future. And I hoped we’d have that chance.
“I noticed you shaking your head a moment ago,” Raav said. “You no longer talk out loud to empty air, but a keen observer can still tell when your thoughts are in the aether. If you’d made contact with the Vanished, I suspect we’d hear about it right away. So I assume you were talking with Tyrak. How is he handling the strands’ absence?”
I pressed my lips together. I should’ve asked you that earlier, I said to Tyrak. You were expecting a chance to talk to Zyri today.
A wave of melancholy flowed from the dagger. I’ve waited a thousand years. Another day isn’t much in comparison.
Well, I’m sorry you have to wait another minute.
“He’s brave,” I said to Raav. “Doing well, considering.”
And don’t forget, even with the nightstrands missing, I still get to see Ashkalan.
“But he’s returning home for the first time in centuries. We might think it’s been a long time since we saw Ashkalan, but we’ll never compete with Tyrak.”
Raav chuckled. “One of the many ways I’d never try to compete with him. But—” He pulled me close. “There’s one prize I’d fight anyone to the death for.”
Ah, yes, but you can’t fight what you can’t see. Tyrak slipped, ghostly, from the dagger. With a tickle of amusement, he laid a phantom kiss on my cheek. It will be our secret, he whispered in my ear.
As Raav bent to kiss me again, I waved my hand in the air to try to shoo Tyrak away. Tyrak laughed.
Hey, Tyrak… I said as Raav pulled away. We will find Zyri. I swear it. The nightstrands can’t be gone for good.
I hope you’re right, he said, his voice wistful.
Me too, I thought, keeping the words to myself.
As we drew near the entrance to Ashkalan’s harbor, I asked Caffari to signal the captain. As if understanding why I’d called a halt, Zyri’s Promise lowered her dinghy to the water, and Tkira and Jet fetched Raav and me from the Midnight. From the open sea, we couldn’t see all the way into the harbor. A very narrow passage between cliffs guarded the sheltered water. Those tight-pressed walls could also hide Trader Ulstat’s small fleet from view.
After we’d settled into the boat, Jet rowed us into the channel connecting the harbor to the sea. Towering high above us, the cliffs seemed to welcome me back. But my excitement at returning was nothing compared to the thrill I felt from Tyrak. His spirit swirled inside the dagger, as eager as a pack of hunting dogs awaiting dinner.
Tkira, on the other hand, looked ahead, sullen anger on her face. No doubt she’d recently heard the news about Nyralit. Reaching forward, I laid a hand on her shoulder, surprisingly bony considering the wiry muscle in her arms.
“When we return to Araok Island I can help you speak to the strandmistress,” I said quietly.
She blinked as her lips twitched toward, but didn’t quite reach, a smile of gratitude. “Miss that woman,” she said gruffly. “Flowing silks and soft hands and all. Ten times stronger than she looked.”
Raav was sitting behind Tkira. I looked away from his smile of affection for the coarse woman. Otherwise, I might smile too and give her the idea I was mocking her.
“And here we are,” Jet said. “Ashkalan…”
His words died in his throat as we crossed from the narrow channel into the open water of the harbor. The instant the channel walls fell behind, fear slapped me, a frigid wave to the face.
I nearly cried out.
“What is it?” Tkira whispered, only to turn white and wild-eyed moments later.
I didn’t answer, only pointed at the city above. Built upon a set of terraces reaching high up the mountain, Ashkalan had once surrounded the harbor like a gray-robed priestess cradling a child. But now, the city had been corrupted—I had no doubt of that. Dark symbols had been painted on the terrace walls, ancient runes in a language I didn’t understand. It was neither the flowing script of the Vanished nor any of the alphabets used by the Kiriilti.
But even if I couldn’t read the symbols, I had no doubt as to their meaning.
We were not welcome here.
“We have to go. Now.”
“Rot, I think I’m going to—” Jet gagged and coughed and nearly lost his breakfast over the rails. He dropped the oars and slumped, trembling, into the bottom of the boat. His eyes darted back and forth, and his mouth went slack with fear.
I whipped my gaze to Raav. Ordinarily dark and smiling, his eyes held dread.
Swallowing the metal-taste in my mouth, I grabbed the oars and started turning us around. After a moment, Raav shook free of his trance.
“Grab the tiller,” he said, his voice tight. “I’ll row.”
As we switched spots, his gaze kept flitting to the dark runes on the wall. Mine too. What had happened here?
“Do you feel it?” Tkira said. “The presence?”
At once, I knew Ashkalan was the source of the hungry malevolence that had been waiting for me for days. Evil lived here, and we’d delivered ourselves to its gaping maw. Death watched us from above. From all around.
I closed my eyes as Raav yanked the oars, pushing us toward safety. Our progress felt so agonizingly slow. Any moment, we’d be turned inside out. Made hollow.
When we crossed back into the narrow channel, the sensation vanished as quickly as it had come. I took several shaky breaths before I could uncurl my fingers from the tiller.
“What in the rotted fish guts was that?” Tkira spat.
“I felt hollowed,” I whispered. “Any longer and—”
What did you just say? Tyrak asked.
“I felt that one more minute there and I’d be scraped clean on the inside. Nothing left. A sucked-dry shell.”
The fear I felt from Tyrak’s spirit at that moment was as strong as any emotion he’d shared with me.
The Hollowness, he said. Some called it the Hunger.
You know what was wrong with Ashkalan?
During the cataclysm, there were a few who speculated the breaking of our islands was more than the fire spawned by Mavek’s rogue coven. Outcasts mostly.
No one paid them much heed when they talked of a shattering in the aether. A great hollowness lying beneath, jealous of our vitality.
As we coasted through the channel, Jet blinked, recovering from the experience. After a moment, he climbed onto the bench and took the oars.
He took a deep breath before speaking, his eyes darting back toward the city. “We best get back aboard the ships. Need to find a safe anchorage.”
I swallowed. “Everyone’s tired. We need rest.”
Tkira and Raav nodded agreement.
“As long as it’s far away from here,” Tkira said.
Chapter Six
CAFFARI AND CAPTAIN Altak turned the ships around, sails flapping as the big vessels came about and caught the wind again. A short distance back along the coast toward the lagoon, we’d spotted a small scoop of a bay earlier in the day. On the way there, as our ships slid over the waves, I thought about Ashkalan. Those symbols on the wall. Who’d made them? Was Tyrak’s story about the hollowness true? Maybe Mieshk had done something to Ashkalan. It might explain how she’d gained so much power even without the figurine. But from what Tyrak said, that story had come from an isolated few.
Still…the similarities were eerie. I shuddered at the memory of how it felt inside the harbor. No matter how I tried to focus on other things, I couldn’t rid my mind of the sick feeling I got every time I thought of Ashkalan.
Raav seemed equally affected. He’d hardly spoken since we climbed back over the Midnight’s rail.
After we reached the bay and dropped anchor in the shallow waters, Caffari summoned a pair of her smugglers and sent them ashore in the dinghy to scout. Soon after, I gathered with Caffari, Daonok, and Raav at the bow of the ship. The crew of Zyri’s Promise lowered their rowboat with Captain Altak and Tkira inside.
Their oars splashed quietly as they approached. From behind me, came the constant rumble from Ioene’s fiery belly. But in my head, there was only the sound of my circling thoughts.
Once Captain Altak and Tkira climbed aboard, they joined us near the ship’s bow. A grim mood cloaked our group. Things were much more troubling on Ioene than we’d expected.
“About Ashkalan,” I said. “Tyrak spoke of a legend from his time. A great hollowness underpinning our world and aether. He doesn’t know if there’s any truth to it.”
The silence held while wavelets slapped the Midnight’s hull. Agitated by the motion, phosphorescent algae made a glowing ring around the ships. More lines of shining aquamarine lit the tideline where wavelets met the gravel shore.
Captain Altak’s face was drawn. Though it had been just a few days since I told him of Nyralit’s fate, he already looked thinner. Pale. “There’s much we don’t know,” he said. “Your nightstrands are gone, and your friend Paono is nowhere to be found.”
“Not to mention, we haven’t spied Trader Ulstat yet,” Caffari added.
“We won’t solve anything tonight,” I said, glancing at the rising moon. It was the second moonrise since I’d slept, and my thoughts felt both rigid and slow. “Agreed?”
“Agreed. For now, let’s talk about rules,” Captain Altak said. “No one goes ashore unless it’s necessary. What else?”
I glanced toward shore, looking for the scouts. Though I couldn’t see them, toward the east end of the beach, the night foliage rustled. “We need a safe perimeter,” I said.
Caffari nodded toward the beach. “Their first task is to find spots to set lookouts. Afterward, we’ll clear what foliage we need to give good sightlines on any approach.”
“We sleep on the ships,” I said. “If the mountain erupts like last time, we’ll want to be able to immediately back them off from the shore. We can’t afford to lose these vessels like we did the Evaeni.”
At the reminder, Captain Altak grimaced. Surely, the mention of the ship he’d shared with Nyralit only made her loss all the more painful. I wished I hadn’t had to bring it up.
“We keep the oars ready,” Caffari said. “Sails neat but loosely furled. If anyone raises the alarm, we retreat. It doesn’t matter who spotted the danger. There’s too few of us to begin with. We simply can’t lose people before our fight even begins.”
When she finished speaking, she pulled a throwing knife from the small pocket on her thigh and started cleaning underneath her fingernail. I felt a twinge of amusement. I could learn a lot from the bandit leader about how to look casual even when I was terrified.
“So what’s next?” Raav asked. “How do we move forward?”
I searched the others’ faces for ideas, but everyone was looking at me. I’d brought them here with claims that I’d free the island. But I’d expected to have an entire lost civilization advising me.
“We need information more than anything,” I said. “Tomorrow, I’ll lead an expedition to the lagoon. It’s our best chance of finding Paono.”
“And if he’s not there?” Tkira asked.
“Why don’t we answer that question after some sleep,” I said.
Around the circle, my friends nodded. None of us were at our best. And we needed to be if we were going to win here.
“So, who goes with you to the lagoon?” Raav said. I could hear the tension in his voice. He wanted to come, but he didn’t want to undermine my authority with the group, especially since we were the youngest members.
“I’d like your help in searching for landmarks, Raav,” I said. “Daonok, you’ll help us move stealthily. I’d like Jet’s sword.”
Thinking I was finished, Tkira screwed her face up in insult.
I barely stifled my grin. “The captains should stay with the ships. But Tkira, if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like your eyes and opinions.”
Raav’s hand was on my back where the first mate of Zyri’s Promise couldn’t see it. As Tkira struggled to rearrange her expression to something resembling gratitude, Raav squeezed my side, tickling it. Sometimes it was a little too easy to rile Tkira. I shouldn’t take advantage of it.
“Everyone good with that? Caffari? Vidyul? Are you all right with staying aboard?”
“If you’re asking whether I’d rather go wandering around on an erupting volcano controlled by a half-mad tyrant who can melt stone,” Caffari said, her mouth twisted in a wry smile, “I’m okay staying with my ship.”
“After… whatever that was in Ashkalan, I’m happy with a deck beneath my feet and sails at the ready,” Captain Altak added.
“Tomorrow, then?” Daonok asked.
“See you then,” I said.
After a long hug, Raav and I parted ways in front of the door to my cabin. I watched him stroll down the hall and enter his room before I slipped into mine.
Like every ship—except Zyri’s Promise with her wood impervious to rot and fire and the softening of age—the air in the Midnight’s hold smelled musty and damp. But I was used to it by now, and the embrace of solid wood let me forget about the smoldering volcano above us.
I wasn’t quite ready for sleep, so I grabbed a rucksack from a hook on the wall and began packing supplies for tomorrow’s journey into the dark. After stuffing in the oiled leather jacket Caffari had given me, I opened my sea trunk and stared at its contents.
Last time I ran off into the wilderness, all I had was Mieshk’s discarded cloak, three swallows of water and a hunk of hard bread, I commented to Tyrak. This is a luxury.
I’m glad one of us can take the optimistic view, he returned.
As I searched for a woolen vest or overshirt to bring for warmth, a light tapping came at my door.
“Come in,” I said, only to jerk in surprise at the sight of Daonok’s face when the door swung open.
I could tell he was nervous by the way he ran his thumbs over the outer knuckles of his fingers. I stopped what I was doing to give him my attention.
He swallowed. “Let me start with this. No one doubts your bravery, Lilik.”
“And?”
“Actually, it’s more of a ‘but.’ No one doubts your bravery, but I was there when yo
ur Da begged you to come home safe. Everyone else on this voyage is willing to let you risk yourself. Even if they don’t show it, they’re terrified of Mieshk and the darkness and the volcano. It’s easy to let someone else take the risk. But I was a da once—had a little girl—and I know what it’s like to lose a child. So I couldn’t let you just go out there tomorrow without asking you to think hard about whether it needs to be you taking the risk.”
Stunned, I set the rucksack down and met his eyes. “I’m so sorry,” I said. “I can’t even imagine losing a child.”
“I’m not telling you this to earn your sympathy, though I certainly do appreciate it,” he said quietly. “You might wonder what sort of path leads a man to become a criminal. I didn’t start out as a thief or a smuggler or a pirate, but grief has a way of changing a life’s course. At any rate…” He laid a hand on the door. “…What you do is your choice, but I wanted to remind you of the people waiting for your return. Maybe there will come a time when you must be the one to take the risk. But a trek through the dark to this lagoon? Why not let someone else go?”
I pressed my lips together and stared into my sea trunk, thinking. “I’m not sure what else to say besides I’ll consider your words. Thank you, Daonok.”
After he’d left, I sat on the bunk, hands loose on my knees. Maybe Daonok was right. Maybe I should sit this one out, if not for my family then because I’d be needed against Mieshk later. My magic against hers—I’d known from the beginning that only an ability like mine could counter her talents. But how could I just sit here while others risked themselves?
In any case, I set aside my rucksack for now. Sitting on my bunk, I felt the call of my pillow. I could pack in the morning.
Chapter Seven
LILIK… LILIK…
I rolled over; the voice must have come from my dreams.
Wake up. I don’t have much time.
Drowsily, I rubbed my eyes and blinked.
Darkborn (Shattering of the Nocturnai Book 4) Page 4