by Sara Wolf
Something is wrong, this world with its Heartless in it. The wrong I feel now, and the wrong I felt in my dream of the two trees, the two pendants, the Glass Tree lonely, that feeling like if I didn’t bring them together something horrible would happen…it’s the same. The same wrongness.
Maybe all I’m feeling is nebulous instinct. Maybe it’s remnants of the Bone Tree. Maybe it’s the hunger, or maybe it’s magic. All I know is it’s real, this feeling.
I want to destroy the Glass Tree, too.
I can see only upsides to destroying the Glass Tree. It would release the Heartless, for one. Maybe there’ll be some ripple, a tornado or tidal wave of magic like the Wave that gave the celeon sentience all those years ago. But that’s a small price to pay to ensure no Heartless is ever created again. I’m sure of it.
But the Bone Tree is another matter.
Fione taps me on the shoulder, fresh and dewy, and motions to the steaming bathwater. “Your turn.”
I shake my head. “I told Luc I’d take a nap.”
“You can!” She pushes the small of my back into the room. “In the tub.”
The room’s tiny, all wood, and I sink into the tub built into the floor. No porcelain or gold like the tubs in the palace, but I’ve never been more grateful for one. The water’s soap-murky but more than usable, and I peel off my sweat-soaked leathers and slide into the water and my own thoughts.
If we have to destroy the Bone Tree, that would mean the valkerax go free. And in my unheart I know that’s the right thing to do. I’ve seen Evlorasin’s suffering too closeup to think anything different. The valkerax, like the Heartless, have suffered for long enough as magical thralls. We live and breathe the same. Magic shouldn’t be used to make thralls, no matter how much safety it gives the witches. No matter how much safety it gives a country. And that sounds mad even as I think it. I’m talking about destroying the one thing that keeps the valkerax from rampaging across Cavanos—maybe across the whole world. But Evlorasin showed me that we can talk to them; because Heartless are unique in their deathlessness, Ev and I can talk. And that’s never been done before. Heartless and valkerax have never overlapped before Ev and me. Maybe we’re the first of our kind. And maybe we can change the world. Talk to each other. Ambassadors, both ways.
All I know is things need to change. No more fear. Well, always fear. It’s naive to say fear will never be there. But moving ahead, and in new directions, despite the fear. That’s what I want. That’s what I’ve tried to do, every single day since I left Nightsinger’s woods in Y’shennria’s carriage.
Alyserat, indeed.
Fione’s words come softly through the door. “I’m scared, Zera.”
For all her bravado, for all her determination—she’s still scared. We all are.
“I know,” I say. “Me too.”
It’s a moment, and then two. The sunshine warms the wood, my face, the water, and I embrace the light. Whatever light I can find.
Footsteps suddenly pound on the floor outside, and I hear Fione stand up quickly on her cane. Someone slaps their hand on the side of the room’s little wall.
“Get out of the puddle,” Mal’s voice rings. “We’ve found a boat for the bigger one.”
The Lady Terrible is a far cry from the airship we took from Breych—the most obvious being that in the sky, there are no barnacles. The underside of the ship is completely encrusted with the things, the rhythmic gaping of their beaked mouths as the seawater waves lap up on them nigh nauseating.
“I knew the ocean was big,” I say. “But I had no clue it was also godsdamn weird.”
“Extremely weird,” Fione agrees next to me. “The greatest variety of wildlife live in the sea, and by all polymath estimates, we’ve catalogued only thirty percent of them.”
“My favorite are the blood-sucking eelworms,” Malachite offers as he pulls astride us on the gangplank.
Fione nods wisely. “Their jaws are so strong, they can bite down to your bone and suck out your marrow.”
“Okay, please!” I throw my hands up. “Is an entire valkerax horde after us not enough for you people?”
“There are jellyfish,” Lucien says in my ear as he joins us on the ship’s railing, “with tendrils so poisonous, they rot your skin off wherever they touch.”
“Hello to you, too, my piquant ray of sunshine,” I drawl. Lucien’s laugh feels good to hear, soothing some worried ache I’ve had in me since seeing the valkerax corpse. He pulls away from me, and I instantly miss the heat over my shoulder.
“I’ll tell the captain we’re onboard,” he says. “Try not to cause trouble.”
Malachite looks to me immediately. “Duel to the death?”
“Absolutely.”
Lucien’s snort as he walks away is barely audible over the chanting of the sailors as they raise the anchor and adjust the sail. Unlike Helkyrisian airships, which float via aergasel balloons and propel with precise jets, Cavanos ships are very much just ships—blown by the wind, rowed when necessary. They haven’t strayed from their original form in a long time. The invention of white mercury lamps is the only modern touch, and objectively much safer than open oil lamps on a fully wooden boat. The sailors we pass are curt to us, and not much more—they have work to do.
“Cargo ship, by the looks of it.” Malachite jerks his head toward the barrels crowded belowdeck. “Bringing supplies up to the Feralstorm.”
“The Black Archives are on the way.” Fione nods. “And the sea gets more treacherous the farther northwest we go.”
“Giant squids not included,” I add. We put our things by the hammocks we’ll be using to sleep, but Malachite keeps his broadsword and Fione keeps her waterproof book pouch. I keep Father’s unassembled sword in its hemp bag, tracing it lightly.
“If we have to fight, it’ll either be pirates or valkerax,” I say.
“Ugh,” Malachite groans. “I’d take a hundred valkerax over a ship of pirates.”
“They smell equally bad,” Fione agrees.
“How would you know?” Malachite raises one white brow. “You’ve never been out of Vetris in your life.”
“That doesn’t mean I haven’t met pirates,” Fione argues. “I paid scores of them for information on Varia when she went missing. I’ve sampled all their revolting scents.”
We meander back up deck to find Lucien waiting for us at the railing.
“How long will the voyage be?” I look at the prince. “Malachite and I want to know exactly how many death-duels we can squeeze in between then and now.”
“Four days, allowing for fair weather,” Lucien says, and then judiciously pauses. “Please don’t break anything.”
“Nothing but each other’s hearts.” Malachite makes a swear-on-his-heart motion, then points to me. “Or lack thereof.”
“What do we do if there’s an emergency situation?” Fione asks. “You can’t teleport us far again, like on the airship.”
“Unless we need to take a bath,” I chime.
“Or brine ourselves to make us tastier for the valkerax,” Lucien agrees with a smirk, then fixes Fione with a serious gaze. “We stay on the ship. Defend it with everything we have.”
“No magically desperate teleporting,” I warn. “Promise?”
He sighs and rolls his eyes. “I promise.”
The anchor finally begins lifting, Malachite jumping in on the ring of men to help winch it up. The ship backs out of the harbor, the gentle bobbing of the water becoming harsh lashing the farther out we go. Soon, the town of Dolyer fades behind us, nothing more than a gray collection of shapes on a foggy horizon.
The Western Sea is brutal.
Maybe I knew that, once upon a time. But it’s new information to me now. And to my stomach.
“I wasn’t aware Heartless could get seasick.” Fione rubs circles on my back comfortingly as I heave n
othing into the water.
“New God’s toe skin—” I stop, lurch, and try to breathe deep. “Why am I—I didn’t get airsick!”
“Air and water are two different fluids with entirely different currents,” Fione assures me. Unlike her stint on the airship, she looks completely composed and non-nauseated. “No wonder witches don’t live near the sea. Cavanos witches, anyway.”
“What’s the difference?” I choke, desperate to think about anything other than the roiling in my guts.
“You know.” She shrugs lightly. “Cavanos witches rely more on Heartless than others.”
“Do you think—do you think there are Heartless outside the Mist Continent?”
“Perhaps.” She nods, gathering my hair gently back as I retch again. “I know in Qessen a witch having a Heartless is seen as crude and barbaric. Or so Varia told me. In Helkyris, Heartless are almost exclusively used for all kinds of polymath experimentation. Paid of course, though that hardly makes it better. Cavanos is the only place where Heartlessness is prized as a tool of war.” She thinks, and then says, “Out of necessity.”
I steel my throat. “I’m starting to think none of it is a necessity.”
There’s a long unsilence as the sea rasps and I rasp, and in a quiet lull Fione finally says, “You mean the trees. Destroying them.”
I only manage to nod, but it’s enough for her. She lets out a sigh.
“I’ve thought of that, too. But the consequences—they’re too wildly unpredictable. Presumably the valkerax would be free—”
“I could talk to them,” I blurt. “Through Evlorasin.”
“True,” she agrees. “But coming to peaceful diplomacy with them could take years. And in that time, they’d run free. With the added ability to fly, now—which means to more than just the Mist Continent. That’s why the High Witches were so upset with you. Not because you gave the Bone Tree to Varia but because you taught one to fly. And one valkerax means more very quickly, apparently.”
We shudder collectively as the sea wind blows, slicing over our grim faces. The idea of these skies being cut across by valkerax, forging new paths into unknown territories—all the stories of Old Vetris, all the myths and legends. Would it start all over? Would it be war, forever? The exact opposite of what any of us wants—the exact opposite of what Varia wants, too. Wanted, at least, before the Bone Tree overwhelmed her. I straighten, the bout of sickness passing at last.
“Destroying the Glass Tree won’t make the New God’s religion go away,” Fione insists. “It will just take away the Heartless. And without Heartless, the witches of Cavanos would be exposed to Kavar’s believers.”
“I know that.”
“You’re willing to put them at risk? And to put the whole world at risk of the valkerax? All at the same time?”
“I—” I clench my fist. “I dunno. All I know, in my deepest heart in that bag, is that something has to change. It can’t keep going on like this—magic can’t be used to keep living things hostage anymore.”
Fione’s silent, and Malachite take that as his cue to butt in, long ear tips bobbing.
“You two look minister-serious. What’s the occasion?”
“The fate of the world,” I chirp.
“Ah.” He nods. “Real important stuff. Well, whatever it is, you either do it or you don’t, right? Right. Now come fight me.”
Next to me, Fione bristles. “It’s not that simple—”
Malachite instantly lopes away, drawing his sword off his back. I wipe my mouth on the hem of my tunic and straighten with a smile at Fione.
“He’s right, though,” I say. “We can talk about it all we want. We can debate it. We can weigh the tentative pros and unknown cons. But at the end of all things, we either do it or we don’t.”
Her fingers find the waterproof pouch at her hip, her nails gripping a corner of the hard book cover within. The book that holds an answer. Or at least I hope it does. For all our sakes.
“If destroying the Trees will save Varia, then I’m with you,” she finally says.
“And if it doesn’t?”
Her periwinkle eyes search mine. “Then I’m against you.”
It’s a serious moment. I shouldn’t laugh. But I do. I do, because I know if the roles were reversed, if it were Lucien and me, I’d say the same thing. Over and over again. Always. Because I know now, like she does. I know what love means.
I know what loss means.
I know what a heart means.
She and I have to follow our hearts, no matter where that takes us. So many untranslatable concepts. So many important things that would take years—whole libraries of books—to say. To even explain. That’s why, when I stand up and grab a sailor’s sword lying on the deck and walk toward a waiting Malachite, all I say back to her is:
“Good.”
16
THE BENE’THAR
AND THE
STARVING WOLF
The clamor of swords echoes on the empty ocean. Empty of everything but the horizon, our ship, our breathing, our crowd of sailors who’ve suddenly gathered to watch the friendly duel. I blink sweat out of my eyes, the hazy cloud covering the sun doing nothing to mitigate the summer heat. It swelters all around us. The pleasant sea wind died somewhere between our first blade-swing and now. There are no shadows on the ocean to hide under, no shade, no trees. And frankly, I’m thanking the gods. Sick of the things.
Malachite has me backed into a corner, the low roar of the sailors watching a welcome sound, considering Mal’s not once said anything to me. He just launched into all-out fighting the second we bowed to each other. His ruby eyes flicker dark lashes, surreptitiously watching my feet for hints on my next move.
“I know they’re pretty, but you don’t have to stare that hard,” I tease. “They aren’t going anywhere. Except perhaps up your arse.”
“You talk too much,” he finally says, hand tightening on his hilt.
“Aw, baby’s first words,” I coo, and lunge in. He isn’t expecting a roundabout, but they never do. He catches it on the back of his blade, miraculously, and we hover there, straining against each other. Kavar’s tit, he’s strong. His biceps aren’t particularly big—rather willowy, actually—but he pushes back with the force of a celeon.
“Alas.” I grit out a smile. “It seems you’re made of diamond.”
“And you’re made of bad jokes.”
“True, and fair,” I agree. He ducks, the shift in his weight throwing me off, his blade edge screeching on mine as it goes somewhere, so I frantically push away, make space. We established no duel rules before this—we just bowed. No Avellish rules, no Cavanosian rules, no rules at all. He’s not avoiding cutting me, either, throwing his whole force into his every swing. The victory conditions are unclear. And that’s the way he wants it, really. He doesn’t want a duel. A duel is just a game, a diversion, a way to pass time. Despite all the jokes he made around us dueling, he isn’t treating this as a game in the slightest. He’s trying to show me something. But what?
A flash of his paper-white arm, and then the brown tentacles of a net. He grabbed one from the boat and threw it at me! In a duel! It’s so close I can’t dodge it. I swipe, praying the sword I borrowed from a sailor is sharp enough. And it is, barely. The net splits apart, ripped fibers catching on my shoulder.
The crowd shows their appreciation by wolf whistling, blasting my eardrums with excited shouts and bellows. Malachite just waits casually for my next move, flipping his broadsword with one hand and a practiced ease. That’s more like the Malachite I know—a little fun. I brush bits of net off my shoulder, a laugh bubbling up.
“You’ll have to excuse me—my dueling partners are usually princes, you see, and they’re very formal. No prop throwing or anything of the like.”
Malachite rolls his neck, cracking it. “Shut up, Six-Eyes, and just fuck
me up. Best you can, anyway.”
“Ohhh,” I sigh, thrusting square at his face. “You know I don’t do well with taunts.”
He dodges, eyes wider than the heavy-lidded usual—a head shot is very risky. And very illegal. But this duel has no rules. That move was me telling him I get it—no rules. All effort. I agree to that, to it, to whatever this duel might do to either of us. So he sets his face into a lazy smile, ready.
He lunges in this time. The salt spray of a cold wave over the ship’s edge drenches us, and I can barely see the flash of metal as he disguises his thrust in the water. It’s hard to follow, harder to dodge, but I drop my center and pray. Something nicks on my shoulder, a split-second feeling of fabric getting caught and then freed, and my arm gapes, exposed to the air, my tunic severed on that side.
I back up on my heels as far as I can, almost slipping. The sailor crowd undulates around me, and then pushes me back into the circle. I look down—no blood. It’s a miracle the stitching on my tunic stayed intact enough to cover my chest. I look up again at the beneather, his elegant face serious. He meant to nick me.
Ah—that’s what he wants.
Blood.
I get it now. That’s why he’s going all in, every time—because the first one to draw blood is the winner. The opposite of Cavanos rules. The antithesis of Avel, and even the Endless Bog. These are his rules. The bodyguard of the prince of Cavanos’s rules. No. Malachite’s rules.
Just Malachite.
“Fine,” I mutter, tearing the flapping, useless sleeve off. “I’ll play.”
The sailors try to grab the cloth, hooting as I flip my sword and walk in. In to Malachite. Up to him. If he wants to face me head-on, then that’s what I’ll give him. No Weeping. No tricks. Just me. Just Zera.