by Melanie Card
The boat plummeted over the waterfall. Celia clutched at the vessel, but the air ripped at her, stinging her face and wrenching it from her fingers. Her breath vanished. Water rushed to meet her, and she struggled to focus. Panic wouldn’t solve anything—no matter how much she really wanted to give in to the emotion.
She pulled her arms in and straightened her legs—she’d jumped off a cliff into rushing water before. Well, actually, Ward had grabbed her and thrown them both over, but still, this was the same thing.
Water surged around her. Her breath exploded from her chest. She plunged deeper and deeper and was whirled around. Her dread surged. Stay calm. One second or the next would reveal the way up and out. And there it was, a slight pull to the surface.
She kicked up. Her lungs burned, and her wrist screamed in agony. She broke through, gasping for air and drawing in a mouthful of water. She spat it out and blinked her eyes clear.
Water churned around her, and she fought against it, searching for Ward. It rushed her sideways toward something dark. She twisted to see and slammed into a pillar. Pain exploded across her cheek, and she clutched the pillar, digging her fingernails into the coarse, slimy wood to stay put. She had to keep above the surface and find Ward. Her wrist burned. Water stung her eyes and roared around her. No, not just the water roaring, but voices, too.
Her assassin training kicked in and stillness swept over her. She clutched the leg of a dock. Above, men yelled and a woman screamed. Behind her, their tiny boat pitched, upside down, churning in the waterfall. Dark hair popped up from the froth and disappeared before she could tell if it was Ward or Nazarius. Please let him be safe. She pushed off from the dock toward whoever it was, but a man reached over the dock’s edge and grabbed for her.
She twisted out of the way, but he seized her collar and yanked her from the water. She jerked free and landed on the dock in a crouch. The coarse wood dug into her good palm and more pain shot through her injured wrist.
The man who’d grabbed her was big and swarthy. He bristled with sheathed knives strategically placed all over his body, and had wild black braids—hair and beard—adorned with bits of metal and bone, making him look fierce. The man had to be a Gordelian pirate. The longboat on the far side of the dock with its bloodred sail only added to her certainty.
Behind him, also on the far side of the dock by the longboat, more pirates—recognizable by their wild braids—fought with villagers. She brushed her hip, reaching for her dagger, but it was gone. Shit. “I’m not involved in your quarrel.” Raid was more like it, but she wasn’t going to be so blunt.
“Darling, you started this fight.”
“I just fell over a waterfall. I hardly think that would start anything.” Goddess, just a peek at the water to check if Ward had gotten out all right, but she wasn’t stupid enough to take her eyes off anyone with so many blades.
“The villagers think the Goddess sent you to be the new sacrifice. I think She sent us an additional one.”
The battling villagers and pirates surged closer. The woman screamed again. A flash of white caught Celia’s eye, drawing her attention to the red sail. The pirates had hoisted a girl on the rigging. She kicked and screamed and writhed.
The pirate in front of Celia growled and leapt at her. She danced to the side, drawing a dagger from his hip. His eyes widened for a heartbeat, as if he hadn’t expected her to move so fast—most men usually didn’t.
“Trust me when I say I want nothing to do with your fight and if you turn away now, I’ll let you live.” He wouldn’t listen to her—most men didn’t do that, either—but she still had to give him a chance, if only so she could continue to look Ward in the eye.
He sneered and drew the long dagger at his other hip. “The captain is going to like you.”
Looked like he’d chosen death.
Chapter Four
Ward clambered up a slick wooden stilt onto a walkway and collapsed, coughing and spitting water. Sunlight burned his eyes, and the sound of fighting deafened him. He lay a few feet from a two-story wooden house also perched on stilts over the water. More houses and walkways surrounded him, an entire village on stilts built over the water, all dark blurs against the blinding sunlight. He strained to catch a glimpse of Celia but couldn’t see anything clearly beyond a few feet. Every fiber of his being screamed he needed to find her and protect her, which was ridiculous. She was more than capable of taking care of herself in a fight.
The boards under his hand thrummed and rattled. Someone yelled and wood creaked. Two men tumbled onto the walkway from around the corner of the house. The man on top, with the wild braids and swarthy skin of a Gordelian pirate, stabbed at the other man pinned to the ground on his back—a beefy, middle-aged man with brown homespun clothes.
The man on the bottom twisted and knocked the pirate’s dagger to the side. It dug into the walkway. With a growl, he kneed the pirate in the gut and wrenched him over. The pirate grabbed another dagger from his belt, but the man seized the pirate’s hand and rammed the dagger into his chest. The pirate screamed. The man jerked to his feet, clenching the dagger, and rushed back around the house.
The pirate clutched at his injury with one hand and clawed at something on his belt—Ward didn’t know what, because very little could save him. Blood gushed around his body and oozed between the walkway’s boards. Magic snapped around him, growing with the blood pool.
Ward’s stomach growled. He wanted that blood, that power, with a primal, desperate need. Sunlight and sound beat at him, and the magic crackled and called. The light reflected off something on the man’s belt, and Ward drew closer, fighting the desire screaming through him.
The pirate had been reaching for a sun-moon pendant, searching for salvation that hadn’t come. Beside his hand and the pendant was a pair of shade glasses. Ward had seen the glasses before on a nobleman from Gordel. They were made from cut and polished pieces of smoky quartz, and the nobleman had sworn they worked to shade the eyes from the glare of the sun while at sea. Just what he needed.
He grabbed the glasses, desperate to try anything to stop the blinding pain of the sunlight. Magic from the pirate’s blood snapped over his skin. Just a taste. Just—
The sun burst from the clouds. Burning. Bright. Goddess, it was so bright. Magic flooded from it in great, overwhelming waves. It also spewed from the mass of people fifty feet away, where the chaos was the thickest. It flew in bloody droplets from swords and daggers, and shimmered from the lake, the reeds, the docks, and the water soaking his clothes. It seared his eyes and his flesh as if he’d been set on fire.
He scrambled into the shadows of the house. Sound buffeted him. Light burned.
Focus. Breathe. He sucked in air, but it, too, was heavy with the metallic tang of blood, as if he could actually taste magic. Goddess, he was hungry.
Light flashed, brighter and sharper, at the edge of his vision, and he glanced at it, unable to resist. A villager ran toward him, followed by a pirate. The pirate, with blood splattered across his face, hands, and chest, smashed a war hammer into the villager’s head. The crack of the man’s skull snapped through Ward. He jerked forward before he realized what he was doing—the man needed help—but sunlight burned him, and he wrenched back.
More men, villagers and pirates, scrambled down the wooden walkway. Someone in a Seer’s mantle—the yellow fabric stained with blood and dirt—rushed to the fallen man, but the pirate with the hammer yelled and slammed it across the Seer’s face.
The Seer’s head snapped to the side. Spittle and blood flew from his mouth, and he crumpled. The pirate rammed his hammer into another man, knocking him off the dock, and then another.
Others fought down another walkway, leaving the first fallen villager, who no longer breathed, and the Seer, gurgling for breath. A young man about Ward’s age rushed to the Seer’s side, but he froze, hands poised and dripping water, as if uncertain what to do to help.
The Seer gasped. Blood wept from his face, pooling on the d
ock. More magic hemorrhaged from him and the dead villager. It called to Ward, pulling at him. So strong. So hard to resist.
Ward stepped to the edge of the shadows, and the young man looked up, eyes wide.
He pointed his dagger at Ward. “Stay back.” The blade trembled. “Just stay back.”
Yes. Ward should. He was a monster now. That much was perfectly clear by the hunger gnawing at his gut.
The Seer gasped again, coughed and gurgled. He couldn’t get enough air. The hammer had hit his face. His jaw and nose were crushed. Blood had to be pouring down his throat, his mouth and nose swelling shut. He was going to choke to death and drown in his blood.
Ward’s illegal lessons on battlefield medicine flashed through his mind. Clear the throat, and if that didn’t work, make a hole in the throat until the swelling went down.
A cloud passed over the sun, and, propelled by instinct, he scrambled to the Seer’s side.
“Get back.” The young man leapt to his feet.
“I can save him,” Ward said. And he could. He had to save him. It hadn’t been a vesperitti’s desire to consume blood magic that had moved him to the Seer’s side, but the need to save a life. If Ward could focus on the physician in him, the good, perhaps he could keep the monster at bay. He swallowed. Hard. It was all he had left now, and he couldn’t lose that, too.
“Your friend just tried to kill him,” the young man said.
“Do I look like I’m with them? He doesn’t have much time.”
Pain twisted the young man’s expression. The muscles in his jaw tensed. His dark eyes hardened and a lock of dirty blond hair fell across his cheek. Closer now, Ward could see the man was younger than Ward, or at least didn’t have the world-weary look that had stared back the last time he’d caught a glimpse of himself in a looking glass.
“Please. I’m a physician.” Now more than ever, Ward had to save this man. He had to prove he was somehow still Ward de’Ath. That Celia, bringing him back as a monster, hadn’t changed the one thing he believed to be true about himself. “I just fell over that waterfall. I have no idea what’s going on here, but your Seer is about to die if we don’t do something now.”
The Seer drew another strangled breath. The swelling was too much. He wasn’t going to be able to breathe.
Water dripped from the young man, each plink against the wooden walkway too loud, making Ward too aware that he wasn’t himself. The Seer’s aura flickered, white laced with gold and spikes of red, calling to Ward. He trembled with the need to take that magic, consume it, become stronger, even if it killed the Seer. If he didn’t save the Seer now, he was going to succumb to the blood lure.
“Please,” Ward gasped.
The young man growled. “Fine.”
Thank the Goddess. “Give me your dagger and go get me a reed.”
The young man drew another dagger from his boot and handed it over but hesitated to leave.
“Get that reed.”
“Why?”
“He can’t breathe because of the damage done to his face.”
“I can see that,” the man said.
“And I need to give him a new way to breathe until we can fix his face.”
The Seer gurgled. The young man paled then scrambled away. Ward put the shade glasses in his pocket—clouds mostly covered the sun and they were in the shadow of a house, so the light wasn’t unbearable. He could test them later when a life didn’t depend on him. He brushed his hands over the Seer’s face, concentrating and feeling the damage. It was bad. His nose had been crushed and so had parts of his left cheek.
Sunlight shimmered through the cloud, blinding him for a heartbeat, but vanished as the clouds thickened again. This wasn’t going to be an easy fix. It was bad enough his hands burned with the blood magic seeping from the Seer’s injuries, straining Ward’s concentration.
The young man returned with a reed.
“Good. Trim it to the length of your finger.” Now came the hard part: convincing the bystander to not attack him with what he needed to do…or maybe just doing it before the young man realized what was happening.
Ward eased the Seer to his back and tipped his head, exposing his neck. A retired army physician had instructed Ward—after he begged for more surgical solutions—to find the hollow in the middle of the patient’s neck, just below the first large bulge on a man’s throat, and never tell anyone who’d taught him the technique.
Another gurgle. The Seer trembled, fighting to breathe.
The young man held out the cut reed.
Ward found the hollow. More magic hemorrhaged from the Seer. It snapped across Ward’s skin. Maybe he should take some. No one would notice if he just took a little.
He ground his teeth against the desire. No. Save the man. Be a physician, not a monster.
He pressed the dagger’s point into the Seer’s neck. The young man gasped. Blood welled around the tip of the blade. Magic curled up it and caressed Ward’s hand.
Do it. Faster. Get it done.
He pressed harder. The pressure on the blade gave way, and he was through the skin into the neck. He grabbed the reed from the young man, who stared, stunned, and slid it along the dagger’s blade into the Seer’s neck, replacing the dagger with the reed. The Seer drew a ragged breath, and his body went slack.
“Good Goddess! Is he—?” The young man jerked out of his shock and pointed his dagger at Ward, but his gaze jumped back to the reed protruding from the Seer’s neck.
“If the blow to his head didn’t damage his brain, he should live. I need to put the bones in his cheek and jaw back in place.” Sunlight shot through the clouds, blinding Ward. “But I can’t do that here.”
The young man’s gaze jumped again from Ward to the reed.
He clenched his jaw tighter. The man’s blood covered the blade still in Ward’s hand. It wept from his nose and a cut in his cheek. Ward could even sense it gathering beneath the Seer’s skin, but he wouldn’t take it. He was not going to be a monster.
“Grab his legs and let’s get him someplace safe,” Ward said.
“Right.” The young man took the Seer’s legs, while Ward took his head and shoulders. “This way.”
They shuffled around a corner and down a walkway shaded by two- and three-story houses. From the quick glance Ward had gotten, it looked like the entire village really was on the edge of the lake—and not on the bank, on the lake. Everything was on stilts, even complicated multistory houses, all joined by a maze of wooden walkways. Boats bobbed in the water outside front doors, the smells of fish, sweat, oil, wood, and water battling with the overpowering scent of blood.
“Here.” The young man stopped and pounded on a door—no, not pounded, just knocked. He’d just knocked. He glanced around as if he, too, had oversensitive hearing. “Maura,” he yelled—hissed.
Footsteps rasped against wood on the other side of the door, along with a regular tap. Shift, tap, shift, tap.
“Maura,” the man said again. “Open up. Adolfus needs help.”
The door opened a crack. A weathered face, mottled with age spots but with bright intelligent eyes, peered out.
The young man shifted, revealing the Seer. “Please, Maura. Let us in. The pirates are on the other side of the docks.”
The door fully opened. “Quickly.” She motioned for them to enter.
The young man rushed inside, and the woman, Maura, shut the door behind them.
“What now?” he asked Ward.
The room was cluttered with everything imaginable: knickknacks, tools, bowls, books, jars, and vials. The smell of the herbs invaded Ward for a second before the Seer’s blood flooded over it. On the far side, by a shuttered window, was a table.
“Clear the table,” Ward said.
Maura glared at Ward then shuffled to the table, her movements slow but likely as fast as she could manage with her pronounced limp and her dependence on a thick wooden cane. She cleared the table, and they laid the Seer on top of it.
“D
eclan, what is going on?” she asked—too loud, but probably still a whisper.
The young man, Declan, opened his mouth, closed it, then opened it again. “I have no idea. The pirates grabbed Nellie as the sacrifice.” He swallowed hard. “Then this boat came over the waterfall. They killed Steward Tomkin, and—”
“And you showed up.” Maura’s gaze landed again on Ward, sharp and demanding. Despite her slow, uneven gait, there was a hardness to her, in the lines of her face and the way her gray hair was pinned in a tight knot at her nape.
“Looks like,” Ward said. Once again it appeared he was responsible for causing chaos, and there wasn’t a damned thing he could do about it. He turned his attention to the Seer. Focus on the injuries, not the blood. Injuries, not blood. “Got any thin wire so I can put the bones back in your Seer’s face?”
“And how are you going to do that? Bones are inside the skin,” Declan said.
It wasn’t fun or perfect, but the army physician had said to wire the teeth together to set the bones in place. “I can use his teeth to help put the bones back where they belong.”
Declan’s eyes narrowed. “You what—?”
“There’s a spool of wire on the shelf by the door,” Maura said.
Declan snapped his mouth shut and rushed to the shelf.
Maura shifted closer. “I’ve heard about this technique, and using a reed like that.” She pointed a gnarled, arthritic finger at the reed in the Seer’s neck that was helping him breathe.
“I studied medicine in Olmech.”
Declan returned to the table with wire and a pair of heavy scissors to cut it.
“You didn’t learn the reed thing in Olmech.”
“No.” That was surgery, and illegal, punishable by imprisonment and even death for disobeying the Goddess’s sacred laws. Ward had been caught, and a goddess-eye brand on the back of his neck was the gentlest punishment they could have given him—and only because the man in charge had thought it bad luck to kill or maim a necromancer. Wiring the teeth and jaw shut to help heal broken bones in the face, however, had been part of the curriculum at the Olmech School of Health and Philosophy, but it had never made sense to Ward to learn how to wire the bones back into place when the patient was choking on blood.