Zak’s gruff voice helped distract Weston from the sorrow that threatened to drown him. “You came to Doldra, and not for this. Why are you here? What do you want?”
Weston ran a hand over the velvet of the couch, listening to Jade’s uneven breathing, the distant sound of voices in the hall. He licked his lips, tasting the salt of sweat. His heart rate slowed. “I need your help.”
Jade’s eyebrows shot up.
“My father arrested Andre.” Weston touched the small sheath on his belt. Andre’s knife. “I need to get him out.”
Jade turned her head, looking at him out of the corner of her eye. “Why do you need me?”
Weston gripped the sheathed dagger and prayed for strength. “Because he got arrested for hiding the truth—that you’re alive, and you’re ...you.” Weston dropped his eyes from her questioning gaze. “My father wants you dead. I have to protect you.”
A small scoff escaped Zak. “You have to protect her now?”
“Yes.” Weston looked up, meeting Zak’s eyes. “I promised Andre.”
Jade sucked in a breath and Zak’s eyes flashed.
“What exactly do you mean, you promised Andre you’d protect Jade?” Zak asked, his tone dark.
“Exactly that.” Weston shrugged, and hoped it didn’t look flippant. “I visited him in prison. And he’s concerned about what we all know.” He looked into Jade’s big blue eyes. “You’re not safe here.”
Zak harrumphed. “Brilliant observation.”
A tiny flicker of relief warmed Weston for all of a second. “I have an ally in Aerugo. She’s powerful, and she can protect Jade with her contacts.”
“Why would I go back to Aerugo?” Jade’s lips trembled, and she leaned in toward Zak. He shifted closer, his shoulder bumping hers. “That’s closer to Everett. I need to be here.”
What hope had been rising in Weston fell at her words. “He has contacts and assassins everywhere. It’d be impossible for us to know who here may be bought by him. Nowhere is safe.” He sighed. “Unless you’re under someone equally powerful. You would stay at Count Alexander’s, under his protection. Francene would do what she can to keep attention off you.”
“Who’s Francene?” Jade asked, and something in her inflection made Weston grimace internally.
“She’s a marchioness, and she is well-known and well-respected in the political sphere back home. I’ve known her most my life, and she’s become an ally in recent years.” Weston tried to keep his expression neutral to avoid confirming whatever suspicions Jade properly had. While he wouldn’t hide his past, bringing up his exploits wouldn’t help any here.
Weston let go of his knees and wove his fingers together, looking at Zak, mentally begging him to see reason. “You could go with her there, be her personal bodyguard.” He hesitated, chewing the inside of his cheek. “I could get all the Monomi pardoned. Make sure something like this never happens again.”
Confusion crossed Jade’s face. “Isn’t that something I’d have to do? As Doldra’s queen?”
Weston shook his head, anger flaring in his chest. The order had come from his father, of that, he was positive. “I can get the pardon granted. Trust me.” He wiped his hands on his pant legs, as if he could get the memory of blood off them. “Nothing like this has to happen ever again.”
Zak stared at the table, brow furrowed, jaw set. Jade stared at Weston, eyes bright with tears, her knuckles white as she grasped her elbows, hugging herself.
Weston wanted to lean back on the couch, act as if he was calm and collected, but he hunched over instead, betraying his insecurities in their silence. “Think it over for the night. I’ll be—” he hesitated. He didn’t know where he’d be tonight. His hired airship had stayed long enough to get a shipment loaded and let him come aboard to wash up after everything, then they’d taken off for their next port the moment he stepped foot back on Doldran soil. He didn’t have a place to return to for the night. “Actually,” he said meekly. “I don’t know where to stay. I’m kind of alone, here.”
Jade blinked at him, and Zak raised a skeptical eyebrow. “You didn’t come in a royal airship?”
Weston shook his head. “I was trying to get here without my father immediately knowing, so I hired a crew that Francene recommended.”
Zak leaned back into the couch and rubbed the back of his knuckles against his jaw line. “I might be able to help you find a place for the night.” He shot Jade a wry grin before looking back at Weston, his face expressionless again. “If you’re willing to trust me.”
Weston gulped. He could probably find an inn on his own. But he’d seen the citizens out there, their disdain for Aerugo and the control his country had had over them for so long. He probably shouldn’t risk it on his own. He held out his hand. “I trust you.”
Zak scoffed in surprise, ignoring Weston’s waiting hand. “You must be truly desperate, man.”
Weston’s hand wavered in the air, and he finally pulled it in, tilting his head. “I trust your honor as a Monomi to not slit my throat in my sleep.”
Jade’s lips pressed together and Zak laughed, anger giving it a menacing ring. “I’m the renegade, remember?” His eyes glinted. “I’m the one that you whipped last year. And you trust me?”
Weston’s innards threatened to liquefy at the threat blazing in Zak’s eyes. His mouth dried, and he tried to swallow. “I—” he glanced at Jade, but she was looking away, her brow furrowed, her eyes haunted. “I am sorry about that. I made a mistake. Andre helped me realize that.”
“A mistake?” Zak pounded the table between them with his fist, rattling the translucent centerpiece. “Sexually assaulting Jade was a mistake? Beating her bodyguard—me—senseless was a mistake?” Zak’s skin flushed a deep shade of red and he lifted a finger, pointing it under Weston’s nose. “It’s only out of respect for Andre that I haven’t given you a piece of my mind about all that yet. Pray I never do.”
Jade leaned away from Zak, her eyes wide and mouth agape. Zak straightened and took several deep breaths before his features eased up and he looked down at Weston, cold indifference in his eyes. “Well, if you’re comfortable with such desperation, then let’s get you settled, Your Highness.”
Chapter Fourteen
Ben
“Again.”
Raine circled Ben, her dark eyes intense and focused despite the wind swirling over the Phoenix’s main deck and tugging at both of them. Ben raised his sword in the guard position she’d just shown him. She lunged, her blade sweeping toward his side. He blocked.
Raine bounced backward on the balls of her feet, her black braid swinging. He grinned. An eyebrow arched over her goggles. She slashed down at his head. Ben raised his blade to block, the clash of metal vibrating up his arms.
Raine pushed, and the hilt slipped from his left hand. She grabbed the sword before it could hit the deck.
Ben shook his head and massaged his cramping fingers. “I keep getting that wrong.”
“You’re right, you do.” Raine tapped the flat of the blade of his sword against her boot, her posture perfect as wind rippled her tunic and played with little strands of hair by her face. “Can you tell me what you’re doing wrong?”
He resisted the urge to sigh. He’d asked for this. He needed to survive Terrene if he was to find a way home to Sara. And that meant learning how to fight by Terrenian rules. “I crossed my wrists.”
She raised an eyebrow and folded her arms, the blades flat against her body. “And crossed wrists—”
“Are weak wrists,” Ben finished. He rotated his shoulder while he swiped at the sweat cooling on his forehead. Sword fighting wasn’t completely new to him—he’d practiced a bit with Zak and the crew of the Sapphire, but their pointers and sparring paled in comparison to Raine’s method of training. It had taken Ben all of one day to come to the conclusion that Raine’s long-lost calling was to be a drill sergeant.
Geist and Ash had figured that out quickly enough and decided they’d train with others
of the crew when Raine wasn’t going through her routine. They sometimes hung out on deck to watch, but they weren’t about to join in. Finn, on the other hand, had no such qualms and would work on the deck, poring over Jaxton’s notes and occasionally pausing to watch them. Today, Finn sat at his small desk in the upper deck’s shade, studiously ignoring them.
“We’ll practice that move again,” Raine decided.
Ben grimaced and she laughed. She lightly smacked the back of her hand against his stomach. “You lost some time from that injury of yours. We need to get you back in shape.”
Ben reflexively flexed his core, then his arms. “I’m not out of shape.”
“But you’re not in shape as you had been.” Raine’s grin lost the teasing lilt and turned sober. “You need endurance to swing a sword.” She lunged and parried an invisible opponent. “A battle will sap your energy, fast. Whether human, or dragon, you need to have what it takes to win.”
Ben focused. Raine glanced at the top deck, a frown pinching her face. She handed Ben his sword and sheathed hers, then stepped closer to Ben, her eyes not meeting his. “We’re done for now.” She hesitated, then inclined her head. “Do you trust him?”
Ben blinked. What? He walked a few paces away to pick up the sheath for his sword and used the motion to glance up at the deck. Understanding flooded through him as he saw who stood there. Brandon gripped the railing overlooking the main deck, his tinted goggles making it impossible to tell if he was watching them, or the horizon.
Ben strolled back to Raine as casually as he could. It was one thing to have the guys from the Sapphire watching, or Finn lingering by them just because he wanted to study his notes out in the sunlight. But having a former bandit prince of rage overlooking them didn’t invoke the same sense of relaxed comfort. Ben kept his voice low enough that the wind wouldn’t carry it away.
“Not really, no.” Ben ran his thumb along the pommel of his sword. “He seems ...lost. I can sympathize, to a degree. But do I trust him? Not when I can’t see him.”
Brandon whirled and moved out of their sight. Ben and Raine watched as Ezekial wove around the mast in the center of the deck, his attention focused on the railing where the prince had been. Ezekial reached the corridor for the dining room and glanced back, bypassing Ben and Raine to raise an arrogant eyebrow at Finn.
Raine muttered something under her breath, then gestured at the railing on their deck. “Let’s get off our feet for a bit.” She paused. “What kind of necklace is that?”
Ben glanced down at the shine of the sun on his dog tags. Alarm jangled down his nerves, and he grabbed at them to slip them away, but she held out a hand, pausing him. He fought to appear nonchalant as she studied the etched metal, a small frown on her face.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” she said finally. Something flickered in her eyes—suspicion, and something unreadable. “Where’d you get that?”
“Just a family heirloom,” Ben lied, slipping them under his shirt. He’d need them for an ID whenever he got home. If not for that, he’d have dumped them long ago.
Raine crossed her arms, regarding him for a long moment. She shrugged and glanced at Ben’s hands. “Anyway, you’ve earned a rest.”
Ben sank against the wood inner wall of the railing and leaned his head back, releasing a small sigh of relief. He’d have to keep the tags better hidden somehow. He’d already checked his room for a nook or cranny or loose board to squirrel them away for now, but Rebecca kept the Phoenix too ship-shape for such luck.
Everything ached, and he groaned, hating to admit to himself that Raine was probably right about him losing some of his edge. He stared up at the blue sky, wisps of faraway clouds passing in view every now and then. When would they see the barrier again? It had been several months since he’d first seen it, and it still filled him with awe.
He frowned to himself. If other Void Born could cross the magical wall that encircled the nations here, did that mean he could technically cross the barrier of death? Would he find answers to home on the other side? Or would it kill him? Ben sighed and leaned his head against the wall. He’d save that for a last-ditch option. He had this mission first.
Raine sat next to Ben and stretched in the sunlight with a languid ease that reminded him of a cat in a sunbeam. She passed him a tin filled with cold water, “It’s pretty warm today. Don’t get heat sick.”
Ben toasted the cup to her and drained the water like a parched man in a desert. He set the empty tin next to his boot. “What do you think would happen if the barrier were to fall?”
Raine tensed next to him. “I—” She stood up and waved to where Finn sat at a desk under an awning on the galley side of the ship. “Papa, can I borrow a moment?”
Finn nodded without looking up. He stood and slid a sheet of glass over the papers, preventing them from flying away. He walked over with an easy smile. “What’s on your mind, Spook?”
She rolled her eyes at his nickname for her even as her lips twitched in a grin. She sat down, then looked up at him, her tone serious. “Papa. What do you think would happen, if the barrier were to fall?”
Surprise flitted across Finn’s face before it hardened. He settled a hand against the deck before sitting down across from them, the mid-morning sun against his back. Shadows fell across his face, deepening the somberness of his eyes. He rubbed at the scruff on his jaw. “First, you need to know their motive.”
Ben leaned forward. Any intel on their enemy would be useful.
“The Elph in the north want control over everything,” Finn began. “And not in the, ‘we rule over you but you can still lead your life’ kind of way. Every human they have under their thumb, they claim with the blood-bond. It’s a bond they use to impress their will, their desires, on each person. It’s like a cascading tide pool. One Elph at the top of each pool, directing his minions under him, and their underlings beneath them. There are multiple levels of control, and the higher up in the ranks one is, the less others can override them. But the bottom ranks of the blood-bonded can be controlled by any leader.”
“How—” Ben hesitated, not wanting to interrupt, but needing to know. “How do they put someone under the blood-bond?”
Finn shrugged slightly. “Even the sages of the south didn’t fully know. But from what little I can decipher of Jaxton’s notes, he was researching the blood-bond too, specifically for Brandon’s binding.” A self-depreciating smile crossed his face. “It’s been slow work, deciphering his notes, so I don’t know everything yet. But it seems like the original blood-bond involved injecting magically bonded blood into their victims—specifically through permanent means of tattoos, as the ink stabilized the properties of the bond, and kept it in them, versus being eliminated.” He gestured back to the cabin rooms. “Obviously, Doctor Jaxton figured out something different for Brandon.”
Raine’s fingers grazed her sword hilt. “He somehow used Brandon’s sword instead of a tattoo to make Brandon just as compelled and bonded as those blood-bonded in the north.” Her cheeks hollowed as she sucked them in. “The ones they’d send against us, if the barrier drops.”
Finn closed his eyes, his voice lowering, as if he was remembering something unbearable. “Their armies are filled with unwilling humans, being forced to die for them.” Finn looked at Ben, a warning dancing in his gaze. Ben forced himself into stillness, listening to each word, weighing the threat Finn’s message carried. “They care nothing for human life. We are far beneath them. If the barrier were to fall, their armies would come marching. Fertile lands would be stripped bare. Men used for labor or killed for sport. Women used for pleasure—”
Raine pulled her legs in, tucked her tunic around them, and hugged her boots, her eyes glued on her grandfather.
“—and children used for whatever their masters pleased.” Finn’s jaw clenched as a single tear rolled down his worn face, disappearing into the white almost-beard that he’d started growing out. “The Elph in the north are inhumane.”
Ben clenched his fists. To hear of people who viewed others as lesser than themselves wasn’t something new. Nor was the treatment of those unfortunate enough to be considered lesser. But using magic to force them into obedience? He’d experienced something similar before, and that brief time was horrific enough. To live a whole life like that? “Is there any way to stop them?”
Finn shook his head. “Not that we’ve ever learned. As long as they are blood-bonded, there is nothing that can be done.” He shrugged, and his vest billowed in the breeze that danced across the deck.
Ben chewed the inside of his cheek as he thought. “Is it possible to break the blood-bond?”
“Not that I’ve ever heard of, no.” Finn’s eyes saddened. “But if it were possible, I’m sure it would require as much sacrifice to finish it, as it took to start it.” He shook himself and shifted to his knees before carefully standing. He scowled, though his eyes gave a glimpse at humor. “You kids need to find happier topics to discuss.”
Ben’s smile at Finn’s words slipped the moment Finn turned away. He lightly knocked his head back against the wall again, this time with his eyes closed. He’d been prioritizing Sara, thinking only of getting home to her, and everything here as a secondary goal.
If he valued innocent life as he said he did, he’d have to change those priorities. And not just in word, but in deed. Now. I’m sorry, Sara. If there was anything he could do to help them protect the barrier from Victor, he had to help. If the barrier went down, and war started as Finn predicted, Ben would never find a way back to his sister. The barrier had to come first for now, and he’d just have to pray for clues along their path that would lead him home.
He glanced at Raine from the corner of his eye, and Sara’s scolding voice rose to mind in a memory. “Honestly, you’re never going to find a woman who will want to date you if you keep running off to save the world. You need to finish your tour and settle down, Ben.” He’d laughed off her words then, as settling down and getting married hadn’t been high on his list of things to accomplish. And he just hadn’t found the right woman.
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