by Jim Butcher
“Scribe.”
“Take me to the coin, scribe.” He turned to one of his men. “We set sail at once. Get a slave detail and take any women or children you can see on the way back.”
The men nodded and started back to the harbor. Demos turned to find Ehren frowning at him. “We’d best move.”
Ehren jerked a nod at him and led him to the back of the bungalow, where Ullus thought he’d built a clever hiding place into the woodpile. Ehren recovered the entirety of Ullus’s cash fortune in a leather sack and tossed it to Demos.
The captain opened the sack and dumped some of its contents onto his palm. They were a mix of coins of all sorts, mainly copper rams and silver bulls, but with the occasional gold crown mixed in. Demos nodded and headed back for the ship. Ehren followed, walking on the man’s left, a stride away, where he would have time and room to dodge should the pirate draw his sword.
Demos seemed briefly amused. “If I wished to be rid of you, scribe, I wouldn’t need to kill you. I’d leave you here.”
“Call it a professional courtesy,” Ehren said. “You aren’t a smuggler or a pirate.”
“I am today,” Demos said.
Armed members of the Slives crew rushed past. Behind them, Ehren heard screams as the men began seizing women and children and shackling them.
“And a slaver, too,” Ehren said, trying to keep his tone calm. “Why?”
“This most recent enterprise has ended in a less-than-satisfactory fashion. I’ll sell them when we reach the mainland and defray some of my expenses,” Demos said. He glanced out to the west, as they headed down the quay, his eyes on the rising blackness of the storm there.
After that, Demos fell silent until they boarded the Slive. Then he began to give orders immediately, and Ehren hastened to stand out of the way. The slave patrol brought in a score of chained prisoners, while several other men fought a brief, ugly brawl with inhabitants of Westmiston who objected. A pirate was slain, the townsfolk beaten back with half a dozen dead. The women and children passed within a step of Ehren when the slavers hurried them into the hold, and he felt nauseated at their distress, their sobs, their cries of protest.
Perhaps he could find some way to help them when they returned to Alera. He folded his arms, closed his eyes, and tried not to think on it, while Demos and his crew rigged the ship and headed for the harbor, tacking against the strong wind while men strained at the oars to give the ship all possible speed while the darkness of the storm grew and grew, until it looked like nothing so much as great mountains looming up on the horizon. It was unnerving, as every sailor aboard the Slive threw his strength into driving the ship directly at that glowering, ominous tide of shadow, until they could clear the harbor and round the island.
They had just broken into the open sea when Ehren saw what his instincts had warned him about.
Ships.
Hundreds of ships.
Hundreds of enormous ships, broad and low-beamed, sailing in formation, their vast, black sails stretched tight and full by the gale sweeping along behind them. The horizon, from one end to the other, was filled with black sails.
“The Canim,” Ehren whispered.
The Canim were coming in numbers more enormous than any in Alera’s history.
Ehren felt his legs turn weak, and he leaned against the Slive’s railing for support, staring out at the armada plunging toward them. Distantly, in Westmiston, he could hear the storm chimes ringing in panic. He turned to see the drunken, disorganized crew of the other ship rushing down to the docks-but at the speed the Canim fleet was moving, they would never escape the harbor before they were cut off by black sails.
The Slive rounded the northernmost point of the island of Westmiston, and her crew adjusted the rigging for running before the wind instead of into it. Within minutes, the Aleran vessel’s grey canvas sails boomed and stretched tight before the dark storm’s windy vanguard, and the Slive leapt into the open sea.
Ehren paced slowly aftward, until he stood staring off the Slives stern. Ships detached themselves from the Canim fleet and fell upon Westmiston, wolves to the fold.
Ehren looked up to find Demos standing beside him.
“The women and children,” Ehren said quietly.
“As many as we could carry,” Demos said.
Smoke began to rise from Westmiston.
“Why?” Ehren asked.
Demos regarded the Canim fleet with dispassionate calculation. “Why let them go to waste? They’ll fetch a fair price.”
The man’s lack of expression, whether in word, movement, or deed, was appalling. Ehren folded his arms to hide a shiver. “Will they catch us?”
Demos shook his head. “Not my ship.” He lifted a hand abruptly and pointed out to sea.
Ehren peered. There, between the Slive and the oncoming armada, a sudden wave rose directly up from the sea, against the flow of the others. Ehren could hardly believe what he was seeing, until water began to break around the massive shape that had risen from the sea. He could see few details, from this distance, but the black, enormous shape that stirred the surface would have stood taller than the Slives sails.
“Leviathan,” he breathed. “That’s a leviathan.”
“Little bit shy of medium size,” Demos agreed. “They’re territorial. Those Canim ships have been stirring them up as they passed for the last ten days.”
A deep, booming thrum ran through the water, so powerful that the surface of the tossing sea vibrated with it, tossing up fine spray. The ship shook around them, and Ehren clearly heard a plank give way and snap somewhere below them.
“Damage party, starboard aft!” Demos bellowed.
“What was that?” Ehren breathed. The soles of his feet felt odd, aftershocks of the vibration still buzzing against them.
“Leviathan complaining,” Demos said. He glanced at Ehren, and one corner of his mouth might have twitched for a second. “Relax, scribe. I’ve two witchmen below. They’ll keep us from bothering the leviathans.”
“And the Canim?”
“We’ve seen four ships smashed, but it hasn’t slowed them down. There, look.”
The vast shape in the water moved for a moment, toward the armada, but then descended, water crashing into its wake, swirling in a vortex for a time even after the leviathan dived. By the time the first Canim ship reached the spot, there was nothing but a restless remnant of the enormous beast’s presence, a rough-stirred sea. The Canim ship broached it, spray flying, and held its course.
“Say this much. Those dogs don’t have a yellow bone in them,” Demos murmured, eyes distant. “All but the biggest leviathans get out of the way of that storm coming behind the Canim. They’ll take a few more losses on the way over, but they’ll get through.”
“You were carrying a message to them?” Ehren asked.
“That’s no business of yours,” Demos said.
“It is if you’re complicit with them, Captain. Did they simply let you escape them?”
“Didn’t let me,” Demos said. “But then I didn’t give them much choice in the matter. They weren’t as sneaky as they thought they were. Crows’ll go hungry before I let some mangy dog-priest stick a knife in my spine.”
“Priest?” Ehren asked.
Demos grunted. “Robes, books, scrolls. Talks a lot of nonsense. Name was Sari.”
Sari. Formerly the chamberlain to Ambassador Varg at the capital-and the creature who had plotted with the vord to strike down the First Lord. Sari, who had escaped from Alera, despite all the efforts of the Legions and lords to find and stop him. Sari, who, Ehren was now sure, must have had help inside of Alera.
“Kalarus,” Ehren murmured.
Demos sent Ehren’s earlier words back at him, imitating the scribe’s inflection. “I don’t know what you mean, sir.”
Ehren studied the man for a moment, sure that the overt denial held covert confirmation. If so, then Demos had been hired by Kalarus to take a message to the Canim-who had promptly attempted
to kill him before he could escape. Obviously, Demos had no intentions of participating with the authorities by way of retribution-that kind of criminal seldom found others willing to do business with them down the line. But he must have been angered by the betrayal, enough to let Ehren obliquely learn who had hired him and what was happening.
“You know what this means,” Ehren said, shaking his head. “A messenger. This armada. It’s war, Captain. And you are not the only one who has been betrayed.”
Demos stared aft and said nothing. The darkness that was the storm driving the Canim armada swallowed the island of Westmiston entirely.
Ehren turned to face Demos. “I’ll triple the amount of your pay if you get us back to Alera in time enough to warn the Legions. No questions asked.”
The mercenary glanced at him, silent for a long moment. Then his teeth showed again, and he nodded, very slightly, to Ehren. “Bosun!”
“Aye, skipper?”
“Reinforce the mainmast, hang out all the laundry, and warn the witchmen! Let’s make the old bitch fly!”
Chapter 19
Isana opened her eyes and thought she was going to faint. Septimus, with his usual delicate, precise touch, had slipped a ring onto her finger so lightly that she had not felt him doing it.
The hand looked like silver, hut was so delicately wrought that she could barely feel its weight. The setting was of a pair of eagles, facing one another, supporting the jewel upon their forward-swept wings. The stone itself was cut into a slender diamond shape, hut the gem was like nothing Isana had ever seen, brilliant red and azure, divided precisely down the center without any detectable seam.
“Oh,” she breathed quietly. She felt her eyes bulging, her cheeks growing pink. “Oh. Oh, my.”
Septimus let out a quiet laugh, and she could sense his pleasure at her reaction, and Isana felt that same surge of joy well up inside her, just as it had the first time she had heard his laugh. Her mouth failed her, and she only sat, staring up at Septimus, drinking in his features. Dark hair, intense green eyes, tall, strong. He was so handsome, his expressive face able to convey volumes of meaning without speaking at all, and his voice was low, rich, strong.
They sat together on a spread blanket at the shore of the little lake near the Legion garrison in the Calderon Valley, under the harvest moon. They had taken their meal together there, as they had so many times since the spring, feeding one another and speaking quietly, laughing, kissing.
He had asked her to close her eyes, and Isana had complied, sure that he was about to show her some new jest.
Instead, he had slipped a ring bearing all the marks of the House of Gaius onto her left ring finger.
“Oh, Septimus,” Isana breathed. “Don’t say it.”
He laughed again. “My love, how could I not?” He reached out and took both of her hands in his. “I cursed my father when he sent the Legion all the way out here,” he said quietly. “But I never thought I would meet someone like you. Someone strong and intelligent and beautiful. Someone…” He smiled a little, and it made his face look boyish. “Someone I can trust. Someone I want to stand beside me, always. I can’t take the chance that I might lose you if the Legion is ordered elsewhere, my love.” He lifted her hand and kissed it. “Marry me, Isana. Please.”
The world started spinning in wild circles, but Isana could not take her eyes away from the only stable thing in it-Septimus, his eyes bright and intense in the moonlight.
“Your f-father,” Isana said. “I’m not even a Citizen. He would never allow it.”
Septimus flicked an irritated glance in the general direction of the capital. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll deal with Father. Marry me.”
“But he would never accept it!” Isana breathed.
Septimus shrugged and smiled. “The shock will be good for him, and he’ll get over it. Marry me. “
Isana blinked, shocked. “He’s the First Lord!”
“And I am the Princeps,” Septimus said. “But our titles don’t really come into it. He may be the First Lord, but he is also my father, and great furies know that we’ve locked horns more than once. Marry me.”
“But it could cause you such trouble,” Isana pressed.
“Because Father seeks to preserve the old ways, my love.” He leaned toward her, eyes bright and intent. “He does not see that the time is coming when those ways must change-when they must make Alera a better place for everyone-not just for Citizens. Not just for those who have power enough to take what they want. The Realm must change.” His eyes blazed, conviction and passion suffusing his voice. “When I become First Lord, I’m going to be a part of that change. And I want you with me while I do it.”
Then he moved, pressed Isana gently down to the blanket, and kissed her mouth. Isana s shock was transformed into a sudden hurricane of delight and need, and she felt her body melt and move, pressing sinuously against his as he kissed her, his mouth soft, strong, hungry, searing hot. She had no idea how long the kiss went on, but when their lips finally parted, Isana felt as if she was on fire, burning from the inside out. The need was so great that she could barely focus her eyes.
His mouth slid over her throat, then pressed a slow, tingling kiss against the skin covering her fluttering pulse. He lifted his head slowly, and met her eyes with his own. “Marry me, Isana,” he said quietly.
She felt an answering need in Septimus, the feral call of the flesh, the rising tide of his passion, the warmth and the love he felt for her-and then she saw something else in his eyes. There, just for an instant, was a flutter of uncertainty and fear.
Septimus was afraid. Afraid that she would say no.
It nearly broke Isana s heart, just seeing the potential for his grief. She lifted a hand to touch his face. She would never hurt him, never bring him pain. Never.
And he loved her. He loved her. She could feel it in him, a bedrock of affection that had grown and grown and grown, answered by the same in Isana.
She felt her eyes blur with tears at the same time she let out a breathless burst of laughter. “Yes,”she said. “Yes.”
A surge of Septimus’s joy flowed into her, and she flung herself onto him, rolling him onto his back so that she could kiss him, face and throat and hands, to taste him, to drink in the warmth and beauty of him. Reason disintegrated under the joy, under the need, and Isana’s hands moved as if of their own will, tearing open his tunic so that she could run her hands and nails and mouth over the tight muscle beneath it.
Septimus let out an agonized moan, and she felt his hips surge up against hers, felt the hot hardness of him pressed against her so tightly that she thought they might simply burst into flame together.
He seized her face between his hands and forced her eyes to his. Isana saw everything she’d already felt in them, saw how much he wanted to simply let go, give in to the moment. “Are you sure?” he said, his voice a growling whisper. “You’ve never done this. Are you sure you want this now?”
She couldn’t trust her lips to answer, her tongue to function. They were far too intent upon returning to his skin. So she sat up and stared down at him, panting, mouth open, and dug her fingernails into his chest while arching her back, pushing her hips back and down against him, a slow, torturous motion.
Septimus could feel her, just as she could him. Words were neither needed nor wanted. His eyes glazed over with hunger and need, and he lifted her and pressed her down again, savagely took another kiss from her open, willing lips. His hand slid up one of her legs, brushing skirts aside, and there was suddenly nothing in her entire world hut passion, sensation, pleasure.
And Septimus.
They lay in one another’s arms much later, the moon now settling down, though dawn was nowhere near. Isana could hardly believe what was happening to her. Her arms tightened on Septimus in languorous wonder, feeling the warmth of him, the strength of him, the beauty of him.
He opened his eyes slowly, smiling at her the way he smiled at nothing and no one else, and
it made Isana feel deliciously smug, delighted.
She closed her eyes and nuzzled her face into his chest. “My lord, my love.”
“I love you, Isana,” he said.
The truth of it rang in Isana’s heart. She felt it between them, flowing like a river, running endlessly through both. “I love you, “ she whispered, and shivered in pure delight. “This is… this is like a dream. I’m terrified that if I open my eyes, all of this will be gone, and I’ll find myself in my cot.”
“I couldn’t bear it if this wasn’t real,” Septimus murmured into her hair. “Best you stay asleep then. “
Isana opened her eyes and found herself in a strange bedchamber.
Not in the moonlight.
Not young.
Not in love.
Not with him.
Septimus.
She’d had the dream before-memories, really, perfectly preserved, like a flower frozen in a block of ice. They made the dream so real that she could never remember, while it happened, that she was dreaming.
It hurt just as much to awake from the dream as it had all the times before. Slow, slow agony pierced her, taunted her with what might have been and never would be. It was pure torment-but to see him again, to touch him again, was worth the pain.
She didn’t weep. She was long since past the tears. She knew the memories would fade before morning, washed away into pale ghosts of themselves. She just held on to those images as tightly as she could.
The door opened, and Isana looked up to find her brother leaning in the doorway. Bernard entered at once, strode to her bedside, and gave her a warm smile.
She tried to smile back. “Bernard,” she said in a weary voice. “At some point, I would like a few weeks to go by in which I do not faint during a crisis.”
Her brother leaned down and enfolded her in a vast hug. “Things will settle down again,” he told her. “Lord Cereus says its because your watercrafting is so strong, without being complemented by enough metalcraft to endure your own empathy.”
“Lord Cereus,” Isana said. “Is that where I am?”