by Mary Weber
I ignore the shiver that brings. “I think I’d gathered that, except . . .” I stop. And stare at him.
Suddenly the thing I didn’t even realize had been nagging at me since last night bubbles up and bursts forth. I no longer have those specific powers.
I open my mouth. Shut it. Finally say, “I’m no longer an Elemental.” Even Isobel referred to me as impotent.
“That’s exactly why you needed new powersss, my dear. You heard the witch—even she believed you could do it.”
“But they knew I had those powers, and it’s like they weren’t even concerned.”
Rasha’s small gasp drags my gaze over. Her mouth has dropped open and her eyes are flaring like fire.
“Nym, he . . .”
I peer back at Myles as his lips promptly clamp closed.
It takes me a minute to latch onto what she’s just deciphered before suddenly it’s somehow floating in my mind too. “The only thing the Elegy’s clear on regarding killing Draewulf is that only an Elemental can do so . . .”
Myles already knew about the Elegy.
I’m at his throat so fast he doesn’t have time to duck away. “You knew. This whole time you knew what the Elegy said and you didn’t say a word. You heard Eogan tell me on that roof that it had begun—that the Elegy was the key—and you didn’t tell me what it was?”
He gurgles and thrashes his hands at me. He even tosses up an image of Eogan beneath my hands.
I squeeze tighter and lower my voice to ice. “How long have you known about the Elegy?”
He glances at Rasha—whether for help or because he knows she’ll see if he’s lying, I can’t tell. “Since visiting Bron three years ago.”
“You blasted—What else do you know about it?”
“Nothing,” he chokes.
His tone is off. His lisp is off.
He’s lying. How could I not have heard it before? In his voice—in his hesitations?
“You’re fibbing,” Rasha says.
I grind my teeth. “What else?”
“Only that Draewulf’s sewing of sinew and bone had begun with the Dark Army. And that only an Elemental can kill him.” He wrenches free of me, panting. “I swear.”
I look at Rasha. Her gaze is narrowed tighter than I’ve ever seen it. As if she’s filleting his insides one piece at a time in pursuit of honesty. After a moment she nods. “He’s telling the truth.”
He glares at both of us and adjusts his cuffs before smoothing his long, thin hands over his pant legs. His attitude calms quickly. Too quickly in fact, as his face takes on that hungry expression again I saw on the roof with Eogan.
“The image you showed me—I was killing Draewulf for you, and then . . . I was killing Eogan too.” I sharpen my tone. “Perhaps it’s time you tell exactly why you’ve been helping me?”
“I assumed that was quite obvious. I need you to kill Draewulf for me. But pardon if I’m also preparing you—”
“What else do you want?”
He stops. Stares hard at my face. And grows more serious than I’ve ever seen him, even as airsickness tugs at his lips. “If Eogan survives the separation—and Draewulf is killed—Eogan will be weak and someone will need to be there to step in. Someone with an immense amount of power to take control of the Dark Army before Isobel can use them. That person will have to do what needs to be done in order to keep the rest of the world from going to hullsss.”
“How compassionate you make your motives sound.” I snort. “Especially considering your and Draewulf’s interests in having me take on another ability.” I lean in. “Are you working with him?”
His expression turns five shades of insulted.
“How did he know?” I push. “How did Draewulf know you’d suggest it? How did he know I’d take it on? He said I’d go back even. Perhaps because you’d make sure—”
“Nym, he’s not working with him,” Rasha whispers. “Draewulf’s been around a long time. He’s excellent at guessing human nature, and he knows how you and Myles both work. My guess is he knew you’d do anything to help Eogan. But with Myles . . .”
I glance past him to her. Her eyes are a terrifying shade of red illuminated by the level of sickly pale her skin has gone. A look of realization dawns. “What?”
“Myles wants Draewulf’s powers,” she says, and her hazy tone is more than horror. It’s shock.
“For what?”
“So he can become like him. To rule in place of Draewulf.”
This? This is his bigger plan he spoke about the last time we were on this ship?
“You want to become Draewulf?” If I wasn’t so disgusted, I’d laugh at the stupidity of it.
“Not become him,” Myles snarls. “Just utilize his abilities to ensure no one like him ever gains control again.”
Does he hear himself? “You do know you sound ludicrous, yes? Not that it matters, because if I can kill Draewulf like you’re so convinced I can, then what’s to stop me from taking you out as well? I don’t care what your ulterior motives are, Myles. I refuse to be part of your endgame. I’ll not help—”
“Except you already have.” Rasha’s eyes are still doing that flaring business, and her smile is sad. “When you absorbed the power. Whatever that witch did—it not only unleashed an ability in you, it attached Myles along with it somehow. Giving him some measure of control over it. Over you.” She continues to study him. “He drank a bit of the potion because he’s just as irresponsible as his parents.”
His tone freezes. “I’ll thank you to leave my parents out of this.”
I swallow and glare back and forth between them. “How much control?”
He flicks a hand.
“How much?”
“Only enough to ensure you didn’t bleeding kill me while I trained you.”
My hand reaches out to press beneath his chin. “You tricked me.”
“I did no such thing. But thisss”—he glances toward my fingers clamping down—“this reaction has to stop. You’re becoming downright unbearable.” He shoots a glare at Rasha as if to blame her for egging me on.
I don’t care. I don’t release his narrow face. Just tilt my head at him. “Rasha, tell me about his parents. How were they irresponsible?”
“Myles is the illegitimate son of a Cashlin lord and King Sedric’s aunt.”
“And?”
She stays quiet long enough that I finally let go of Myles to glance at her, only to discover her staring at me. She finally tips her head forward, as if willing me to understand.
I frown. A Cashlin lord? Wait . . . “Are you saying his powers are Luminescent?” I almost laugh at the strangeness, and for a moment, the wretched mood in here is broken. “Is that why you hate him so much?”
“I hate him because of his despicable personality. The fact that he’s an abomination to the Luminescent race is a side point.”
I look at Myles and, without ever in a million years wanting to, feel the oddest twinge of something very much like compassion for him. Before I know it I’ve stepped back and muttered something Colin would’ve said: “Just because this world is on the verge of fear and death doesn’t mean those have to overrun who you are in the midst of it, Myles.”
He actually laughs. “Funny sentiment coming from you, and much easier said than done, methinksss you’ll find.”
CHAPTER 33
IT’S A LONG REST OF THE DAY.
And an even longer night.
One in which I can barely contain my impatience with the amount of time we’re wasting detailing what to ask Lady Isobel, whether it’d be wiser to attempt going for Draewulf while we’re still over the ocean or to wait until we’ve landed, and how exactly to use our abilities not only to get at Draewulf, but to stop the Dark Army.
The discussion flip-flops round and round, like a busted pinwheel, until my head is near busted as well. “I’m not waiting to free Eogan until we reach Tulla. We can make plans forever, but it’s not going to matter if we don’t actually do somethin
g.”
Myles peers at me. “You think those guardsss or wraithsss will let us within an inch of Draewulf or Lady Isobel if we don’t plan for every possible scenario? You may as well seal lover boy’sss death sentence yourself.”
I snort. “Draewulf and Isobel are contained with us on a flying metal box. We can’t arrange for every possible scenario, but I’d say we have a fairly good idea. Beyond that, your mirages will get us to Lady Isobel and then Draewulf. If your training has worked in the way you’re so convinced, we should be able to end this quickly and go home.”
“And what happens when Isobel or Draewulf or even you, my dear, decide to let loose powers we’ve not prepared to deal with? Handle it wrong and we’ll bring down this whole airship with usss in it.”
“If we don’t do this right, you’ll never get another chance,” Rasha says in a soft voice.
I bite my lip and stare at both of them. After a second I nod and rise, then walk out of the room because I don’t need their blasted lectures. The airship’s droning is pelting my head. Yes, we have a plan, but what part of “Eogan’s dying” do they not understand? I meander down the tiny hall to the metal door standing between us and the dining room. Will the spider in my bones be able to open it?
I try eighteen.
Nineteen.
Twenty-one times.
But apparently my vortex abilities don’t work on metal.
My night is spent lying on the floor listening to Rasha breathing and the wraiths hissing while my head is swearing that Eogan is dying while we bide our time. It’s the following morning when the large guard shows up to let us out of our quarters. He brings a squadron of two soldiers and two wraiths along—I hear the latter before they even enter the hall, with their monotonous, unending murmurings.
I avoid looking at them or replying to their hissed words that reach out to me like bony talons reaching for a fly, and instead focus in on their stench, which is so bad I half expect Myles to vomit. When I glance over, I catch Rasha smirking at him.
He withers his gaze just as the wraiths step in front of Rasha’s Cashlin soldiers. “Only these threeeeee,” they hiss, while the big guard informs the men that only Rasha, Myles, and I are being allowed into the dining area and deck.
“The airship’s delicate balance,” he claims, and it’s only Rasha’s Luminescent assurances of her own safety that keep her guards from causing a scene.
The sterile dining area is clear of all but two Bron men I could almost mistake for furnishings the way their red-and-black skinsuits match the carpet and metal walls. Behind them the sea spans out beyond those giant windows, glittery and foamy and bluer than anything believable. They stare at us as we’re quickly led through to the deck with its abundance of fresh salt air. And more half-human, half-animal wraiths.
They’re lined up in rows, all stiff, all staring our direction. Their glimmering eyes and bone-dry faces look eerily empty, especially since they’re not moving. Not even tapping a clawed foot or twitching a gray hand—it’s only that spine-chilling hissing that gives any indication they’re alive. If you can call their existence living.
I swallow and try not to wonder what kind of men they were before this. Did they die first, or were they converted while still alive? Two of them are standing by the door to the side of us, the door I saw Draewulf disappear through our last time on this ship. The one I assume leads up to the captain’s quarters, which rise a story above the dining area and deck and nearly touch the enormous overhead balloon.
The large guard clears his throat and yells over the airship’s hum, “You have ten minutes! After that I escort you back to your rooms.”
I walk over to the railing and ignore Rasha and Myles who’re wandering off as planned—Myles to influence the other guards’ intentions and Rasha to read them and find out where Lady Isobel’s staying.
The large guard follows me.
The sun’s warm rays pull the moisture up from the ocean’s surface, filling the air with a sparkling mist that hits my shoulders and back, distracting my straining ears and hopes and heartpulse that are listening for anything that will speak of Eogan.
For the first time in days I don’t tighten my cloak around me but let it slide back and flutter away from the red dress borrowed from Rasha. And feel the airy spray on my skin.
“It’s lovely,” I say to the guard, in my best soothing voice.
He doesn’t even look at me.
I shrug and look down because it really is lovely. I wait for the ache that comes with the song in my bones that responds to the salt in the sea. But it doesn’t emerge.
Despite the new abilities and training and freezing in my veins, the melody’s still gone.
Something purple glints off the corner of my eye and I catch the splash of a tail. A moment later, the purple fish flips out of the water again, followed by another, and then a third, and then there’s a whole school of them leaping toward the ship. Suddenly the water’s churning and roiling and the beautiful flutter-fish are amassing in a dance ten feet off the surface of the sparkling ocean.
The deck beneath my feet tilts forward and it’s as if we’re dipping down toward the sea to join them. The silver hull of the ship reflects off the water as we drop down until we’re less than a half terrameter above.
I look up at the second-story quarters before back at the guard. “Can Eogan and the captain see them?”
He gives a stiff nod.
“Is that where they direct the ship from?” I ask, casually, and point to the quarters.
His face curls into a snarl. Nice try.
I smirk and gaze out at the other airships now above us, flying in perfectly formed rows. Straight and shiny and droning, like silver bees heading for a banquet. “You shouldn’t look so litched, you know. One might think you’re worried I’m going to take us all down with my storm powers.”
“Why do you think I’m standing here?”
Ha. “With a knife hidden on you, no doubt.” I grin wider and lean closer. “What if I just took down a couple?” I twitch a hand up toward the horde of airships. “Ever seen them explode?”
His fingers flash to his side, beneath his armpit, and stall when I drop my hand and smirk. So that’s where they keep their blades.
His expression is deadly. “Do that again and I’ll pitch you over-board.”
“And I’ll take every airship in this fleet with me.”
“Says the girl who couldn’t bear a boy killing another man for honor the other night.”
I raise a brow. Is he jesting? “Using children for blood sport and destroying an army bent on murder aren’t even on the same spectrum.”
“And what about the children flying these ships?”
Children?
He eyes me. Calculating. His expression saying he’s not lying. And that he knows the hesitation it’ll give me.
My stomach twists. If anything goes wrong—if all other resorts fail—in order to destroy this army we’ll also have to destroy children. I may not care much about the rest of the people on these ships, but . . . I look at the fleet of them as a lace of discomfort filters in at the base of my skull. When I blew up those airships over Bron . . .
“Who?” I whisper, pushing the words out between my teeth. “Whose idea was it to use them so young?” Was it Eogan’s father’s? Odion’s?
When he refuses to answer, there’s something akin to relief in me. I don’t want to know. And I’m not sure it matters anyway.
I swallow. “How was the boy before we left? The one Sir Gowon had beaten.”
The guard’s gaze hardens. “He’s fine.”
I nod and don’t push further because Myles suddenly catches my eye from across the deck where he and Rasha have been coercing one of the Bron men from the looks of it.
He tips his head. They’re ready.
CHAPTER 34
I PUSH OFF FROM THE RAIL AND STROLL TOWARD THE dining area, and the guard and two wraiths follow just as I join Rasha and Myles at the door. T
hey both keep their faces straight ahead, but I catch Rasha peering at me. She gives a slight nod. By the time the door’s shut and we’ve strode across the room to our quarters, Myles is murmuring and abruptly the entire wall facing us shimmers and shudders. The two doors in front of us switch places—one leading to the rooms the other delegates used on our last trip, and the other to ours.
The guard beside me blinks. Slow, unsure. Behind him the wraiths do the same, looking even more desiccated with their eyes bulging oily and opaque above the skin hanging off their bony cheeks. They hiss but there are no words in it—just confusion. I shiver. And note the other Bron soldiers in the room rise, clearly confused as well.
Rasha reaches for the far door, which from Myles’s manipulation appears to be ours, and opens it to reveal a thin, dark hallway. She flips around and flutters her hand at the men and beasts. “You may leave us.”
The large guard hesitates, shakes his head, then mutters some curse word and pulls the door shut behind us. I hear the lock click.
And Myles is still murmuring.
“This way.” Rasha indicates the first door on our left. But before she opens it she nods to Myles and says, “Nym, only the questions we discussed. Nothing more.”
“Fine. Myles.”
I needn’t have even prompted him because we’re already changing size and bodies. Rasha becomes a Bron guard, and I become the lead wraith we saw on the palace roof. And Myles . . . He takes the shape of Eogan.
I try not to think about it and reach out to knock on Lady Isobel’s door.
“We’re resting,” a feminine voice snaps from within.
“It’s me,” Myles says, lowering his voice automatically. It’s eerie, hearing both Eogan and Draewulf come out his slimy mouth.
The door opens and Isobel’s standing there, hand on her hip. There’s a flash of Mortisfaire guards behind her lounging on a couch. My gaze stalls on them. Without their masks they look young. Incredibly young, and pretty, and normal. And they lounge. Somehow that’s not something it ever occurred to me they’d know how to do. One lazily picks up a knife and rises to join Isobel, but is waved back before she gets two feet. She returns to the couch and Isobel steps out. And shuts the door behind her.