by Mary Weber
“What is it?”
Myles lifts his hand, Eogan’s hand, which is noticeably shaking, and tucks a strand of hair behind his own ear. “How soon until the Elemental is ready?” he demands.
“I’ve told you, the ability in her will only grow from here on out. It’s you we’re waiting on. I can end it right now,” she says, and reaches out for his shoulder.
I jerk him away and hiss, “He is weak. It will not be much longer. But how will we know when to use the girl?”
“Whenever he decides,” she says coldly.
“And what of Eogan?”
She frowns and Princess Rasha, as a Bron guard, glares at me.
For the smallest second I swear there’s a twitch of Lady Isobel’s lip. Of love. Of despising.
I grin. She’s conflicted.
The next moment she smiles and seems to soften, but it’s sterile, as if something in it is forced. “He will be dead.”
“And you care nothing for that?” I growl.
She frowns. “My father’s approval is all I’ve ever needed. I have assured you both of that.”
“And the Luminescent and half-breed?” Myles-who-is-Eogan-who-is-Draewulf mutters.
“Once we arrive the Elemental will no longer need to be controlled by the half-breed. Which means I can get rid of Lord Myles or you can—whichever you prefer.” She turns to me. “However, the Luminescent and the Elemental will need to be contained while we do so. They seem to have taken an odd affinity for that man.”
There’s a ripple in the atmosphere and I peer at Myles. Just beneath the surface of his mirage I see his own face, his own dark eyes that flicker in slight surprise and, for a moment I think, soften even as his skin turns sallow and his hands begin to shake.
Rasha nods toward Myles’s trembling hands. “Why is his body reacting like this?” Her voice so perfectly matches the Bron guard that it makes me wonder how much more powerful Myles’s ability actually is. Clearly I should be more impressed with him.
“You would too if you were 130,” Lady Isobel snaps. As if a soldier should not be questioning such things. “Soon he will have his life back and I will remove the thing that pains him.” She tips her head and speaks to the man she believes to be her father. “I will make it so you won’t feel her betrayal anymore.”
I frown. Betrayal? Whose?
My question is answered before I can ask by Princess Rasha. She mouths to me, “His wife’s.” Then aloud, “My apologies, m’lady, I was merely wondering how best to help him in this . . . state.”
Lady Isobel sneers down her nose at him. “He does not need your help, nor is doing so your concern. Keeping your men in line and preparing them for battle should be your focus.”
“Yes, m’lady.”
“How might I best keep him comfortable?” I say. “And how will I know when he is ready?”
She narrows her brow. “My father is perfectly capable of answering such fool questions himself.”
I look irritably at Rasha. She’s not giving us anything to work with.
“Humor the wretch,” Draewulf-who-is-Myles growls.
Isobel snorts and purses her lips before, after a split second, turning back to me. “The green around his eyes will be gone. Now why don’t you go finish looking over the battle strategy I submit—”
“What if the Elemental kills Draewulf first?” Rasha asks.
Lady Isobel’s gaze contorts in confusion followed by suspicion. “The Elemental is impotent. We’ve saved her for another purpose.” She starts to turn.
“But her new ability,” I murmur. “Rumor has it she’ll use it to try to free her trainer from your father before we land.”
She stops. “What did you say?”
I swallow. I’m sure she’s already aware of this part of our plan because Draewulf has to be, but it still feels awkward. Like maybe we’re showing too much.
Rasha retreats and dips her shoulders to make herself look smaller, humbler. “Forgive me, m’lady, but it’s something I heard them whispering of. That perhaps she could use the ability for this purpose.”
In the twitch of an eye Isobel swishes forward and wraps long fingers over Rasha’s guard tunic. “You know nothing of how our powers work, nor of why we had her take the new ability on. And you will learn to stay silent around me from now on if you wish to stay breathing. Is that understood?”
The guard-who-is-Rasha nods and is released by Lady Isobel.
I stand in shock as the lady dusts her hands together and Rasha gives us the slightest tip of her head. She’s read Lady Isobel as much as she can. It’s time to go.
But I can’t.
“How did you know the Elemental would take on the ability?”
Lady Isobel stops. “Pardon?”
“How?”
“My father’s quite good at guessing Uathúil nature.” She peers at Draewulf. Then closer at me. “Why are you asking?”
“What did you need it for?”
Lady Isobel frowns and backs up. I reach my wraith hand out and press it to her collarbone. She jerks back against the wall beside the closed door, but I don’t let her slide away. “What does the Elegy mean?”
“What—?”
“The Elegy,” I hiss.
“Stop,” Rasha says beside me.
“Let her ask,” Myles murmurs.
Lady Isobel lifts one single brow and crushes her lips in a mocking expression before lifting a hand and placing it over my heart. “You’d be wise to let me go.”
I lift a hand and place it over hers. And begin to pull the energy from her very bones.
She utters a cry and tries to pull away.
“Why is he taking the blood of kingsss? And why was Eogan first—why did your father need his block?”
No answer.
I pull harder along with the air from her lungs until she’s gasping and gaping, but I won’t stop until she tells me.
She looks at Draewulf again and her gaze flutters. She’s figuring us out. I tug harder until her face turns the color of ash.
“Stop.” Rasha grabs my arm. I shove it off.
“Read her,” I snarl.
Lady Isobel utters a cry. “He needed it to protect him when bonding with the other kings’ blood.”
A scuffling noise emits behind the door beside us. Before I can tell Myles to grab it, he’s wrapped his fingers around the knob and murmured up a mirage for the Mortisfaire inside. Of what I can’t tell—I’m too focused on Isobel—but it’s enough to stop them from coming out.
“Why does he need their blood?”
Lady Isobel’s hand over my heart is weakening, and if it’s done anything to me I can’t tell. I can only feel the hunger and anger and the need to know what else she’s not saying. I need her answers before I finish her off. Releasing her hand, I force my palm firmly against her chest. Just as I do, Myles’s fingers come up to grip my memorial scars. I start to pull away from him because what in litches is he doing while I’m trying to get answers? But then I feel it.
It’s like a flood. Like he’s just tapped the edge of the vortex in me and somehow brought it into center. Why he didn’t do this in any of our training I don’t know, but there’s a spark in her energy and it’s as if a dam just broke. Surging. Roaring. Roiling around inside her, slowly gathering in her veins to become mine. A drip of blood oozes from her nose.
“Tell her,” Myles growls.
Lady Isobel begins to blink, then sags into the wall.
“He needs the Uathúil kings’ life forces—” She emits another cry, this time of anguish more than fury, as her breath becomes ragged. “He can’t become human again until he gains them.”
“Human?”
“He’s stuck in his Draewulf form.”
“Draewulf’s living on borrowed time,” Rasha says, her airy voice now laced with horror. I’m not sure whether her tone is because of me or Lady Isobel’s admission, but she’s staring at Isobel now, her eyes reddening. “He morphed into wolf form during that experi
ment when he was nineteen and found it protected him from aging. It also enabled him to absorb others’ energy. However . . . each time he’s changed back to his normal body, the years and magic have caught up with him, until now.” She looks at me. “He can’t become human anymore. He’s surviving off others.”
There it is.
His weakness. No wonder he inhabits others’ bodies.
I press harder. “How will the blood of kings help?” And for a moment I swear her power flows from her mouth to swirl around us in a black mist before it touches down on my skin to float into my veins.
Rasha looks at me. “The blood of the kings is tied to their land and their abilities—making it powerful enough to give him back his life. But it’s also more powerful than he can handle without Eogan’s block.” Rasha’s gaze widens. Her voice falls to a whisper. “Nym, he has to kill them. He’s going to take the rest of the Hidden Lands’ monarchs.”
Lady Isobel is glaring at me alone now—as if she can’t even hear our conversation. She’s just trying to get my hand away from her, but her energy is failing. “I need . . . I need—”
Her words stop. Her face pales. And she tips backward with a sigh, sliding down the door to the carpet.
“Nym!”
I don’t move as Rasha bends to check Lady Isobel’s heartpulse. I simply stare at her in amusement for how weak she is and at what I’ve done. At what my ability’s done. “Wisdom would suggest we kill her right now.”
Rasha whips a shocked expression up at me. “Are you jesting? Do you—?”
“I’m not saying I like it, but this is our chance.” Except even as I say it, something within me wonders if I do like it. If the part of me that hates her does want it. My chest curls and for a second it’s as if the ice in my veins surges over the space in me that has always detested becoming a weapon. That has always feared hurting others.
“You think we should murder an incapacitated woman? Nym—”
I glance at Myles for help. “Isn’t this what we’ve been talking about? Stopping Lady Isobel and Draewulf?” How hard can it be to connect the lines?
He’s studying Lady Isobel. “If we kill her off now, we’ll not only show our hand to Draewulf and her army, but we’ll bring down their wrath on usss as well. And it’s too soon for that. Until we land, they have the upper hand on these shipsss. I hate to say it, but we need to keep her alive a little longer.”
Rasha removes her fingers from Lady Isobel’s neck. “Still alive, but—” She looks up at me. “Barely.”
“And when she wakes? She’ll have us killed for what we’ve just done.” I look at both of them like they’re insane.
“Not if we keep her bound and hidden. No one else knowsss we have her—they’ll busy themselves with searching for her but won’t be able to directly accuse usss.”
I stare at Myles and Rasha, a feeling of digust for both of them building. “Mark my words, if we don’t kill her now, she’s going to do a lot worse to others. She’s already done worse.”
“So have you.”
It’s hardly a whisper, Rasha’s statement. But it lifts in the air to land like a slap on my face.
I bat it away as if it were a hornet just as the door to the dining area bursts open, and one of the guards is standing there, looking confused.
Without thinking I press my hand out and imagine his lungs, his soul, his blood, and just as with Lady Isobel, I draw the breath inside him toward me. I can feel it enter my hand from five paces away. His fingers go to the door frame as his eyes find Lady Isobel slumped on the floor. He rips his gaze up to Myles-who-is-still-Draewulf, then to me, as if unsure whether to step away, or charge us, or run. The next moment he’s holding on to the wall for support.
It’s not enough support. His body slips to the floor as I draw energy from him.
I drop my hand at the same moment Myles drops our façade. The mirage ripples and fades, and Rasha cries out and brushes past me to the soldier’s side, but suddenly she’s coughing and so is Myles.
I follow and push the door open wider and stride into the dining room. And now I’m coughing and gasping too.
What in—? Everyone’s laid out on the floor, faces contorted. The atmosphere feels thin as Rasha and Myles rush over to guards and wraiths to touch their faces, their necks, feeling for their heartpulses.
“This one’s still alive.”
“So is this one,” Rasha says. “It’s as if they all fainted.”
I look at my hand. At their limp bodies. Still breathing. Just knocked out. As if I stole the wind from their lungs. I disabled a mass of them at one time without touching them or killing them, and it makes me smile because I can do this. I can use this. And as nervous as that makes me, it also feels safe. And I haven’t felt safe in a very long while.
Rasha turns to me from her place hunched over one of the men. Her face looks more frightened than I can ever recall seeing it. “You could’ve killed them.”
“I could have but I didn’t.” My smirk grows and I glance at Myles. “Which means the vortex has grown stable.”
“Then we are near ready,” he says with a blank expression. “Come.” He opens the door to our quarters.
Myles stops as an acrid scent pours out of the hall. I peer past him and my stomach lurches. Even with their faces turned away, it’s easy to recognize the Cashlin guards with their throats slit open and chests torn apart.
A pool of blood has leached out over the red carpet, staining it darker crimson. I stride over and bend down to feel the first man’s pulse although it’s clear he’s beyond help. Beyond any of our abilities. Beyond dead.
Rasha emits a low moan. “No, no, no, no! Who did this? Why?!”
Myles reaches up to a lamp attached to the wall and twists its knob to brighten the entire area. The glow sends eerie rays onto the carpet where the blood is slashed in as I continue a search of the body. Until I realize that what at first looks like gray creases around the neck and cuts are actually strands of gray rags.
I pull back. And what seems like the slice of knife across the poor man’s chest is too rough, too harsh. They’re the claw markings from a bolcrane.
CHAPTER 35
TAKE ME TO HIM.” I STAND AND THEY BOTH GLANCE at me.
“Who are we speaking of?”
“Draewulf. Get me up to see him.”
“Nym, this isn’t the time. We need to stick with our plan—”
I spin on Rasha. “When is the time? When we’re all dead? When the bleeding world’s been blown up?” I look at Myles. “Take me to him or I will get up there myself.”
The grim set of his mouth says he knows exactly what I’m implying. He peeks at Rasha but his words are for me. “While it pains me to agree with Her Cashlin Majesty, that idea’s not any wiser than destroying Lady Isobel right now. Our plan is set, and your powers—”
“Were strong enough to knock out Isobel and half the guards. They’re ready.” I step back into the dining room and move from guard to guard grabbing their knives. I sheathe one in my boot and toss the rest to Myles and Rasha.
“And what happens if, say, you accidentally take this entire ship down?” Myles says. “Not that I’d mind, dear, except for the fact that, you know, I’m on it.” He sniffs. “We need to stay with our agreement, and once we’re over land—”
I begin walking. “You helped me with Lady Isobel; you can help with Eogan. And once Isobel wakes up or her Mortisfaire discover us, I doubt we’ll get another chance. Eogan doesn’t have time for us to make any more blasted plans.”
“Nym, just wai—”
I ignore Rasha and stride to the dining room door. Without looking back I jerk my head at the wraiths still laid out cold. “If you’re smart, you’ll kill them and Lady Isobel before they wake.”
I’m just pushing open the door to the airship’s deck when Myles curls the atmosphere around us, turning himself into a wraith and me into Lady Isobel. I smile like I’ve seen her do and something about it feels oddly natural
. Relieving.
I’m going to finish this.
The guards on deck hardly glance our way as we slip to the right and around the corner to the door leading up to Eogan’s quarters. “Move,” I say to the two undead beasts standing there.
I don’t even wait for them to obey before pressing my way through. Their hissing grows louder, but they make no attempt to stop us. “M’ladyyyy,” they say, and it almost sounds worshipful. Something about it makes me shiver as I yank open the door.
With Myles behind me, I march up the two, five, fifteen red-carpeted stairs to a room almost completely made of windows except for a wall and door on my right. Three wraiths stare at us, and the two young boys seated at a bench of what appear to be knobs and wheels for steering this blasted ship turn to look at me.
One of them is Kel.
“Lady Isobel,” he says.
I don’t answer. I’m too busy staring back. He’s alive. And here. As a ship captain? Is that how he stowed away on the airship at Faelen’s Keep?
I peer at his face, his hands, his shoulders. He’s hunched over and near broken looking, but his expression is hard and hateful as he glares at me. For a second I cringe until I realize his loathing is not actually directed at me, but for Lady Isobel, and it’s all I can do not to step forward and hug him. They’ve forced him to fly this.
One of the wraiths glides forward. “How may we helllllp you, Eminencccce?” he hisses.
I blink and turn from Kel. “My father. Where is he?”
The wraith angles his cloaked face until it’s tilted all the way to the side and studies me—like a pythanese snake. It occurs to me that his hood-shadowed face is covered in wide, flat, mottled-green scales that make the hair on my neck prickle. A second later he raises a crooked finger and points to the only door on my right.
Before I can move for it though, the handle turns and it opens and Eogan is standing there. His face widens a split second before narrowing in anger. He glances at Myles and back at me before emitting a low growl and springing for both of our throats.