by Giles Carwyn
Arefaine knelt next to him. “I believe you have a confession to make about that assassin from Physendria and the man of my dreams.”
Dewland nodded, unable to stop himself. “I…I helped them escape. I got them a boat.”
“So you admit to treason?”
“Yes.” He bobbed his head like a puppet on a string.
“Why?”
“Because he was lost to the shadow. She was my only way to get him to safety.”
“But I thought he was your only hope, your only way to keep me in line.”
“He…” Dewland’s vision started to fade, but he couldn’t stop talking. “He is…He lives…Where there is love, there is hope.”
Arefaine pushed him over, and he sprawled against the wet slope. The crushing grip was released, and he took a desperate breath.
“Get him out of my sight,” she spat, and walked away.
Dewland heard Halman rush up to him. Strong hands grabbed him under the armpits and yanked him to his feet. He doubled over in a coughing fit, and the newly appointed Opal Advisor dragged him back to the bridge.
Dewland tried to regain his feet and suddenly found they were hanging over the abyss. Halman dangled him over the shattered end of the bridge, glaring at him with pure hatred. “The lady will never look upon such filth again,” he said, his eyes shining.
“Please, my child,” Dewland said as the Carrier shoved him backward.
He screamed as the bottom of the bridge rushed away from him. He fell, tumbling end over end through the glowing rainbows. The swirling mists were cool on his face just before he hit the rocks.
Chapter 18
Reef shook her gently, and Ossamyr nodded. She’d seen it coming.
The crewmen cheered as they saw the silver prow of a warship cut through the swells toward them. It had taken them only half a day for someone to investigate the column of black smoke that rose from the burning ship.
Ossamyr clung to the little raft Reef and his men had made for her. Her belly didn’t hurt anymore, but the wine probably had something to do with that. They hadn’t recovered any water from the ship before it sank, so they had to do with a keg or two of wine.
The only thing that made the ordeal bearable was that the Islanders all seemed to know every drinking song ever created, and they weren’t shy about singing them over and over again. If she hadn’t been half mad with fever, she almost would have enjoyed herself.
As the ship drew closer, the helmsmen yelled at the crew to quiet down. “Sober up, boys. Shore leave is over. We’ve got a battle to win.”
The waterlogged sailors gave halfhearted protests and complaints about a rather soggy shore leave, but she could tell they were eager for the fighting to start. Most of the Islanders were nothing like Reef. They were grim and threatening around strangers, but among friends they had an irrepressible “drink tonight for tomorrow we die” attitude.
She couldn’t help cringing at their enthusiasm. If she had completed her mission, none of them would be dying tomorrow.
The ship pulled up alongside, and the sailors tossed lines down to them. The men clambered aboard one at a time. Reef waited until last, and then helped her roll off the raft and into the water.
“Hold on to my neck,” he said gruffly.
“I can do it myself,” she said.
“Hell you can,” he said. “Just do as I say.”
Reef hadn’t said a kind word to her since the moment he set his own ship ablaze. He couldn’t, not in front of his men. But his actions told a different story. He’d spent the entire time by her side, keeping the raft steady, getting her wine, and making sure her skin was covered under the blazing sun. Neither of them had mentioned Brophy or what it had cost Reef to bring the boy aboard.
Ossamyr relented and wrapped her arms around his neck. He swam over to a rope, grabbed it with both hands, and walked hand over hand up the side of the ship with ease. The two ships’ crews were laughing together. They seemed to know one another well. Most of the newcomers were teasing Reef’s crew about picking a bad time to take a swim.
The ship was packed. Dozens of tattooed soldiers, both men and women, crowded the deck. Most of them appeared to be making arrows.
The ship’s captain walked over and greeted Reef. He was a particularly hairy man with a silver-and-black crescent tattooed on his broad chest. He was shadowed by a fierce-looking woman whose arms were painted with spirals of dark silver all the way to her shoulders. She instantly recognized them as two of the three Islanders who had attacked her on Efften. Reef embraced each of them in turn.
“Thank you, my friends. I owe you once again.”
“What happened to your ship?” the woman with the spiral tattoos asked, eyeing Ossamyr. Her distrust was palpable.
“Someone tried to take her,” Reef replied. “I had to stop him.”
“That sounds like a tale that would take a whole bottle to tell,” the captain said.
“That will have to wait,” Reef said. “Our assassination attempt failed. We go to war.”
The captain nodded once, tersely, and Ossamyr felt the sting of shame in the back of her throat. “In that case, the fleet is yours, Reef. We have nearly five thousand swords on a hundred ships waiting for you just around the cape.”
“Good,” Reef said. “What news of the enemy?”
“The Summer Fleet has come through Ohndarien and has been sailing steadily west. They have already passed to the north of us and will join forces with the Ohohhim within a few days.”
Reef was about to ask another question when Ossamyr interrupted.
“What about Ohndarien?” she asked. “What news?”
“We have few details, I’m afraid. The city has fallen. Either they were bested in combat, or they have joined the enemy.”
“No…” Ossamyr whispered.
“This is no more than we expected,” Reef said tersely. “We proceed as planned. We’ll wait in the Narrows between Efften and her northern atoll and brace them in the open ocean. I don’t want them landing any men on the accursed isle.”
The captain nodded. “I’m glad to hear it. My blood’s been waiting for this fight since it flowed through my grandfather’s veins.”
“Why is everyone fletching?” Reef asked. Ossamyr turned her gaze upon the working men. Light caught the tips of the arrows, casting rainbow reflections on the deck.
“A scout ship caught one of the Summermen’s vessels. She’d been left behind with a broken rudder. Our kinsmen boarded and were almost killed to a man,” the captain said. The muscles in his jaw stood out as he put down his anger. “The crew had been indentured. Every last one of them bleeds the dark tears.”
Reef’s lips pressed together tightly. Slowly, he nodded, then flicked a glance at the soldiers working quickly on their arrows. “That will be difficult to face. It may be our undoing. But then, it might be theirs. You’ve done well.”
“Thank you, Reef,” the captain said.
“What does he mean, indentured?” Ossamyr asked.
“You saw them in the Siren’s Blood,” Reef replied. “The black eyes, the black tears.”
Ossamyr remembered the visions hidden in the ani wine. The lights had shown her images from Efften, sweeping her up in a living nightmare of a vast ocean of naked bodies lost in darkness and rage.
“But how could the Summermen have been enslaved?”
Reef shrugged his massive shoulders. “They passed through Ohndarien. There was enough black emmeria in that city to enslave half the world.”
“But only the mages of Efften knew how to rip a soul from its body.”
“True, but one of them is still alive,” Reef said. “And his influence appears to be spreading.”
Ossamyr swallowed, remembering the pale face she’d seen within the Siren’s Blood. One of the archmages had survived. She’d heard his voice once on the quarry floor below Ohndarien’s walls when she’d nearly killed Shara at his urging.
“You think he did that to the S
ummermen?” Ossamyr asked. “The man locked within the silver tower?”
The Islander with the spiral tattoos shook her head. “It couldn’t be the Black One. The spell prevents his escape.”
“Apparently he has found a way,” Reef replied. “But he would have needed help from the outside, probably one of Arefaine’s minions, the crone from Physendria, or the Kherish albino. Even Shara could have done it.”
“No, not Shara.”
“Anyone can be seduced,” Reef said. “And she loves power more than most.”
Ossamyr was about to protest, but he brushed the subject away with a wave of his hand.
“Never mind the past; we only need to think of the next few days. The indentured are impervious to normal weapons, like the corrupted. But they’re highly vulnerable to the light emmeria, and that could give us an edge.”
“The force arrayed against us is much larger than we expected,” the captain said. “Do we intend to draw them in and flank—?”
“No, we’ll take them head-on.”
“Head-on?” the woman asked.
“So it will seem. We’ll send most of our forces straight at them, but that is only a diversion. The fleet is not our true target.”
“What is?” Ossamyr asked.
“Arefaine. She’s the only one that matters. The Ohohhim will keep her in the rear, and we’ll send two ships around either side to attack her directly. She will undoubtedly use her magic against us, and that will be her undoing.”
“How?”
“You remember that explosion yesterday?”
“Of course.”
“Imagine one much, much larger.”
Ossamyr suddenly understood. They had light emmeria. Arefaine had black emmeria. The two did not mix. “How much larger?”
Reef spat over the rail. “I put ten crystal shards in that bag of salt. We have tens of thousands of shards.”
Ossamyr looked at the faces of the captain with the crescent tattoo and the woman by his side. They were not surprised by Reef’s words. They knew they were going to die. They had expected it all along.
“All depends upon the witch,” Reef continued. “If she stays true to form, we won’t have to do anything. She’ll destroy herself and every ship in her armada.”
And ours, Ossamyr thought to herself.
The captain nodded. “A good plan. A desperate one.”
“This is our hour of desperation,” Reef said. “Continue your preparations.”
The captain nodded sharply. “I will do so at once,” he said, then moved off to relay his orders.
Reef turned to Ossamyr and inspected the wound in her belly. “And you,” he said, “will be returning to Slaver’s Bay.”
She paused, feeling the breeze on her face, faintly wet with sea spray. “You don’t expect to survive,” she said quietly. “None of us.”
“Not true,” he said. “I expect you to survive. That’s why I’m sending you back.”
“I’m not leaving.”
His nostrils flared at her defiance. “You don’t—”
“Shut up,” she said. “You gave me the Siren’s Blood. You took me to your bed. You gave me your heart…” She took a deep breath, wincing as she did.
“Ossamyr—”
“No. I’ve earned my place in your crew,” she said. She shook her head, keeping his gaze. “I’m already in this fight. I won’t be turned aside.”
He stared at her for a long time before finally nodding. Reaching out, he took her shoulders in his big hands and drew her close.
“All right,” he said, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. “To the end, then. For both of us.”
Chapter 19
Shara winced as she awoke. The predawn chill had crept into her bones as she slept on the deck of her little Farad messenger ship, and she pulled the extra sail tighter around herself.
Last night had been rough. But at least the worst of it was past. She rolled over and looked at Brophy leaning against the back of her boat. She could see little more than his silhouette in the half-light, but she knew he was listening to her every move. She felt the anguish under his calm exterior. His entire body was knotted up, desperate to restrain the emotions that had come bursting out of him in their first few moments together. He looked like he was trying to hold a lightning bolt clenched in his fist. It frightened her, and it made her love him more than ever.
She still couldn’t believe she had found him. She had nearly reached Ohohhom when she sensed Brophy’s heartstone far to the south, blazing like a ruby in her mind. Her magic took her right to him, and rushing into his arms had been everything she imagined.
But those few moments of joy had shriveled and twisted, as yet another chasm yawned between them. Brophy had been awoken, but he was still lost in the black emmeria. Shara could touch him, but could not reach him, and she had to stay strong. She had to hold firm like a mountain in the shifting black ocean in which he was lost.
Brophy frowned and looked over at her, somehow sensing that she had awoken. She knew that if she smiled gently at him, like she wanted to, he’d only look away in pain. So she sat up and looked away first, easing that choice for him.
Taking a deep breath of the chill air, she focused on the pain in her body, cycled healing energy through herself. The bruises, scrapes, and cuts he had left on her were nothing. Jesheks had put her body through far worse, and she had come through stronger on the far side. But she couldn’t help remembering Brophy pinning her to the deck, forcing himself inside her. As much as she had hated it, it never felt like rape. It had felt like she was trying to restrain a delirious person dying of fever. Brophy had wounded himself much more deeply by losing control.
After their fight, Brophy had swum back to his rowboat and Shara followed him for hours as he headed north. He rowed like a man beating his head against a wall, yanking back on the oars with single-minded brutality. His exertions finally bled off his rage, and he shipped the oars with a sigh.
“Shall we try this again?” she had asked, pulling up alongside him.
“Would it matter if I said no?”
“If you continued rowing, I would continue following.”
He had looked up at her, those green eyes framed by wrinkles of regret and fear. For a moment she was afraid he was going to run away again, but he stood up and jumped onto the deck of her day-sailer.
Shara had ached to rush into his arms but she’d restrained herself, standing there in painful silence as his rowboat drifted away from them.
He finally gave her a grim nod and slipped past her to man the rudder and set the straightest course for Ohohhom. Within a few minutes they’d left the rowboat far behind them.
Shara had paced the tiny deck for a long time, giving Brophy his space, and the sun had dropped low in the sky by the time he began speaking.
His voice came out in a monotone, as though he didn’t want to talk to her, but couldn’t keep himself quiet any longer. He told her about the years he’d spent in his dreams and the voice he fought there. His voice grew husky and strained when he spoke of killing his aunt, and she ached to reach out and give him a little nudge with her magic.
She could have helped him cry, helped him crack open and bleed his wounds clean. But she held herself back. He wasn’t fighting something that a single storm could wash away. She wanted to save him, but he was already busy saving himself. All she could do was love him, quiet and steady.
He told her everything, from his trip to the Cinder to the desperate battle on the bridge with Arefaine and the corrupted.
She didn’t push him for more details about the sorceress, though her heart ached to hear how close the two had become. When he spoke of her, he held something back. That much, Shara could tell. But he still wore her feather. That was enough. She kept telling herself that was enough.
The tale grew stranger after his corruption and awakening on the Silver Islanders’ warship. Shara was overjoyed and then puzzled by Ossamyr’s arrival in his tale. She’d put
her friend out of her mind, hoping for the best by refusing to consider the worst. An alliance with the Silver Islanders seemed the least probable outcome. Ossamyr hated the Islanders, and even more hated being told what to do. Yet Ossamyr’s companion, Reef, sounded like the same mysterious Islander who had given her the Siren’s Blood. It was yet another mystery that had to be unraveled.
When his tale came to a close, Shara told hers, describing the physical and emotional odyssey she’d embarked upon since diving off Ohndarien’s wall and sailing to the Summer Cities. She mentioned little of Mikal, of Jesheks. She hadn’t told anyone about what really happened between her and the albino. She wasn’t sure if she ever would. She hardly understood it herself.
She ended her tale with a tragic retelling of Astor and Ohndarien’s fate. Brophy took the news with a grim nod.
It was well past midnight when their stories were finished, and Brophy had come no closer to her. He’d insisted that she get some rest and she’d agreed, knowing he needed some time alone with his dark thoughts. As tired as she was, sleep had not come easily. She’d lain curled in her blanket for a long time, listening to the boom swing over as the little boat tacked. She could easily sense Brophy nearby, adjusting the trim of the sail. It reminded her of their time together on the Kherish trader sailing toward the Cinder before the Nightmare Battle. The sounds and smells of the ocean were irrevocably woven through her memories of those few golden days they’d shared. Somehow it seemed fitting that she find him once again in the middle of the ocean. The rolling of the little ship and the nearness of his body almost made her feel like she was home again. And after a long time she finally slept. Shara remained silent after she awoke, but it only took a few moments before Brophy noticed her and frowned. “Go back to sleep,” he said in a quiet voice. “You may not have another chance.”
“I know,” she said, swallowing down her fears at what the next few days might bring. She turned toward him, holding the sail around her like a cape. “But I’ve slept long enough. I can—”