The other two divers wanted to lay claim to her, but Sol was their leader, and he would have to be first. Their two comrades were dead, and the survivors deserved something. The sorceress owed them all a few rounds of gasping, squirming pleasure. In fact, she owed them the lives of their murdered friends, Pell and Buna. She had somehow used her magic to summon underwater monsters to kill them. Nicci had taunted the divers for days, rebuffed their attentions, insulted them—and now two of his comrades were dead. It was her fault.
Back home in Serrimundi, Sol and his fellow wishpearl divers were treated as heroes. From the time he was a young boy, his parents had taught him to dive deep, and then they had sold him to a mentor for a portion of Sol’s pearl harvest over the next five years. The mentor had trained him—and such training consisted of him trying to drown young Sol over and over, tying heavy weights to his ankles, sinking him to the bottom of a deep lagoon and counting out minutes. The mentor did not pull any of the apprentice divers back into blessed air until he decided they had been down there long enough. Over a third of the trainees came up dead, their lungs filled with water, their eyes bulging, their mouths open and slack.
Sol himself had drowned once, but he had coughed up the water and come back to life. That was when he knew he would be a wishpearl diver. He could have any Serrimundi woman he wanted, and he usually did. His lovers all expected wishpearls as gifts, which he freely gave. Sol could always find more.
Out in the southern reefs, the supply of folded-hand shells seemed inexhaustible, but Captain Corwin paid him in more than wishpearls. It was a lucrative arrangement, giving Sol and his companions power and status whenever they returned to port.
But Pell and Buna would not be coming back home. Because of Nicci. The aloof sorceress thought that she was untouchable, that she would not be held to account for killing his friends, but the Sea Mother demanded justice, and Sol knew how to deliver it.
After he whispered his plan to Elgin and Rom, the three met on deck where the sailors had piled discarded wishpearl shells. Most had already been thrown overboard, but these last few remained, unnoticed after the disaster and the rapid escape from the reefs.
Now, the divers used their knives to pry loose the inedible and worthless meat inside, but Sol knew more about these particular shells. A gland inside the flesh of the shellfish contained a toxin—a poison potent enough to incapacitate even a sorceress.
The three men worked quickly to gather the extract, because the cook would soon be preparing supper.
* * *
Bannon had first watch in the thickening night, and he was nervous. On Chiriya he had seen many terrible storms roar across the ocean, hurricane-force winds that whipped the flat island and tore the roofs off of houses. Fishing boats in the coves had to be tied securely or dragged to safety up on the shore.
He had never been through a storm at sea, but he could smell danger in the air. Sharp bursts of breezes tried to rip the breath from his lungs. He didn’t like the look of the clouds or the feel of the winds.
The off-duty sailors had gone belowdecks to play games in the lantern-lit gloom. Some men swung in their hammocks, trying to sleep as the Wavewalker lurched from side to side; others puked into buckets, which they emptied out the open ports.
Bannon was startled when three shapes loomed up beside him on the deck, lean men who stood shirtless even in the blowing wind and pelting droplets of cold rain. Sol, the leader of the wishpearl divers, held a pot covered with a wooden lid. “The cook is finished serving supper.”
Though he was queasy from the rocking deck, Bannon’s mouth watered. He hadn’t eaten all day. “Is that for me?”
Rom scowled at him. “No, you’ll get your own meal when your watch is over. But the cook wanted to make sure the sorceress ate.”
Bannon frowned. “He’s never done that before.”
“We’ve never had a storm like this before,” Elgin said. “Best for the two passengers to stay in their cabins. If the fools walk around in the rain and wind, they might fall overboard, and the captain wants to be sure they pay him a bonus when we get into port.”
Bannon nodded. That made sense.
“We already delivered a meal to the wizard, but the sorceress…” Sol looked away, as if in shame. “She knows we’ve been unkind to her, insulted her.” He thrust the pot into Bannon’s hands. “Better if you deliver dinner personally.”
Rom nodded. “Yes, it would be awkward if the three of us did it.”
“Awkward,” Elgin agreed.
Bannon was skeptical. He’d never seen the wishpearl divers run errands for the cook before. But most of the sailors were belowdecks, after all. And the divers rarely did any work, so he was glad to see them cooperate. Maybe the deaths of their comrades had given them a change of heart.
Besides, Bannon was glad for the opportunity to bring Nicci her dinner. “I’ll take it,” he said.
CHAPTER 13
As the ship rocked in the sway of the increasing storm, Nicci looked at the pot Bannon had delivered to her cabin. She lifted the wooden lid and sniffed.
“It’s fish chowder,” Bannon said, happy to be of service. He caught himself against the door of her cabin as the ship lurched, but his smile didn’t fade. “The cook wanted to make sure you ate.”
“I will eat.” Nicci had not intended to venture out into the wind-lashed night to make her way to the galley. The young man was so eager, so solicitous; if she did not accept the food, she knew he would only continue to pester her. “Thank you.”
“I’m on watch. I have to get back to my duties.” Bannon obviously wanted to chat with her, hoping she would ask him to stay for a few more moments.
“Yes, you have to get back to your duties.” Nicci took the pot in a swirl of savory, fishy aromas, and when the young man awkwardly retreated, she closed the flimsy cabin door.
Her room had plank bulkheads, a washbasin, a narrow shuttered porthole, and a tiny shelf. A hard narrow bunk with a woolen blanket served as her bed, and a small oil lamp illuminated her quarters with a flickering flame.
Sitting on the bunk, Nicci lifted the pot’s lid and used a splintered wooden spoon to stir the milky broth. Chunks of fish floated amid wilted herbs, gnarled tubers, and pieces of onion. She ate. The taste was sour, flavored with unfamiliar spices.
When serving Emperor Jagang, Nicci had traveled the Old World, eaten many strange cuisines, and sampled flavors that only a starving woman could enjoy. This stew was one of those, possibly because the milk had curdled in the broth. But she needed the nourishment. This was food, nothing more.
The hull creaked and shifted as the ship felt the pressure of the waves and the building wind. Finished with her meal, she turned the key in her oil lamp to retract the wick and extinguish the flame. In her cramped cabin she had only the darkness and the sounds of a struggling ship for company.
She lay back on her narrow bunk, trying to sleep, feeling her insides churn much like the waves outside. Before long, she wrapped the blanket around herself, shivering. The shivers became more violent. Her muscles clenched, her head began to pound.
Within an hour she knew that the chowder was poisoned. Not just spoiled, but containing some deadly substance. She should have known. She should have been more wary. Others had tried to kill her before, many others.
But she found it incomprehensible that Bannon would poison her. No, she couldn’t believe it. The simple, eager young man was not a schemer, not a traitor. She had trusted the food because he had delivered it.
But he could have been duped himself.
Nicci curled up, panting hard, trying to squeeze out the fire in her gut. Sweat blossomed on her skin, and her shivers became so severe they were like convulsions. Her insides roiled as if someone had plunged a barbed spear into her stomach and twirled it, twisting her intestines until she feared they might be torn out, like what remained of the wishpearl diver.
Barely able to see or think, she slid off her bunk and swayed on weak legs. Her knee
s nearly buckled, but she clutched the joined planks of the bulkhead. Her head spun. She retched, as if some invisible hand had reached down her throat and was trying to pull out her insides.
Slumping against the wall of her cabin, Nicci was so unsteady that she barely noticed the Wavewalker shuddering in the heavy seas. Her vision blurred, but the cabin was so dark she couldn’t see anyway. Her muscles felt like wet rags.
Nicci needed to find help—needed to get to Nathan. She could think of no one else. Maybe the wizard would be able to purge the poison, heal any damage. But she couldn’t find the door. Her entire cabin was spinning.
She retched again—this time vomiting all over the floor—but the poison had already set in. She tried to call upon enough of her own magic to strengthen herself, at least to get out of this trap, but she was too dizzy. Her thoughts spun like a wheel edged with jagged razors.
She had to get out, had to find her way onto the deck, where she hoped the fresh, cold air would revive her.
She felt along the walls of her cabin, forced herself to focus, knowing she would find the door if she just kept moving. How could she be lost in such a cramped space? She encountered the small shelf and held on to it, placing so much weight on it that the nails ripped loose from the planks and came crashing down. She collapsed, and crawled across the deck, her hand slipping in the wet pool of her vomit. When she found her bunk again, Nicci was able to pull herself to her feet. Finding the wall, she worked her way around the cabin, one agonizing step at a time.
The deck kept heaving, but she needed to find the way out. She knew it was here … somewhere close.
Her cabin door burst open as someone pushed it inward. Nicci reeled back and barely caught her balance as she saw three men crowded in the doorway. She knew that Bannon was on watch, Nathan was in his cabin, and the rest of the Wavewalker’s crew were huddled belowdecks, hiding from the storm.
Nicci was here all alone.
The three wishpearl divers faced her. Rom carried a small lamp turned down low, so they could make their way along the corridor. They were still shirtless, and the unsteady lamplight cast dark shadows that chiseled their muscles. Their loose trousers had been cinched tight around their waists—and in her distorted vision, Nicci saw that Sol was aroused, his manhood poking against the fabric like a short, hard harpoon.
She retreated a step deeper into her cabin. Her knees wobbled, and her weak helplessness made Sol burst out in laughter. The other two divers joined him in their husky chuckles. “The sorceress appears to be under the weather,” said Elgin, then snickered at his own joke.
“She’ll be under me in a minute,” said Sol. He pushed his way into the cabin with the other two close behind him. “You’ll be too sick to fight or use your evil magic, bitch, and after we’re done with you, you’ll be too sore and exhausted to move.”
“Go,” Nicci managed, and forced herself to add, “last chance.”
“I get the first chance,” said Sol. “These two can take their turns afterward.”
With a careless gesture, he knocked Nicci backward onto her bunk. The muscular man stood over her, slammed her shoulders down against the wadded blanket, and fumbled with her breasts. She pushed at his hands, tried to claw them. Even though she was sick and unable to find her magic, Nicci’s nails were sufficient weapons, and she ripped deep gouges in his forearm. Sol slapped her hard across the face, and her head slammed against the pallet. Nicci reeled, but the physical blow was no worse than what the poison was doing inside her.
Sol managed to yank down the front of her dress to expose her breasts. “Bring the lamp, Rom. I want to see these.”
The three men leered down, laughing. Sol said, “Pink nipples, just like I thought! It’s good to see for myself after dreaming about them for days.” He put a paw over her left breast, crushing down, squeezing hard.
Nicci fought against the poison, delved deep into her mind, and struggled to find her strength. She had been raped before, not just by Jagang, but countless times by his soldiers when he had forced her to serve in their tents, to be a toy as punishment … as training. The powerful emperor had been able to force her—but these worthless men were not dream walkers. They were not emperors. They were disgusting.
Anger made Nicci’s blood burn. Whatever it was, the poison was just a chemical, and her magic was more potent than that. She was a Sister of the Dark. She possessed the abilities she had stolen from wizards she had killed. She could summon a ball of wizard’s fire and incinerate all three of these men, but that might also engulf the Wavewalker in fire.
No, she had to fight them in a different way, a direct way. A more personal way.
Grunting, Sol fumbled with the string on his trousers, loosening the fabric at his waist. He pulled his pants loose to expose his meaty shaft.
“For all your bluster,” Nicci managed to say, “I expected something larger.”
Elgin and Rom cackled. Sol slapped her again, then grabbed her thighs, pushing her legs apart.
It had happened so many times before. She had been powerless. She had been forced to endure.
But Nicci didn’t have to endure now. Even weak, even poisoned, she was stronger than these scum. She was better than they were. She felt flickers of fire within her hands, not much more than the little flame Nathan had summoned on the windy deck. But it was enough.
She clapped her burning hands against Sol’s naked shoulders, searing his skin. He howled and lurched back. Nicci released more magic into the fire in her palms, but it flickered and weakened.
The wishpearl divers backed away in fear. “She still has her magic.”
“Not enough of it,” Sol growled and came back at her.
Normally, calling fire was not difficult, but she had seen Nathan struggle with his powers, too. Still, she knew even more straightforward spells. She could move the air, stir currents, create breezes. Now, she summoned air in the confined cabin, not just as wind, but as a fist.
The invisible blow shoved Sol away from her, and he was so startled that his erection drooped. The other two men were still stiff, bulges poking prominently against the fabric of their pants, though the arousal probably stemmed as much from the promise of violence as from the anticipation of physical pleasure.
Sol recovered himself. “Bitch, you’ll lie back and—”
Nicci ignored the poison, ignored the dizziness, ignored the sickness raging through her. She called on the air again, focused it, pushed it, forming a weapon.
The storm outside blew with greater fury, and winds lashed against the Wavewalker. Sizzling, splattering rain came down so loud outside that no one could hear her struggles inside the cabin. But if she made these men scream loudly enough, someone would hear.
Nicci manipulated the air, shaping it like a hand … and then a fist. She used it to clutch the testicles between Sol’s legs.
He cried out in sudden alarm.
Nicci created two more hands of air that seized the sacs of the other two wishpearl divers. They cried out, flailing their hands against the invisible grip.
“I warned you.” She rose up from the pallet, not caring that her breasts were still exposed, and she glared at the three with her blue eyes. “I warned you—now choose. Do you want them torn off, or just crushed?”
His face a mask of red fury, Sol lunged toward her. Nicci manipulated the air to tighten her hold around his scrotum, and then twisted as if she were wrenching off the lid of a jar. She contracted her air fist with sudden force—but not so swiftly that she couldn’t feel each of his testicles squeeze until it popped like a rotten grape. Sol let out a high wail that could not begin to express his pain.
Giving the men no chance to beg, because she had no interest in mercy, Nicci crushed the testicles of the other two, leaving them moaning, whimpering, and unable to manage much of a scream as they fell to the floor of her cabin.
“I think you would rather I killed you.” Nicci pulled the front of her dress back up to cover herself. “I can always cha
nge my mind and come back.” Standing straight on her wobbly legs, she glared down at the writhing men. “Even poisoned, I’m better than you.”
She didn’t have time to clean up the garbage, though, before the main attack struck the ship.
CHAPTER 14
The air-breathing thieves drifted overhead in their great ship, vulnerable at the boundary between the water-home and the sky. The dark hulk cut across the waves high above, aloof but not unreachable. The interface was choppy and stirred, indicating a turbulent storm on the surface. The fragile creatures up there would be fighting for their lives against the wind and rain, but down here, the water was calm and warm—peaceful. A true home.
The selka were not the ones who had declared war.
The stirring currents carried the faintest echoes from the raging storm. The selka queen could taste the difference in the delicate flavors of salt as water flowed through the fine gill slits at her neck. Though the selka were far from the reef labyrinth where they kept their precious treasure, the queen could still taste the bitter, alien taint of humans in the water.
She swam faster than a shark, stroking along with webbed hands, her beautiful smooth skin sliding through the water. Behind the queen, like a school of predator fish swimming in formation, came her selka army. Enraged, they swooped through the currents with their fin-sharp bodies and claws that could mangle a kraken. The selka queen had proven herself in undersea battle many times, gutting a hammerhead with her hands, spilling its entrails in clouds of murky blood. As a people, the selka remembered the days of great human wars from thousands of years ago … when their race had been created. Those were times of legend, times of enslavement.
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