At the same time, though, I should remain nearby in case anything did happen. If all at once the sea began churning, or the guidelines snapped or went slack—
And what would you do about it? jeered a snide voice in the back of my head. If anything attacked the guide boats, you'd be powerless to stop it anyway.
I gritted my teeth, hiding the unhappy grimace behind a nuzzle of Schala's fur.
I chose instead to go to the stern and revisit the study Bannon had taken me to; the quiet, private place where he'd brushed my hair and said I'd made him proud. The room held a sense of peace and quiet, a familiar hushed repose where I might be alone with my thoughts. The library at Alaric's castle had been such a place to me, before. Maybe I'd find one of the Sanraethi books to read and learn a little about the land I was traveling to.
As the stem door shut behind me, a sense of disquiet, an awful nagging at the corners of my mind, settled around my shoulders. I forced the feeling down, burying my face against the cat in my arms. Despite my determination, the hairs on the back of my neck prickled. Something was in the passageway with me. I knew it.
The low murmurs of Arne and his officers drifted out from behind the door to his meeting room. I passed it, walking quickly, focused on the room ahead. My hand found the doorknob in the darkness. It creaked as I turned it then swept us into the cool, still study.
The room looked different, with close, dark fog pressing in at the windows. If there were dolphins playing in the ship's wake, I wouldn't know. None of the lamps were lit, leaving the desks and shelves in a dismal, shaded darkness, like a house hidden in the shadow of a great peak. The ship bobbed and rocked, silent and slow and gentle.
I let Schala down and she padded off to explore this new place. I moved to the first writing desk and picked up the lantern, striking a match from the box beside it and lighting the candle within. Carrying it with me, I moved to one of the velvet couches and took a seat.
The comfortable cushions welcomed me, and I sank down into them with a sigh.
"I'll take a look at the books in a moment," I told Schala, as if she might object to my lounging upon the sofa. Closing my eyes, I inhaled the sweet scent of pages and leather hardcovers around me, and of polished wood and old fabric, clean but dry and dusty in the nooks and crannies.
After a moment, with a husky mrrp, Schala bounded up onto the couch with me and stretched herself out on my lap. The weight of her pressing me down sent a gentle feeling of shelter and safety through my mind. Without opening my eyes, I stroked her, scratching her ears and cheeks, all the way down to her stub of a tail.
How long as it been since I had a real sleep?
The question came from nowhere, it seemed, and the answer was beyond me. I'd been drifting between a faint, razor-thin sleep and a desperate, waking panic for weeks now... maybe even a month. Fearing I'd once again wake up far from my bed, somewhere in a forest thick with moss and cold with rain. Fearing the great serpent would seize me in my slumber and plunge me deep into an icy blackness. Fearing the moony-eyed shadow on the other side of every door and at the end of every hallway.
The heavy weight of my exhaustion lay upon me like an enormous blanket. Schala's reassuring presence soothed me.
"A nap won't be so bad," I whispered to her. "And if there's any change in the situation outside, I'll hear it when they come get Captain Arne."
Schala purred. I let my eyelids sink closed.
Then I opened them wide, a jolt of panic jerking me upright again and jostling the caracal.
Something changed.
I searched back and forth through the gloomy, mostly lightless study. Nudging Schala aside, I rose, lifting the lantern and scanning the desks, the table, the walls.
It's the maps.
I took a careful, steady step forward, raising the light to peer at a framed map above the reading desk. Seconds ago, it had hung in its place, immaculate and austere, a beautiful work of cartography.
Now it hung upside down. The frame had not been disturbed—only the map within.
I brought a hand to my mouth and backed away. I swung the lantern to one side, over the other desk, to an oil painting of a cherubic, naked woman upon the seashore. She, too, hung upside down.
I searched the whole study. Every portrait, every map, upside down inside their frames. Panic throbbed inside my chest and Schala would around my ankle with a troubled complaint.
"It's all right, Schala, all right." I mumbled through nearly frozen lips.
A squeak came from my left. I spun and the light fell on the divan by the rear windows. It stood straight up on its side, steady as the ship rocked. A scrape sounded behind me, and I swung the lantern to reveal the couches, too, standing on end. The chairs stationed before the desks now perched atop them, upside-down, and the globe—
With a whirring, chirping urgency, the globe spun on its spindle. Schala gave a low, uneasy moan as it picked up speed before our eyes, moving faster and faster as I stood, dumbfounded.
Snap!
The spindle broke and the globe flew at me, striking me in the shoulder and knocking me to my ass. The lantern flew from my grip and shattered somewhere out of sight, leaving me and Schala in gloom. A humid, thrumming vibration seemed to shake the air around us.
Making a grab for the caracal, I lunged for the door. Books flew from the shelves to hit me in the back and the legs. I deflected one from striking me in the head and skidded to a halt just before the exit. My heart leapt, certain when I tried the knob, I'd find myself locked in, imprisoned with my ghostly stalker, the being with the moony eyes. Schala yowled in my arms and I fought the urge to glance behind me, certain I'd see the dark silhouette there, slowly making its way across the study to me—
The door clicked and I stumbled through, slamming it shut behind me. I raced on, past the door to the meeting room and out onto the deck. By the time I reached the mizzenmast and slapped my hand to it, bringing myself to a stop, Schala struggled in my arms to be let go.
I loosened my grip, allowing her to drop to the deck. Bending over double, I heaved air in and out, covered in sweat, shivering even in the bright golden sunlight.
Sunlight?
I glanced up and had to raise my arm to shield my eyes. The last, lacy tendrils of mist streamed away from the masts and the sails, creeping back over the stern deck to disappear behind us. Overhead, the late afternoon sky stretched out, deepening blue, scudded with fluffy white clouds drifting away toward evening.
"The... the fog..."
How had it retreated so quickly? After weeks of lingering and burying us under cold, heavy misery?
A flash of outrage ignited in my chest. How could it be so... so simple? After all that!
All around the deck, sailors were talking brightly, even whistling. As I straightened, it occurred to me: with the fog cleared, the guide boats would be visible from the bow.
"C'mon, cat!"
Shaking off my encounter in the library, I snapped my fingers for Schala to follow and kicked into a trot, making my way through the knots of crew toward the bow. Halfway there, though, I came to a rough stop, a gathering of several soldiers of the horde catching my eye. They stood on the port side, by the small crane-like devices I'd learned were called davits, where the ship's boats were raised and lowered. One of the guide boats had already been hauled up, and as I watched, Rayyan and the other members of its tiny crew were helped back onto the deck.
"Bannon!" I crossed to meet him as he stepped from the tiny boat back onto the Drekakona. "How? But... you returned so quickly! And the fog—"
Mara, standing to one side, gave me a quizzical look. I glanced toward the bow, where I'd last seen her, then to Bannon again. Eerie understanding crept up, raising goosebumps along my arms. I glanced up again, at the sun standing well across the sky…
"Mara." I nervously stroked the end of my braid. "How long ago did I leave you on the bow?"
The lieutenant blinked at me. I had the distinct impression she'd dismissed me en
tirely from her mind after our conversation and now had to scour her memory to recall when it had been.
She shifted her halberd from one hand to the other and shot a quick glance at Bannon. "I'm sorry, Sadira. I thought you'd gone to your cabin to sleep and didn't want to disturb you. I haven't seen you on deck since yesterday."
Chapter Twenty-Nine
The heaven star shone overhead, a welcome sight to everyone on the crew. Below, on deck, Arne and his navigators were engrossed in maps and star charts and calculations, trying to determine how far off course the Drekakona had drifted, and how we could return to our proper route.
I sat in the lookout, with Schala as my only company, gazing up at the constellations and the bright, colorful swirl of celestial lights. I'd volunteered to take the watch for the night and should have been keeping a keen eye out for rocks or shallows or land in the distance, but my mind wandered from the task over and over, and I lost myself in the awful, unnerving darkness of my memory.
More than a day? I was alone in that study... for more than a day?
I remembered sinking into the velvet cushions, meaning to rest my eyes or even to nap, if I could manage it. But something had startled me immediately from any rest. I'd risen right away without even drifting off.
Hadn't I?
Is there any difference between sleeping and waking anymore? When I sleep, I walk, just like Bannon and Ailsa said, and when I wake, I find creeping shadows and those eyes waiting for me around each corner, abducting me to times and places I do not know.
I ran my hand over Schala's flank, and she gave a deep sigh, stretching and curling her front paws over her face.
"If only I could find rest so easily," I murmured at her. Making a quick scan of the horizon, I found nothing but empty water.
Bannon had wanted me to go with him to the study and show him the paintings and the furniture, but I couldn't stomach going back in. He'd asked if I wished to stay with him, in our cabin or some other place I felt safe, but in truth, I didn't feel safe anywhere. I could have gone with him to our small bed and let him hold me, or begged for the flogging I'd been yearning for earlier, but I feared if I let myself return to the small, closed-in bunkroom and let him comfort me, I'd sink into another three- or four-day episode, as I had after falling overboard and nearly being devoured by a sea snake. I might not manage to pull myself out and face the danger again.
Instead, I asked him to allow me time and space to clear my mind of confusion. Granted it, I climbed to the highest place on the ship, above everyone else, to sit alone and stare up at the stars.
There is a malevolent creature on this ship. What is it? What does it want from me?
I hugged my knees to my chest and closed my eyes. My thoughts returned to the vision of the altar and the seven-pointed ritual design before me. Smooth hands—and gnarled hands—and tattooed hands, moving over the arrangements of objects and tokens arranged for wicked ceremony.
The snake's skull.
Visions of serpent worshippers, playing out before me.
I didn't think I could stand the implications: leaving the land of Akolet's disciples and their poisonous cruelty, only to find more agents of the snake ahead?
Ahead, I scoffed at myself. Here. Here on this very ship, somehow. And in the depths below.
Where did the sea snake go? Where did it wait for us, in the days ahead? Certain we hadn't seen the last of it, I pictured it winding and weaving through the blackness of the deeps, following the Drekakona's shadow from above, waiting for its next opportunity.
I rested my head on my knees with a soft groan. I hadn't felt sick during the first days of our voyage, as Captain Arne expected. Now, though, the rock and sway of the boat made me so dizzy, so... overwhelmed.
You must crush the eggshells to prevent angry entities from following you.
Even if it worked, could I ever crush enough eggshells into small enough pieces to drive away the ghosts and ghouls—and snakes—determined to lurk in my shadow? Torv thought me a spirit caller. Perhaps I was a spirit magnet, drawing their awful, stalking presence to me wherever I went. Maybe Alaric's machinations, whatever they'd been intended to do, had kept me safe from notice.
I took your power, he'd told me. As a Master does.
I wrinkled my nose and rubbed at one temple. I hadn't really thought back to my last confrontation with Alaric—the man Alaric, rather than the grotesque monster that had been, at least in some part, him as well. I'd tried to drive the memories from my mind, too gutted by the juxtaposition of Alaric and Bannon in one body, to think too much about it. When I imagined it now... when I thought of Alaric's eyes staring out at me from Bannon's face, or the way Bannon's dusky skin and rich, red hair had leached of color...
I closed my eyes and forced myself to take a long, deep breath. Thoughts like those had turned my passion to panic when Bannon had taken me down to the forge to play.
I took your power.
Alaric meant my power to resist him, my power to deny him.
Hadn't he?
Or perhaps he'd meant my power to move on and love another. Because he'd helped shape my every development, taught me the ways of twisted and beautiful pain, maybe my bond with Bannon—or with any other lover—would never be safe.
No, some part of me whispered. Think harder. There was more to it than that. What else did Alaric say?
Swallowing back an ugly taste in my mouth, I pushed myself to remember.
Nothing is yours, remember? You belong to me. Your body, your loyalty, and any scrap of magic you manage to conjure for me.
I touched the place where my collar had been. His symbol of ownership, and his conduit to me even when his body had been destroyed. Bannon, who briefly shared a mind with my dark tormentor, had said it, too. Alaric stole from me. More than I could ever know.
With a sigh, I wrapped my arm around my knees again and leaned my head back against the mast. Maybe I should have stayed with Bannon after all. Let him take the brunt of this worry from my shoulders and fill my head with sweet passion instead.
"Then you should go to him."
I jerked to attention, startled by the unfamiliar voice. Schala came awake with the sound of agitated confusion, hackles raised, and I scooped her into my arms to guard her against my chest.
A woman stood before me, her back turned to me as she stared out at the water. A cold frisson traveled down the backs of my arms and a sharp heat dug at my gut; I hadn't heard anyone arrive on the lookout with me.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
Her short, blonde hair drifted back on the breeze. She said nothing. In my arms, Schala trembled, and a low growl ticked in her throat.
I rose to my feet, pressing my back to the mast. The stranger had dark marks on her arms: familiar, winding red tattoos. Deliberate scars feathered across one shoulder. I followed them up to the back of her neck.
A mark in the shape of a winding serpent—what Bannon called a lemniscate knot—showed in dark contrast against too-pale skin just at the nape.
The air rushed out of my lungs. Violent trembling seized my limbs as she began to turn my way.
Unwilling to see the stranger's face I spun for the mast, grabbing the rungs of the ladder one-handed while I helped Schala up to my shoulder with the other. I scrambled down as fast as I could, nauseous with the awful sense of an icy, creeping gaze upon me. Several feet above the main deck, I jumped down, and Schala's claws dug into my shoulder. If she weren't still a baby, she might have cut me down to the bone. Unfazed I sprinted down the boards to the stern and the ladderway leading down to the middle deck and our cabin.
Please let Bannon be there. I need to tell him—I need him to tell me I'm not mad—
I pushed past deckhands and crew, refusing to stop even when Rayyan's voice carried to me from across the deck and Ashe, in front of me, attempted to take me by the arm. I made it to the ladder and slid down the rails rather than climb.
Schala bounded down from my shoulder to run alongside me
. My heart raced and my breaths came in short, heavy huffs as I reached the door to our bunk. I'd just laid my hand upon the doorknob when Mara's voice came from within.
"—one thing when she was still under the black magician's power, Bannon, but with his influence far behind us her behavior is still erratic and inexplicable. You can't believe she'll be any better once we reach Sanraeth."
Mara? Mara, alone with him, in our cabin?
Bannon spoke next. "Were you any better, after we emerged from the battles at Caspan? I seem to recall you struggled with night terrors for months."
"But I never lost an entire day's worth of time," Mara insisted. "I didn't grow disoriented and become lost in a simple set of corridors, or wander away from my camp in the middle of the night, or—"
"I should never have told you about that. Stop troubling yourself with Sadira. She isn't your concern."
"Of course she is!" A thump sounded from within: a stomped foot or a fist brought down on one of the shelves or on our trunk of belongings. "How am I to serve you if your mad harem girl is running amok in the ranks, threatening me and the rest of the horde with her hysteria?"
A flash of fury replaced my earlier fear. It burned under my skin with a draconic rage.
"Bannon." Mara's voice again, soft and personal. "She does not belong with us."
My mind buzzed; a fierce, primordial possession filled my chest, raked by that soft tone, the intimate undercurrent. At my feet, Schala bubbled into an angry snarl, arching her back, baring her savage teeth.
Bannon was saying something else, but I'd heard enough. I thrust the door open hard enough to make it slam against the wall. Mara and Bannon whirled, startled at the intrusion. He'd been turned away from her, staring out the porthole before my entrance, but all I could see was her closeness to him, her presumptuous nearness to my Master.
"Get out of here," I snarled. She opened her mouth to retort, but I shouted over her, "Get out! Or I will cut your heart from your chest and feed it to my caracal!"
Mara took a step back, eyes wide, expression contorted in a mix of outrage and fear. I liked that. I advanced on her, a crackling sense of energy and vindication swarming inside me.
Beauty's Secret (Beast and Beauty Book 2) Page 24
