by Jay Kristoff
Mia had retired to her cabin—she’d stayed up top as long as she was able, but with no skill at sailing and nothing else to contribute, she seemed only to be in the way up above. Tric seemed immovable on the bow, but the waves crashing over the Banshee’s deck would surely wash Mia to her doom if they caught her. And so she found herself sitting in her hammock, tossed and rolled, listening to the timbers about her groan and creak and wondering just how much more her ship could take.
The shadows around her moved like living things. Eclipse prowled along the walls, a dark shape cut against the glow of the arkemical lanterns. Mia didn’t dare smoke, didn’t want to risk even a spark—with the Ladies of Storms and Oceans so enraged, who knew what the Lady of Fire would do if given opportunity. So instead, she focused on the gloom around her. The dark above and within her.
She could still feel the heat of the two suns, the cursed power of Aa beating faint upon her skin. But here below the thick black storm clouds sent by his daughter, it was almost as dark as night. The Everseeing’s light was smothered. His malice waned. She was hidden almost completely from his sight. And Mia could feel power swelling inside her because of it. Not as fearsome as the power she’d wielded during truedark when she tore the Philosopher’s Stone to rubble, no. But power nonetheless.
And so, she resolved to test it. To see how far it truly reached now she was hidden from Aa’s eyes, and use the only weapon she could truly say was hers in this war. Her gravebone blade hung in its scabbard from a hook on the wall. The black rippled. With a gesture, she had the shadows carry it across the cabin to her waiting hand. She narrowed her eyes in concentration, and gentle as a lover, tendrils of living darkness took hold of her hammock and held it still, despite the bedlam all around her. She took hold of her own shadow, stretched it out along the floor and
Stepped
across the cabin
into it, then
into Eclipse
and back to
her hammock, all in the space of a few heartbeats. Flickering about the room like an apparition in some old fireside tale. Her breath came quicker, amazement budding in her chest and a dark joy curling her lips. These were gifts she’d used before: Stepping from shadow to shadow, or using the black as an extension of her own hands. But it had never been as effortless as this, the strength in the shadows never so potent. And yet it was becoming plain for her to see. In their attempts to kill her—in hiding their father’s light—the Ladies of Storms and Oceans were also making Mia …
Stronger.
Still, Mia doubted her newfound power would give much comfort to her ship or crew, nor prove much worth against the tempest raging above. The Banshee crashed into another trough, her timbers shuddering in agony. Lightning flickered through the portholes—a new flash every handful of heartbeats—bringing a stuttering sunslight to Mia’s cabin. Thunder shook the cradle of heaven again, louder than she’d ever heard, and she couldn’t help but wince. She wondered if her ship would hold, if her crew could bear it, how much farther they had until they were—
Bells.
Screams.
She lifted her eyes to the decks above, wondering what was happening. A thunderous impact landed on Banshee’s port side, like a hammerblow from the hands of Aa himself. The ship slewed sideways, and Mia would’ve been flung across the room, save for the shadows cradling her in their arms. The dark kept her steady as the hull groaned, as the cries rose, as the ship listed hard and Mia finally realized …
Something hit us.
“Eclipse, with me.”
“… ALWAYS…”
With a glance, she bid the shadows fling the cabin door open and Mia
Stepped
down the
corridor and up
the ladder to the quarterdeck as the Banshee rocked sideways again. She heard more cries over the thunder, the crack of splintering wood, curses by Aa and all four of his daughters. She squinted through the blinding downpour, the soup-thick gloom, saw vague shapes moving on the deck below. Banshee rocked sideways again, a massive wave crashing over her bow and threatening to push them under as a barrage of lightning tore the clouds and lit the scene before Mia’s wondering eyes.
“Black Mother…,” she breathed.
Tentacles. As long as a wagon train. Black above and ghostly white beneath, all suckers and scars and jagged hooks. Six of them were rising up on either side of the deck and wrapping Banshee in their awful embrace. Mia watched one massive limb clear a boom on the foremast with a single swipe, half a dozen sailors sent screaming to the deck and from there to the waters below.
“Leviathan!” came the roar.
She looked to the aft, saw Sigursson at the wheel, bellowing to his crew.
“Cut him loose, he’ll drag us under!” he bellowed.
A few of the braver salts drew their blades and started hacking at the beast, desperate and terrified. The men were mere gnats against the creature’s skin. But with Eclipse riding her shadow, Mia had no pause for fear,
Stepping
across the deck
in an instant
and bringing her longblade down in a scything, two-handed arc. The tentacle she struck was as broad as a barrel, tough as salted leather. But her gravebone sword sliced through it as if it were butter, severing it clean in two. Black blood sprayed, thick and salty, and Mia felt a shudder run through the Banshee’s length. The other tentacles went berserk, smashing, flailing, squeezing, splintering the railing and snapping the foremast off at the root with a deafening craaaack. The sailors howled as they fell, down into the thrashing waters and the mouths of the waiting whitedrakes. Lines snapped and shrouds toppled, a tangle of sails and mast crashing across the deck, Banshee listing hard to port as her crew’s cries rose above the storm.
A massive wave crashed across their flank as Mia Stepped
again
up to the
foredeck, where
Tric was hacking away with his own gravebone blades, the leviathan’s limbs writhing about him. The strength in him was astonishing, the power of the dark Goddess in him truly unleashed for the first time, and it took Mia’s breath away to see him, drenched in black blood and falling rain, muscle etched in pale stone. He spun on the spot, water spraying, saltlocks streaming behind him as he brought his blades down again, again, severing another tentacle and sending it over the side with a savage kick. Tons of seawater rushed across the decks, and only the grip of Mia’s sha
dows kept her from being swept over the side with three more of her crew, but Tric seemed immovable as a mountain. She split another tentacle in two as it rose up to grab her, rain and blood soaking her to the skin as she pressed her back against his.
“I really shouldn’t have called them bitches!” she roared.
“PERHAPS NOT!”
“Banshee can’t take much more of this! So much for your prayers!”
“ROW FOR SHORE, MIA!”
“Help me, then!”
“ALWAYS!”
Side by side. Back to back. The pair fought together, like in younger turns when they trained in the Hall of Songs. They were older now, harder, sadder, years and miles and the very walls of life and death between them. But still, they whirled and swayed like partners in some black and bloody waltz, and Mia was put in mind of the first time they danced together, years ago in Godsgrave. Swept up and cradled in his arms, spun and dipped and swayed as the music swelled and the world beyond became nothing. Their blades moved as one as they fought their way across the deck, hewing and slashing and spinning between the rain. The waters crashed down upon them and she leaned against him, the ship listed harder, and he pressed back against her. A pendulum in perfect balance, swinging back and forth in one shining, razored arc.
A tentacle came scything down from above, but Eclipse coalesced twenty feet across the ship, and, grabbing Tric’s hand, Mia
Stepped
the pair
of them
into the shadowwolf as twenty tons of muscle and bone hooks crashed into the deck where they’d stood a moment before. Tric’s eyes were alight with the frenzy of it all, and he stood tall at her back in the chaos, wild and strong and unconquered, even by the hands of death herself. The thunder was a pounding drum, and the storm about them an endless song. Blood and rain beading on his cheeks as he looked over his shoulder and smiled just for her. And a part of Mia could have lived in that moment forever.
Sigursson had come down from the aft, hacking with his own sword, surrounded by a cadre of wulfguard. Mia’s blade was quick as the lightning, Tric’s swords like cleavers in an abattoir, cutting a swath across the deck and leaving it drenched in black, quickly washed away by the rain and waves. White light and thunder, the bellow of the waters and the fury of the tempest, the power of two goddesses pressing down upon them and still, still, it wasn’t enough. And as Mia’s sword split a sixth tentacle in two, as blood fell harder than the rain, the leviathan shuddered, and bucked, and finally released its grip on Banshee’s tortured flanks.
Another wave hit their starboard, almost sending them over. But the helmsmen bent their backs, muscles straining, Banshee’s spine twisted almost to breaking, and the ship managed to hold on, slowly righting herself. The oceans still thrashed, the tempest still rolled, the skies were still black as night. Mia and Tric stood back-to-back, blades dripping black on the main deck. Sigursson was gathered with a half-dozen salts, their black wolf pelts drenched, glaring at their captain and queen.
“This is no mortal storm!” one shouted.
“I told you, she’s fucking cursed!” another cried.
“She’s brought the fury of the Daughters down on us!”
Mia knew sailors were a superstitious bunch. Knew she stood in peril now, within and without. After four turns of punishment, of whitedrakes and leviathans and waves tall as mountains, her crew’s nerve was all but gone. But she knew Einar Valdyr was a captain and king who ruled through fear, and Mia Corvere had learned the color of fear when she was but ten years old.
“I thought you lot were supposed to be the hardest crew on all Four Seas!” she spat. “And here you are, wailing like babes off the tit!”
“She’ll be the death of us, Sigursson!” a tall salt yelled.
“Put her over the side,” came the shout. “The goddesses will let us go!”
Tric squared up, his blades glittering as the lightning flashed and the Banshee shook. Mia looked her first mate in the eye, saw the malice and mutiny boiling there.
“Take hold of your jewels, Ulfr!” Mia glanced meaningfully at her greatcoat of faces. “Goddesses they might be, but Maw knows, you’ve far more to fear from me!”
The darkness flared around her, each man’s shadow clawing and twisting along the deck. A wolf who wasn’t a wolf rose up behind Sigursson, hackles raised, black teeth bared in a snarl. The Hearthless boy beside her tightened his grip on his bloody blades. The dark about Mia seethed. Lightning split the skies, catching the spray and rain and seeming to set the air about her aglow.
“Get back to your posts, you gutless bastards!” she demanded, raising her sword. “Or I’ll feed you to those fucking drakes myself!”
The storm seemed to still for a moment. The thunder held its breath. Mia looked into Sigursson’s eyes, saw that he was afraid. Of her. Of them. Of all of it.
The only question was, who did he fear more?
And then, something hit them. A colossal something. An impossible something. Rising up from beneath them, soundless and vast. Mia felt a thunderous impact. Heard the roar of the tempest and splitting timbers, the cries of the crew as they were sent flying. Banshee was lifted clean out of the water, and Mia only kept her feet because of the shadows holding her in place. Massive black tentacles rose up from the water, crashed about them in a deadly, crushing vise grip.
Another leviathan.
This one so big it almost beggared belief. Arms crusted in barnacles, long as years. Pale serrated hooks bigger than Mia was. A monster from the tallest tales, woken by the Lady of Oceans. Pressed by her hatred and rising up from the depths with only one intent: to drag Mia back down into the lightless black with it.
The beast’s limbs crashed down on the deck, snapping the booms off the mainmast like twigs. Sails shredded as if they were damp parchment, wood cracking as if it were wafer-thin. Banshee groaned, stretched to breaking. Mia spun toward the beast, her shadows flaring. Tric turned also, black eyes gleaming, rain falling about them like knives.
Ulfr Sigursson dragged himself up from the deck, dripping seawater.
“Wulfguard!” he bellowed.
Mia’s first mate raised his sword as lightning cracked the clouds.
“Kill this fucking bitch!”
CHAPTER 29
STANDING
Well, so much for monarchy …
Mia hadn’t expected it to last, truth told. A tyranny will always fail when men have nothing left to lose but their lives. But she’d hoped they might’ve gotten a little closer to land before it finally broke them.
As Mia’s former crew charged behind her and the leviathan’s tentacles seethed before her, she grabbed Tric’s hand and
Stepped
up on the aft deck, landing in a crouch beside the astonished-looking helmsmen.
Sigursson turned on his heel, found her through the downpour and roared the attack. The Banshee’s crew seemed to have abandoned all thought of the leviathan, intent only on killing their queen in attempt to appease the Ladies. They charged up the twin stairwells, port and starboard, their blades gleaming in the lightning strikes. The beast meanwhile had wrapped four
massive tentacles about the Banshee, squeezing like some colossal vise. The timbers along the ship’s bulwarks cracked and buckled under the awful pressure. The deck rolled as if the earth were quaking, men tumbled back down the stairs or over the rails. Other mutinous wulfguard leapt over their falling comrades, desperate to put a blade to Mia and the Ladies at peace.
Tric stood atop the port stairwell, bringing one of his gravebone swords down in an overhand swing that split one man’s skull clean in two, the blade plowing all the way down into the fellow’s rib cage. Mia stood atop the other stairwell, plunging her sword through a sailor’s chest and kicking him backward, sending the men behind him sprawling. The deck rocked again, a massive wave crashing over their bow. The Banshee listed dangerously, her broken masts trailing heavy in the water, adding to the weight of the leviathan beneath, all set to drag them below. As she dispatched another mutineer with a savage thrust, Mia’s mind was racing, heart pounding in her chest. Fighting off her crew, she wasn’t fighting off the beast, and the ship was being torn apart around them. The water was full of drakes. The waves like towers. If Banshee died, so did they all.
Enemies beneath. Around. Below.
Story of my life …
“… MIA, BEWARE…!”
Sigursson was charging up the stairs with his blade drawn, teeth bared. Mia caught his thrust on her longsword, turned it aside. With a gesture, she wrapped her first mate up in his own shadow, ribbons of darkness seizing hold of his arms, legs, throat, holding the Vaanian pinned and thrashing in midair.
“I warned you what would happen if you defied me, Ulfr!” she shouted.
Sigursson could only gargle, veins bulging in his neck as the shadows squeezed. Mia raised her hand, lifting him farther off the deck, fingers curling closed. Thunder shook the heavens, pressing down on her skin.
“Now you get to see what makes the rest of them so afraid!”
Mia opened her hand and Ulfr was ripped apart, pieces of him flung in every direction, blood falling like rain. The Banshee shook again in the leviathan’s grip, the crunch of splintering timbers loud as the storm as the ship split across her middle. Tric staggered across the deck toward Mia, drenched in seawater and blood. Mia caught him in her arms, her shadows holding them steady as the aft rose out of the water.
