She raised one cocky eyebrow at me. "I'll take you and your friends down, but I'm not leaving the Wraith. No ur’gel will get its nasty claws on my ship."
I shook my head. "Fine, whatever. Just hurry."
Surprisingly, she did, hovering just over the ground while Estrid, Arun, and I scrambled down using the hull nets. When an ur’gel approached us, one of the crew felled it with an arrow through its chest.
"We'll cover you from here," the crewman called to us.
I nodded my thanks at him and threw myself into the melee.
There was something satisfying about killing an ur’gel. They were so stupid and so brutal that it felt like giving them a taste of their own medicine. With my ax and my sword, I could take out two of them in just a few swings, even without Estrid watching my back. I tried to keep an eye on my sister, but she was busy taking her rage out on the monsters, and that was fine with me as long as she didn't get herself killed. At one point, Arun and I fell into the easy, back-to-back fighting style of the D'ahvol. At first it was strange, but it didn't take me long to learn the feel of him. The way our shoulders were almost the exact same width apart. How when his right arm came up to strike, his left hand reached back and grazed my wrist just to keep track of me. Before long, it was as if we'd been fighting like this our entire lives.
The stone burned hot through my pocket against my chest, which told me we were in the right place. But why would the stone, which earlier today had been dead-set against putting me in danger, throw me down on the middle of a plateau rife with the enemy?
An elven man ran by me, pursued by an ur’gel with blue-black skin and a pig's snout, wearing only a loin cloth and a bandoleer. I took a step forward and drove my sword into the monster's back. It jerked to a stop and fell in a pool of black blood. Bracing my foot on its lower back, I pulled the sword out and wiped it on the grass before stepping back against Arun.
Only he wasn't there. I turned around and saw that he'd been surrounded, pulled forward by a horde of ugly, pig-faced ur’gels who were tossing him back and forth. He'd block one's advances only to be pushed into another. One wrong step and he was dead.
I launched myself forward with a battle cry that drew a lot of shocked eyes to me. I killed two ur’gels with one blow. When another one managed to knock me off-balance, I dropped to the ground and opened a wound behind its knees. It howled and fell beside me, where I bashed in its head with the hilt of my sword. I could feel the warm, black blood on my face and hands, but I didn't care. Then Arun was there, pulling me to my feet and wiping his thumbs under my eyes.
"I'm fine, I'm fine," he was saying repeatedly, trying to convince me or himself, I wasn't sure.
Over his shoulder, I saw an elven woman running toward us, her only weapon an iron candlestick that she white-knuckled in one hand. She plowed into Arun, bounced off, and scrambled backward on the ground. Her pursuer, an ur’gel with a more human face than the others, laughed, his lower incisors gleaming where they poked out over his upper lip. I stepped over the woman, swinging my sword around and severing the ur’gel's head with one stroke. That elf on Fairlow really had done an outstanding job sharpening the blade.
Arun helped the woman to her feet and was brushing her off when she looked over at me. Her eyes danced across my soiled clothes and dirty face and landed on the star beside my eye. She lifted a hand and ran her thumb over it before I could move away. Her hand came back black with ur’gel blood.
"Is that—? Are you—?" She gaped open-mouthed at me.
Someone else came up to her, a thin, older man with a walking stick that had been cracked in two. "Agose, are you OK?"
But the woman, Agose, didn't answer. Instead, she pointed at me. "Do you see this?"
The man looked at me for the first time, his thick eyebrows drawn together over light blue eyes. Then he noticed the star. "The heir," he breathed.
"The heir," the woman repeated, her voice louder.
The shout echoed through the city as the fighting stopped. In the silence, a battle cry rang out from the ur’gels, who had turned their attention to me. "The heir!" one of them cried in a deep, husky voice. "Get her!"
It was Estrid who silenced him with a blow to the back of the head, but it was too late.
They were coming for me.
Chapter 12
The three of us turned and ran. The elves of Morasera were little help, but when we got close enough, arrows from the archers on the Wind Wraith sailed over our heads and kept a lot of the ur’gels at bay. As soon as we were on the hull nets, Quynn took the ship off the ground, not even waiting for us to get on the deck. Luckily, we got over the railing without any difficulty, collapsing on the wooden slats with relief. Stiarna was already there, perched overhead on a yardarm.
"I knew that was a bad idea," the captain said, scowling down at where the three of us sat in a pool of black ur’gel blood.
"It's not like we had much of a choice." I pushed myself to my feet and turned to help Estrid, but she ignored my outstretched hand. Still mad, I guessed. "Although I don't know why the stone would lead us to danger."
Renwick, who seemed to have the most experience with wayfinder’s stones, said, "The magic of the stone is that it always knows what it's doing. Unfortunately, the bearer of the stone is not always privy to its plan."
There it was again—magic. Even though I was supposed to repel it by the very nature of my race, I seemed to attract it at every turn. I both hated it and depended on it. The stone wasn't giving us any clues now, so Quynn made the decision to stop on another plateau for supplies.
Ereshys was similar to Lamruil in its extravagance. It was a series of domed structures that crisscrossed a river running across the plateau, culminating in a waterfall that dropped out of sight beneath the veil. That's where the market was, on bridges that were suspended over the waterfall. Quynn brought the Wind Wraith into a slip on the south side and we disembarked. Even Quynn actually got off of the ship, tossing an attendant a gold coin to keep an eye on her.
"There's another one in it for you if she's untouched when I get back."
The attendant, a boy of maybe ten, nodded and posted himself beside the Wraith, arms crossed behind his back. If he knew a griffin was on board, I bet he wouldn't be so quick to turn his back on the ship. But I kept that fact to myself as we headed down the dock and entered the busy market.
I took our blades to get sharpened—appreciating the elven skill with weapons after last time—while Estrid, Arun, and the crew retrieved food and water. Estrid was also charged with bringing back an extra set of clothes for the two of us. I could only hope she didn't bring me something ridiculous, like a skirt, as revenge for leaving Erik.
I was wearing a hat pulled low over my head to hide the star mark when I got in line at the blade smith's booth. There were a couple of elves in front of me, but neither even glanced in my direction. Their conversation, though, caught my attention.
"—ur’gels."
"Ur’gels? Ur’gels aren't real." This from a younger man, barely older than I was.
His companion, an older elven gentleman with silver hair, shrugged. "Well, something destroyed Ulenqua and Erelon."
"A monster. Maybe a flock of dreadwings."
"I'm telling you, Finetu, it was ur’gels. And they're looking for the Suun heir."
The younger man—Finetu—laughed. "What, am I living in a child's story book? This is insane. You can't tell me you believe in that."
Someone else chimed in, a woman who had come in behind me. She leaned around me and said, "My cousin was in Erelon when they came."
"When who came?" asked Finetu.
I ducked my head low but couldn't hide my interest in the conversation.
The woman glanced at me, then back at the men. "The ur’gels."
"Impossible," Finetu insisted.
She persisted. "The whole city was destroyed, burnt to the ground. Men, women, children. All of them, dead. It didn't matter if they surrendered or not. My co
usin was on the only airship that got out of port before the fires."
The older man shook his head, smiling grimly. "I'm telling you," he said again. "Something bad is coming. I can feel it. We can only hope that Onen Suun's heir will come to our rescue."
I shivered, the tremor starting in my core and spreading to my shoulders.
The line moved forward, and the men turned around. The woman looked at me. "Do you believe it?"
Nodding, I said, "I saw them on Morasera today."
She gasped. "Today?"
"This morning."
"Onen save us."
She had no idea.
I excused myself and stepped out of line, hurrying back through the crowd. I searched for familiar faces and saw none. Not Estrid, Arun, Quynn, or even Renwick. My panic grew, and my mind raced. The ur’gels were looking for me, and everyone knew it. What would the elves do if they discovered me in their midst? Offer me up to the monsters on a silver platter? Or maybe they would try to protect me, as I had tried to protect the people on Morasera. Would the elves on Morasera spread news of my appearance and let others know I was helping them? To make matters worse, both the elves and the ur’gels had seen me leave on the Wind Wraith. They knew who I was with and what I looked like. It was fine when I was pretending to be the heir for the ur’gels, but if the elves started holding me up as the Suun heir…
This could be bad for everyone, not just for me.
I ran into Quynn at a stand that sold fruits and vegetables where she was haggling with the vendor over the price of a bag of tomatoes. I made sure the hat was covering my mark and grabbed her arm.
"We should probably go," I said through gritted teeth.
She looked at me, raised her eyebrows at the hat, and then turned back to the vendor. "That's my final offer."
The man shook his head. "Fine."
She counted out her coins and dropped them into the man's hand. He handed her the bag and she slung it over her shoulder, pulling me away.
"Have you heard the talk?" I asked, not able to stand her silence.
"Yes."
"They're looking for me."
"They've always been looking for you, if I understand correctly. The ur’gels are just increasing their efforts, as it were. You told the king this would happen." She crossed the street to another booth and purchased a five-pound bag of jerked meat while I stood nervously behind her, avoiding eye contact. I was sure my efforts to look casual only made me look more suspicious.
"Should I get another ship? Separate myself from the Wind Wraith? To throw them off the track."
"Sure," Quynn said with a casual shrug, "if you want to die."
I stopped walking, stunned, as she continued to move away. Taking a couple of strides to catch up, I said to her, "Of course, I don't want to die. That's the whole point."
"Then you stay with me. I'm the best captain in the air."
"I might have to disagree with that," came Arun's voice over my shoulder. Large sacks of potatoes and cornmeal slung over his shoulders. He eyed Quynn's smaller parcels. "Or, if nothing else, I'm certainly a better negotiator than you."
Quynn made a small noise of dissent and continued her charge through the crowd. Behind her back, Arun slipped something wrapped in parchment paper into my hand.
"What is it?" I whispered to him.
When he answered, his face was close enough to mine that I could smell the sweetness of his breath. "Penydes." He opened his mouth to show me the hard candy braced between his front teeth. "Try it. I used to love this as a boy. My mother told me it would rot my teeth and made me scrub my mouth whenever she caught me with one."
I unwrapped the small package and popped the hard candy in my mouth. At first, the sugary sweetness was almost too much, but then it began to dissolve and soften. I widened my eyes and looked over to find him smiling at me expectantly. For just that one moment, it was like we were just a boy and a girl. Not an elf and a D'ahvol. Not a champion of lost causes and a savior of the world. I could have kissed him. I knew exactly what he would taste like.
But then Quynn snapped her fingers and broke the spell. I tucked the candy into my cheek and hurried after her, Arun at my heels. We kept our eyes open for Estrid but reached the dock without seeing her.
Quynn flipped the attendant another coin and held her arm out at the ship. "All aboard."
"We have to wait for Estrid," I objected.
The captain did not even look back at me as she boarded her ship. "No, we don't. You were the one who wanted to get out of here. Now, let's go."
"Not without my sister." I had to raise my voice to be sure she heard me, but she gave no indication she had. To Arun, who was still beside me, I repeated it. "I can't leave without my sister."
A hand clapped against my shoulder and I whirled around to find Estrid there. "That would be a first," she said, stepping past me, and walking up the gangplank to board the ship, leaving me staring after her, my heart a lump in my throat.
Chapter 13
I was glad when night came and shrouded the ship in darkness. It felt like I could, at least temporarily, let my guard down. In the dark, the Wind Wraith was indistinguishable from any other ship in the sky. Aupra was dull and distant, and Gleet was low on the southern horizon, a blue glow that helped us orient ourselves but didn't provide much more light than that. Not for the first time, I marveled at how Quynn did what she did with such unwavering confidence. At exactly how much constant practice and blind luck it took to keep an airship aloft.
One good thing about the darkness of the sky was that it let the stars come out in vast numbers, hundreds of thousands of them poking holes in the blackness. I leaned against the railing and searched for shapes in the stars: faces, and words, and great warriors wielding swords, and princesses with crowns on their heads.
After a while, footsteps warned me of someone's presence.
"That's a lot of D'ahvol." It was Arun. He leaned on the railing beside me, our arms touching.
I pushed off the railing and turned around, looking over at him. "Where have you been?"
"Below deck. Your sister came down, though, so I got out of there."
"Was she okay?"
He nodded. "Going to bed, I think."
It was late, and most of the crew was in bed, too. Only the captain was on deck, standing at the helm behind us. Except for the occasional breeze whipping a sail taut, it was mostly quiet. Almost uncomfortably so.
"What about you?" Arun asked. "Are you all right?"
I chuckled, but I was sure he could tell there was no humor in the sound. "Everything is just so … different. So much harder than I ever thought it would be. I'm different." I had always been the little warrior girl, my siblings' shadow, their protector when they thought they didn't need one. Now I was the one putting them in danger, dragging them into this hunt for the heir and pitting them against ur’gels and empaths. Leaving Erik behind with the knowledge he would likely come under fire. Estrid was right. I was changing. And I wasn't sure I liked it.
But Arun just shrugged. "That's life, though, isn't it? Circumstances change, and people change to adapt to them. You didn't make Dag'draath do what he did. You didn't ask the Sisters to transfer the mark to you. You're doing what you have to do to survive."
"Not really." I tilted my head back and closed my eyes, unable to look at him. "If all I wanted was to survive, then I could just take my family and hide away in the Western March somewhere, pretend none of this was happening. It would take a long time for any of it to reach us there. We could probably live out the rest of our lives in peace."
"Is that what you want, though?"
"What?"
"Is that what you want?" Arun grabbed both of my wrists and pulled me to him. My eyes opened and I was looking at him instead of the night sky. At his wide, dark eyes and furrowed brow. "To hide and spend the rest of your life in peace while the world burns around you?"
"No. No, of course not." I shook my head and dropped my eyes.
&
nbsp; "Of course not," he said in a quieter voice. "And thank Onen, because what would we do without you?"
This time when I laughed, I meant it. "I'm sure you could find some other lost cause to champion."
One corner of his mouth quirked up and he let go of my wrists, though he didn't take a step back. "You're not a lost cause." When he talked, I heard something in his mouth clank against his teeth.
"Young man, is that a candy in your mouth?" I teased.
He smiled and bared his teeth, showing the pale disc clamped between his front teeth.
The sight of it made my mouth water. "I hate that you gave me one," I said wistfully. "Now, I'll forever crave another."
"You can have this one." He spoke around the candy, not making any move to give it to me.
I realized I was staring at his mouth, so I raised my eyes to meet his.
"Here." He leaned forward.
Before I could second-guess myself or run away, I pushed up onto my toes. My eyes were open when my teeth collided with his and I saw his face change from shock to pleasure. And then it wasn't our teeth but our lips brushing tentatively together, and his tongue slipped the candy into my mouth which exploded with the sugary sweetness. His hands snaked around my hips and pulled me against him just as I pushed him away, my hands on his chest.
"Thanks," I said around the candy, giving it a satisfying crunch. I was going for casual, but I wondered if he could feel my heart racing against him.
He groaned and leaned his forehead against mine. When I tried to step away, he tightened his grip. "Where are you going?"
"Arun, I—" I choked on the words I knew I had to say, but I cleared my throat and forced them out, my eyes on my boots. "Arun, I can't do this. I can't endanger you, too."
His hands shifted, balling my vest up in his fists. "What are you talking about?"
"I'll always have this target on my back. On my face." I touched the mark beside my eye.
"I don't care about that. Do you think I care about that?"
"I think you should. I'm so tired of hurting the people I … care about."
Finding the Suun Page 7
