by Mary Weber
“They’re this way,” the guard says. “Follow me.”
“And the crews?” Kenan demands.
“Already aboard and waiting. The queen had me send two Luminescents to escort your Lord Myles and Lady Isobel as well.” The guard’s already turned down a corridor. “They’ll be on the ship in the West Courtyard. We need to reach it before Draewulf’s bombs do.”
We’re jogging to keep up with him now, and Kenan’s got his arm under Eogan’s shoulder. “Your queen will die here, and then her daughter as well,” Eogan says quietly to him. “She must have seen this.”
“I agree. But she has made her choice. Whether it is for the best or not. However, as far as Princess Rasha—”
Kenan shakes his head as if the guard’s crazy. “But at the cost of how many lives? And because of some stubborn—”
“She asked us to rescue Rasha,” I say.
The Cashlin guard’s body slows until almost frozen mid-movement, and Eogan’s eyes find mine.
“She believes we’re going to need her. But beyond that, it’s no use,” I say. “The queen won’t come, and we have to go.” I tug Eogan’s arm and push Kenan and the guard forward. “Eogan’s still going to die unless we get him to the Valley. And if his body fails, Draewulf has enough of his blood that his power and land will transfer to the monster fully.”
I keep my hand on Eogan’s arm and peer up as another rumble shakes the crystal ceiling. “Now do you trust me or not?”
Another explosion.
Another shaking and shivering and shattering somewhere in the palace.
A long inhale of breath, as if from out of nowhere, and half the palace guards run past us.
“Kenan, we’re leaving,” Eogan growls. His throat clenches as he swallows and clasps my hand and pulls us forward into a run.
“How many bombs can each of Draewulf’s ships hold?” I yell.
“Up to two.”
Kenan tips his head. “Except back in Bron he loaded a number of the airships’ cargo bays with bombs. So he has far more at his disposal.”
“He’ll likely have brought one of those ships then from Tulla. I assume this is his way of shaking us free before he drops wraiths on the city.” Eogan looks at the Cashlin guard. “How many ships total did Draewulf bring to this capitol?”
“Five by our count.”
“Meaning he thinks it’ll be easy to take the city then.”
Ahead of us the guard nods. “My thoughts as well.”
“The queen said Cashlin will last ten days,” I say over the noise.
The guard stops. Turns.
As do the others.
I swallow. “That’s her estimation, anyway.”
A moment longer and then the guard nods, turns, and pushes through a door to the West Courtyard where one of our airships is hovering in the center. Overhead, our other ship is flying low and as close to the mountain as possible. I twist my hand to pull up a shroud of thick fog to cloak them better from Draewulf’s eyes as we break into a full run.
“Kenan, I need to be in the captains’ room,” Eogan says. “And I’ll not accept an argument on it.”
Kenan nods and eyes me. “Kel, you stay with Nym.”
At the loading dock, Cashlin guards are waiting to wave us up the ramp. The young male with us doesn’t stop. He ascends ahead of us, and as I near the top, I spot two red-eyed Luminescents already aboard amid our crew scurrying about the deck.
“You’re coming with us then,” Eogan says to him in a statement, not a question.
“If I may, Your Highness. As well as those two Luminescents. Queen Laiha sends us as a token of assistance to King Sedric.”
Eogan pats his shoulder and moves past the man toward the captains’ room. “Get us in the air,” he yells as the fourth bomb hits. And this time a shatter of glass crashes from the palace ceiling onto the rooftop nearest us.
I duck even though we’re instantly rising up up up into the fog-cloak, with only the smallest lights to reveal the location of the other ships. I peer over the railing onto the city and palace that have black holes and smoke emanating from four different vicinities. All those people.
Kel’s chilly hand grabs mine. “Can’t you stop them?”
My surge of thunder snaps and a thread of lightning ignites over the city. It illuminates Draewulf’s five airships, eerily close, through the fog.
I clench my fist and drag another shred of lightning down to tear through one of those ships. It lights up like a furnace—all spark and flame and wisps of shredded balloon—and then it’s falling from the sky onto one of the crystal streets.
The next moment the fog is darkening, like ink seeping into it. The thick, blackening wisps swirl up and around where the other ships are, blocking them from my vision.
I send in a gale wind to shove it away, but the darkness clings to the atmosphere like a plagued leech. Thick and unmoving.
I send in another shredded bolt, but it slices right through the black cloud and explodes a section of housing below it. Litches. Three more attempts end in the same result, and it occurs to me that the cloud is doing more than hiding them. It’s acting as some sort of shield.
My curled fist lets the sky sizzle overhead but holds off sending any more. If I can’t see them, I can’t hit them. Suddenly my wrist aches, my lungs ache.
“What’re you doing?” Kel yells. “Why are you shielding them?”
“I’m not. It’s Draewulf. And my ability’s still too weak to break through it.” I pull my hand from the boy’s and use both fists to shove a gust between us and those ships. Propelling us faster in the wind. Pushing us away from the city, away from that black cloud, and away from Draewulf.
“Is Princess Rasha on one of those ships?” The Luminescents’ voices are eerily close.
My gut lurches. Litch. I shake my head; I don’t know. But hulls, I hope not. I continue to force the gale to give us distance, then close my eyes as the sounds of Eogan shouting orders from the captains’ room, and the airship’s drone, and the crashing of glass and metal below swirl around me.
After a moment I can stand it no longer and beg the Elemental in my blood to at least bring forth rain like it did earlier.
It’s barely a mist on my face when it begins. Water droplets sprinkling the air, carrying cool breath from the thickening clouds. As if this, a sigh of mercy on the earth, it is willing to give.
It immediately dims the smoke and fires that have flared up around the swiftly fading city.
The air whips around me just as the ship is moving beneath my boots, dragging us to another place and leaving in our wake another devastation.
I bend both hands now and I’m rewarded by a downpour. It patters and drops and slaps the balloon overhead and the deck railing and Kel’s and my heads. Soon it’s coming down so hard that the city and Draewulf’s airships are dissolved into the storm. But if they’re faring anything like our ships, Draewulf’s captains are struggling to keep them aright as they weave and bob about on the wind.
Good.
I turn to look at the waterlogged Kel, and the guard, Sir Doesn’t Matter, and the Cashlin Luminescents, and the soldiers assembling themselves into units on our ship’s deck. Kel smiles a bright-white, toothy grin at me through giant drips falling from his nearly shaved black bangs before he looks back to the mountains we’re climbing over.
I share his smile halfheartedly and lessen the rain. Then turn with him to face Faelen.
Ten days.
CHAPTER 12
THE RAIN KEEPS UP FOR HOURS, GUSHING, REFRESHING
, washing the blood and wraith smell from my skin and off the ship as it pushes us forward through the afternoon toward Faelen.
Eogan’s doing his best to stay awake and rest while assisting the captains, and Kenan’s ensuring the prisoners are overly secured—including Lord Wellimton, whom the soldiers put into a holding cell with Myles and Isobel. Which makes me grin.
“He’s an angry person.” Kel wrinkles his nose as the wind whips over the airship railing. “And not much for caring who knows it. He says being confined with two traitors on ‘a bleeding Bron king’s ship’ is the worst offense, and that King Sedric will punish you all.”
I raise a brow. “I’m sure he’s saying it, but I’m more curious as to how you know he’s saying it.”
“The air vents are all the same on these ships.”
I eye him with what amusement I can muster. “I assume your father still doesn’t know about your escapade in Faelen using those vents?”
“Nah. And don’t you go telling him either.”
“Or else what?”
“Not sure,” he mumbles. “But I’ll think of something.” His big dark eyes watch me from his black, rain-spattered face. “You going to come inside soon? You got goose bumps.” He nods to my hands.
I look down at my wrists peeking out from the cuff sleeves that are overly long but still the shortest I could find. It took me half an hour to dig up this Bron uniform from a storage closet. “I like the rain.” I close my eyes and inhale the air that has gradually gone from icy to only mildly cold the farther south we’ve flown over the Cashlin mountains. “If you concentrate, you can smell the salt in the wind. We’ve almost reached the sea.”
“You think we’re going to make it in time then?” Kel whispers.
“To save Eogan?”
He shrugs. “Just asking. ’Cuz he looks pretty all right to me, except . . .”
“Except what?”
He shakes his head.
“What?”
He furrows his brow. “I just think something’s off with him, and not just ’cuz he’s still ill.”
I frown. “Want to explain that?”
His little lips purse together as he swerves his gaze to meet mine. So solemn. So intent. Finally, “It means nothing. And if it did—it’s not my business to worry about. But . . . here he comes, so just don’t kiss him or anything.”
I ease my frown and follow Kel’s gaze to where Eogan emerges from the captains’ room. “Well, now you’ve ruined my plan. Because I was thinking I’d smack him a good one right in front of—”
Kel’s gone before I can finish, scurrying past Eogan with an exaggerated gagging sound. I move to assist Eogan, but he waves me off even as his gaze catches mine and glimmers. “What was that about?”
“Nothing. I’m merely beginning to think it’s a Bron curse for the men to talk in hints so as to keep the world confused,” I say lighter than I feel. I eye him closer. What did Kel mean?
His eyes scan my cheeks. “Must’ve been quite the hint seeing as it’s got you—”
Suddenly my face feels beyond warm. I narrow my brow and he clears his throat. “Easing the rain up.”
I snort and look up. Yes, the rain softened right along with Kel’s embarrassing kissing comment.
When I drop my gaze, Eogan is studying me with amusement. “Think we’ll make it in time?”
“For?”
He swags a hand dramatically down his chest with a lopsided smile. “Survival, or whatever it was the queen told you.”
“Funny, Kel was just asking the same thing,” I say with forced casualness. “Maybe if you’d lie down and rest for once.”
“I’m feeling much better, thank you.”
“You don’t look it.” I move over to support him, but he shakes his head and leans against the railing. “Truly, I’m fine. Whatever they did—”
“Liar.”
“So now I’m confusing and a liar? What have the Bron men ever done to deserve—”
I level a glare at him, prompting him to laugh and lift both hands in surrender.
“Fine. But when do I confuse you? Aside from the whole shape-shifter thing, which I’ll remind you was completely beyond my fault.”
I actually snort. Has he not spent the past few months living the same days as me? “You confuse people with your intentions. With your words and with what you hide and what you want. I’d think you’d know that, considering all the time I’ve spent yelling at you.”
He straightens and smirks. “All right, another fair point. I’ll give you that.” He shoves a hand through his bangs and pauses as he eyes me. “The fact is, I think I’ve spent most of my life hiding things—initially from my father—and then when I came to Faelen, from everyone else. But these days . . .” His gaze turns sincere. “I think you’ll find my intentions are quite clear.”
They are?
Then what about his hesitation in the room this morning . . .?
The old awareness that he’s a king and I’m a newly emancipated slave slips over my shoulders like a scratchy shroud.
“Thank you for getting us out of Cashlin, by the way.” He glances at the soldiers working the ship while their counterparts catch an hour’s sleep in the hull.
“We all did.”
“Maybe, but without your storm moving in, we wouldn’t have made it.”
“What did the queen say to you?” I ask, assessing his sallow complexion.
His expression flickers puzzled, then clears with apparent acceptance of the topic change. “I told you, she asked questions.”
“But she also said things to you, I assume. Can I ask what?”
His brow goes up but he stays silent, studying me, as if he’s trying to decide what to say or, perhaps, how to say it.
“She gave me options,” he murmurs after a moment, his voice barely rising above the airship’s drone. “She told me we could fight Draewulf, or we could run and hide and hope Draewulf never finds us. Or . . . we could separate, and I could put as much distance as possible between me and you to keep Draewulf from capturing us both. However, she could give no guarantee that any of those would work.”
That’s what she gave him? “That’s it?”
He nods and continues staring at me. “Why?”
Something inside breathes a sigh of relief, releasing a tension I didn’t even know was there. Perhaps because I know his beautiful face and soul well enough to understand if she had suggested the option of either him or me dying, he would’ve claimed it in a heartpulse. He would’ve seen it as his responsibility to sacrifice for the good of everyone.
Including me.
But that’s not how it’s supposed to be. Because I am the one who was never supposed to survive.
And she didn’t give him the option . . .
I smile in spite of his sincerity.
“Are you going to tell me what it is you’re thinking?”
“Do you know what you’re going to decide?”
His expression takes on the same hesitation I saw earlier today in the room with him, after he’d returned from the queen. “I’ll not abandon you in hopes he’ll not find us. But I’ll not control you either. However, if we run . . .” He lifts his eyes and stares hard out at the peaks and the glimmer of Faelen just beyond them.
“We have no guarantee he won’t destroy them just to draw us out,” I whisper.
He nods as if this is exactly what he was thinking. “Which is why I still believe we must fight.”
“I agree.”
“Even though it could destroy all of them.” His tone says he knows how heavily such a choice will weigh on me.
“I know.”
“We will lead them to war, but ultimately it is their choice whether to follow. They still have the freedom to choose.”
I snort. “Many of them have no idea what freedom even is.”
“Then let’s pray we introduce them to it.”
I swallow and keep my eyes on the horizon just as white peaks come into view. And beneath them, a blue so deep it calls to my lungs and steals my breath, only to replace it with salted air and the smell of woods being lapped by lazuli waters.
The Elisedd Sea.
My blood snaps within my veins at the sight. And Faelen, the island of my birth and birthright. We’re almost home.
My chest clenches at that reality—that this truly is my home, and these are my people.
A people I will endanger in an effort to bring them freedom, because I am willing to fight, yes. But if I can give them freedom easier—if I can circumvent Draewulf by allowing myself to be killed at the start of the battle . . . “Hold it all lightly. You will have to sacrifice.”
I slip my hand over Eogan’s and nod. Of course we will fight. Because it’s the only choice we can in good conscience make. Anything beyond that . . .
“And may I ask what choices she gave you?”
“The queen? The same,” I say without thinking.
His brow rises in surprise before furrowing. “And?”
“And that Rasha will need us as much as we need her to defeat Draewulf . . . if . . .”
“If the queen dies.” He stares at me with a gaze that says we both know it’s no longer a question of “if.”
I nod.
“Your eyes still say she suggested more.”
I drop my gaze back toward the Cashlin cliffs, now dropping away into the sea, and say nothing.
“What aren’t you telling me?”
That you or I could die to keep Draewulf from succeeding. That no matter what, one of us will die in fighting him.
