by Mary Weber
I steady my voice. “I’m not ready to speak of it because I’m still not quite sure what she meant.”
The snort he utters reminds me why he was Bron’s military general for so many years. He’s no daft fool. He nods and waits.
I clear my throat. Then lighten my tone. “Tell me what it was like.”
“What what was like?”
“Fighting Draewulf inside you. Tell me again how you survived. Perhaps there’s something in it that can help us defeat him on a larger scale.”
Eogan’s green gaze enfolds mine. “It was like screaming inside the blackest night—not knowing where I was or where everyone else went. The times I erupted to the surface, it was like drowning at sea and fighting for air. And the times I sank back, it was . . . quiet.” He stops.
The way he said it, I suspect he means more than quiet. He means lonely.
He leans heavily onto the railing and his hands shake slightly for a moment, and I swear his eyes are starting to look glassed over. Suddenly everything within me is cracking and becoming all fissures at the fact that he is so clearly fading—and at what he’s not saying. About the years he’s spent knowing true aloneness more than anyone else in this world. Hearing in his tone the understanding of what it means to be completely separated from love.
Except for the feeble amount offered as a sick perversion—a skinny lust so frail and weak and emaciated by the woman who couldn’t bear, couldn’t trust, to let him feel for anyone but herself.
From where the sensation emerges I don’t know, but my heart is abruptly fluttering like a bird, confessing as I peer up into his eyes that I would give anything in this moment to offer it.
Life.
Love. At least what little I’ve learned from him and Colin and even Breck.
And to take what he’s willing to give in return, in the hopes that I could grow the skinny love he’s known, until it becomes full and whole and reaching. One that starts at your soles and reaches into your spirit and on up into your throat until you’re pouring pouring pouring out the words and hopes and everything about yourself that you would give, without reservation, to another being.
That is what I want to promise him at this moment. That is what I want to ask of him.
And suddenly I know this is what I can give to him.
If I hadn’t decided before, my soul is answering now—we will fight, yes. But if too many lives are in danger of being lost, then I will choose the biggest love I know to give. The thing that will keep the monster from ever consuming Eogan again or his life and land and soul. That will keep Draewulf from decimating our people.
I straighten my shoulders harder.
“What did the queen tell you, Nym?” he asks weakly, still staring toward Faelen.
I swallow and keep my gaze steady as he turns those questioning eyes to me. “I won’t argue with you, and I know I have no right to demand any truth from you. But is it unfair of me to ask you to trust me?”
“You of all people should know that sometimes we keep our own counsel for a time,” I whisper. I lift a hand, half draped in that too-large Bron coat, and press it to his face. Then stand on my tiptoes and place a kiss on his chin.
“Trust me this time,” I murmur.
CHAPTER 13
TAP.
Tap, tap.
Tap.
“Your tapping the railing won’t make us go any faster, you know.”
Maybe. Maybe not. “Is it annoying you?”
Eogan tips his head to my crippled hand where my knuckles are rapping the metal so hard they’ve apparently begun bleeding. Oh. I pull them away and push them into my sides. And try not to stare at the bags beneath my trainer’s eyes that have been growing grayer over the past two hours. Nor at the slight shivering that’s taken hold of his body.
“We’re going to make it in time,” he says, and I almost laugh at the forced levity in his tone.
“Your Highness! Warboats off the starboard,” a voice breaks in.
When I glance up, the lookout stationed on the skywalk is pointing frantically to the ocean—to the vessels crowding the channel between Tulla’s cliffs and Faelen’s shores. Five of the boats are flying Bron’s silver-and-black-striped colors, with an airship floating above one of them, and the seven facing them are sporting Faelen’s. Despite the wind and weather, the boats and ship are showing no movement from either side. It’s a standoff.
“Well, that might come in handy.” Eogan nods toward the airship.
I frown. That wasn’t there a few days ago. Then I look at Eogan. Does he remember? “Draewulf brought them with us to attack Tulla.”
His lips grow pale, but whether it’s from illness or the recollection, I can’t tell. He just nods. “Question is, are they full of his Dark Army or my men?” He turns. “Kenan.”
The large guard is already striding toward us. “M’lord?”
Eogan raises his brow toward the boats.
“They mainly hold our men, Your Majesty, but I was told each contains wraiths as well. As far as their numbers, that I don’t know.”
“Lady Isobel will,” I say, not taking my eyes off the floating airship below.
“And the men aboard? Where do they stand?”
“The soldiers are true to you, m’lord. Although I can’t say the same about the Bron Assembly. I believe you will have your hands full with a couple of its members when you return.”
“And Faelen’s Council and King Sedric won’t be the friendliest either.” Eogan rubs a hand over his chin and looks back down at the standoff. “Although it appears they’re staying their attack, which means confirmation hasn’t reached them of Draewulf’s actions yet. At least that’s in our favor.” He glances at me. “Shall we ask her?”
“She’ll not be cooperative.”
“Something that seems to be a trait among the women around here.” He grins and pushes off to start walking toward the dining area just as I swipe a hand out to cuff his elbow. Bolcrane.
Kenan snorts and looks away, but the next moment Eogan lurches and I’m jumping over to slide my body beneath his arm just as his legs seem to stumble. I wrap my own arm around his back to steady him.
“I’m fine,” he growls.
“Of course you are.” But I wait for him to find his feet and make it inside the dining room before letting go.
We step through a guarded doorway into the midsize room where Lady Isobel appears to be asleep on the bed beneath the only window and Lord Wellimton is doing the same beside Lord Myles, who’s sitting with wrists shackled to the cot they’ve claimed. Not surprisingly, Myles’s clothing and hair still look somewhat respectably handsome, as if he spent the past few hours smoothing them.
“So at lassst you’ve come to visit, my dear.” He flicks his gaze from me to Eogan and smirks. “Although you could’ve left the dying lover outside. Death is such a mood deflator.”
“Unless you are, in fact, dead,” Eogan says. “Perhaps we should experiment.”
Myles’s expression turns a leery shade of shock. As if he’s unsure whether Eogan’s jesting.
I move between them. “We need to know Draewulf’s time frame and how many wraiths are on the warboats.”
His expression sours to instant boredom and he bats a hand toward Lady Isobel. “Ask the monster’s daughter. I was simply eye ornamentation for this whole adventure.”
Right. “You’re also a good spy. So spit it up.”
He sniffs as if accepting a compliment and lifts his less-than-manicured nails. “As for the time frame, your guess is as good as mine.”
“And the wraiths?”
He pauses. Long enough for Eogan to press me aside and hover over the poor, arrogant fool.
“I may have overheard the Cashlin Inters say they believed the crews were made up of mostly Bron soldiers and few wraiths.”
The Inters?
“What else did they tell you?” Eogan growls.
“Nothing that concerns you.”
Eogan leans down. “What else, Myles?”
The drop of his gaze to his hands is so quick, so miniscule, I almost miss the tiny black lines etching the skin of Myles’s fists. I choke and pull back as his expression pains, then tightens.
“That poison won’t slow down, you know,” Eogan says.
“Oh, I very much hope not.” Myles flexes a fist. “Imagine what I’ll do with it before all this is over. I may even decide to help you eliminate Draewulf.”
A shiver ripples through my own hands and up my arms where, without even peeking, I know the hint of black is still lightly visible in my veins. Stained into my forearms like a barren tree beneath the mugplant tattoos.
A laugh bursts forth from Lady Isobel. “I told you he couldn’t handle it,” she purrs from her cot beneath the window.
Eogan keeps his eyes on Myles, then sighs and rubs a hand through his black hair. After a moment he reaches for Myles’s neck.
The oaf jerks away. “I’ll thank you to keep your pawsss off me.”
“Do you want help or not, you fool?” Eogan presses three fingers against the Lord Protectorate’s skin.
What’s he doing?
“Better yet, slit his throat,” Lady Isobel says.
Two seconds later Eogan stands, but rather than pull entirely back, he sticks out his hand against the wall to steady himself. His eyes dull and his coloring fades to ash. But even as I go to help him, he’s uttering, “I’m fine. It’s nothing.”
Like hulls it is.
“Sir.” A soldier stands at the door. “Kenan needs assistance.”
Eogan slips his hand into mine. “I’ll be right back. Don’t injure them while I’m gone.” Then releases me and strides from the room.
“Seems lover boy isn’t in the best shape, no? Perhapsss we should’ve acted sooner. I’d just hate to see you having gone through ingesting that to—”
“Shut up, Myles.” I look at Lady Isobel curled like a ferret-cat on her bed. “How do I help him?”
“Eogan?”
“I assume you still have feelings for him, yes? How do I repair the damage your father did?”
“Not that telling you wouldn’t be loads of fun, but I have other things on my mind at the moment.” She turns over and faces the wall.
“Like your missing ability?” I step closer.
“Once I get those powers back, I’m going to rip your heart out before I turn it to stone.”
“Maybe.” I reach out and let my hand go frozen against her skin. “But I know the feeling of losing something so a part of you,” I say softly. “It aches.”
For the slightest second I feel her unease beneath my fingers. As if this admission is on her mind too. “Don’t let us lose Eogan too.”
She stiffens. And turns toward me with a hardening smile that is eerie and disgusting and exactly like her father’s. “Your inability to purposefully harm people will always be your downfall.” She reaches up and grabs my icy hand with her warm one and presses it harder into her skin. “And because of that, my father will conquer more of your people. He’ll take it slow—take Cashlin and let you build up your army of farmers and peasants and children in Faelen. And then just when you’re confident you might have a bleeding chance in hulls, he’ll swoop in and smear you all over the face of the land. And you’ll be responsible for all those deaths.”
I pull my hand away to keep from slapping her. She just laughs. I glare at her, then at Myles, who’s grinning and watching as if hoping for a fight.
Her voice goes seductive. “Too bad you didn’t turn yourself over. He may have been inclined to spare the rest. But now?” She winks. “Now he’ll come for you last. So what does it matter if Eogan survives this flight? If he does, Draewulf will take Eogan before your very eyes, and this time you’ll hear him scream from the pain just before lover boy’s skin is ripped to shreds.”
I swallow and it takes everything within me not to shoot an ice pick through her face. I look away and snap, “What are you smiling about, Myles? You’re going to die just like him if that poison stays.” I tip my head toward his shaking hands, then turn again to Isobel. “If Eogan dies before we reach the Valley, I promise you will be quickly behind. Now, what is your father’s plan?”
“I’m thrilled to say I honestly don’t know. Depends on how fast the precious Terrenes and Cashlins die.”
“And Rasha? Where will he keep her in the meantime?”
“Oh, as close to his heart as possible, I imagine.”
“Where?”
“I don’t know. Where would you keep such a prize?” she murmurs.
Without even trying, the thought pops into my head that I’d keep her in Tulla with the bulk of the wraith army, just in case things went wrong in Cashlin.
I don’t let her see my widening eyes. I merely jut my chin at Myles. “How do I help him control the poison in him?”
“Again, how should I know?”
“Because your witch of a mother gave it to him,” I snarl.
She shrugs. “I couldn’t tell you. That’s what it does to people not strong enough to contain it. They get a little bit”—Isobel leans toward me and whispers—“crazy.”
“That’s a lie.”
She snorts. “Oh, have you met yourself, precious? Besides . . . if you want to know so badly, perhaps you should ask my mother.”
It requires all my strength to stay my anger.
“Never destroy what simply needs taming, Nymia. Mercy grows hearts more than bitterness.” My father’s words slip unbidden through my thoughts and abruptly beg what little compassion I have for her to flow into my soul. When it does, the sight of her looking so stiff and snide wavers like a mask. Another moment and suddenly all I can see is a furious child who has perhaps lost just as much as I have. Maybe more.
My voice turns gentle. “There are many things I should very much like to ask her. Like why she and your father did this to you.”
I don’t mean it as a cut, but her eyes flash dark beneath her lashes. She jerks against her tethers and lets out a string of curses.
I swallow and then turn and leave her to her own twisted threats.
In the dining area Eogan and Kenan are speaking together while the guards look on. I eye Eogan—he’s seated in a chair at least—then walk to the giant open window and stare out of it, allowing my blood to cool and my fears to calm as I note we’ve passed over the channel and are racing over the snowcapped, spiked Hythra Mountains. Thank hulls. I tighten my Bron coat and shiver from the icy wind, only to become aware that Eogan is shivering harder again too. And his face is glistening.
Frowning, I step closer and immediately feel it. The heat. He’s burning up—the fever emanating from his skin is so hot it’s making the air ripple. His breathing goes odd and his chest inflates the slightest bit, although from his expression he’s trying to hide it as he keeps talking, saying something about the poison in Lord Myles.
“Eogan,” I say.
He touches his lower neck, covered in stitches and that orange substance, and beneath his fingers I note the skin—how it’s flaming red along the line of jagged thread. “It’s nothing,” he whispers without
looking at me.
“Right. And you’d think the universe would give us a break.”
He swerves his gaze to mine and tries to smile, but then his face is blanching and his breathing begins rattling, low and shallow.
“Oh, for bleeding sake.” Kenan crouches and starts to tug Eogan’s shoulder. “Help me get him up and onto a bed bef—”
“No, don’t.” I reach out my hand to push his away.
“But we have—”
“I think when he touched Myles to help him in there, he gave him a bit of his healing. And drained his ability.” I study Eogan’s gaze, which seems to be fading in and out. “If we touch him again, I fear . . .”
I glance up at the two guards. “Tell the captains that if they’re not already going as fast as possible, they’d better be. And don’t allow anyone to enter this room until we’re ready to disembark. When we are, have a cot ready to carry him.”
The soldiers look from me to Kenan, who nods. “Do as she says.”
They click their heels and turn for the door, then close it behind them after they hurry out.
I watch the up and down of Eogan’s torso. The side of his face. His eyes scanning now beneath closed lids. The neck muscles twitching at random. It matches the twitching and lurching of my heart.
A second later Eogan jerks and his eyes open. And then he blacks out again.
CHAPTER 14
THERE,” I SAY TO THE BOY CAPTAINS WHO, JUST like Kel and their counterparts on every other Bron ship, know their vessel like the palms of their own small hands.
They veer us to where I’m pointing, on the left along the Hythra Mountain range separating Faelen from the eastern Elisedd Sea, just as the afternoon sun is being hedged by gray clouds. I spot the glistening white-rock crown that is Faelen’s Castle and the High Court and the peasant fields surrounding it. My chest squeezes. I imagine little children playing while their nursemaids scold them to get back indoors because it looks like rain.
More than rain—it looks like another storm. The air is edgy with my mood. I steady my tapping foot.
