Bloodflower

by K. J. Harrowick

  Mohawk slick against his head, a sinister grin curled the corner of his mouth. “Miss me, darlin’?”

  CHAPTER 22

  The Tower Barge

  “Who the fuck is this prick?” Theryn grabbed a dagger from his waist, his thick clothing soaked against the lean lines of his arms.

  “Frank.” Jàden scrambled for the gun.

  In one swift move, Frank had a weapon in each hand.

  He fired, several glowing wires wrapping Jàden’s arms and pinning them to her body. Her connection to the Flame dampened, but this time it didn’t disappear. Her power was too strong now. “Theryn, don’t move!”

  Frank pointed the handgun at Theryn’s forehead. “You heard her, boy.”

  Not again, not again.

  Jàden dropped sideways, slamming her palm to the floor. The Flame crackled through her arms, ripping the ground upward and tossing both men against the walls.

  As the wires around her body shorted out, she unraveled enough to get her arm free and grabbed her discarded handgun.

  Jàden squeezed the trigger, firing off a single shot.

  “You fucking bitch.” Fury in his eyes, Frank clutched his stomach. Crimson bled through his fingers, but he kept his handgun pointed at Theryn’s head. “How the fuck did you get out of hypersleep?”

  Her hands shook as she inched backward. “Where is he? Where’s Kale?”

  A sneer curved the corner of Frank’s mouth. “He’s dead, darlin’. It’s just you and me and that glass cage you love so much.”

  “He was your son!” Tears spilled onto her cheeks. A raw pain ripped open her chest, widening the hollow gap. Tendrils of white light circled around her arms, the Flame’s energy whispering against her senses. “I’m not going back, and we both know you’ll never kill me.”

  “How right you are, darlin’.” He fired at Theryn.

  Jàden squeezed the trigger, wood shattering behind Frank’s head.

  A red-haired blur slammed into Frank, the two crashing into the wall.

  “Dusty!” Theryn howled, clutching his arm and cursing as he raced across the room.

  Jàden aimed her gun at the wrestling men then dropped her arm. She didn’t want to accidentally hit the wrong person. “Pop the firemark out! He can’t shoot if his weapon has no power.”

  A large swell crashed against the ship’s hull, flipping the boat sideways and knocking her across the room. Her back slammed against the ceiling, pain shooting along her spine.

  “Jàden!” Jon shouted from somewhere outside as seawater swelled into the room.

  “In here!” She scrambled to her feet, fire digging into her hip as the saltwater soaked her burn. Jàden spied the datapad and shoved the thin tablet inside her bodice.

  Seawater rose to her waist, a tangle of bodies splashing in the center of the room.

  They had to get out, but the doorway was already flooding.

  The hull ripped open, the ship groaned as wood shards burst into the air.

  Jàden covered her head. Splinters sliced across her hand as Frank and the two bowmen fell through the submerged wall into the sea.

  She clutched the weathered wood, holding onto the edge. She tried to pull herself toward the orange-and-gray clouding but didn’t have the strength.

  The ship groaned again.

  “Jon!” she called.

  “I gotcha.” Jon’s face appeared over the torn wall. He grabbed her wrists and pulled her up beside him.

  Relief flooded through her. As soon as he pulled loose the last wires wrapping her body, she threw her arms around him, burying her face in his neck. “You came.”

  “I’ll always come,” he whispered.

  The storm had cooled his skin, but his deeper warmth pressed through the prickles of his beard.

  Jon held her tight and buried his chin in her neck. “We gotta get out of here. This ship’s sinking.”

  “The others—”

  “Let’s get you to safety first.”

  Jàden grasped Jon’s arm as he helped her climb across the corridor wall to the edge of the sinking hull. His breath on her skin wound tightly to the Flame’s power, and a sense of peace whispered through her.

  This felt like home.

  Waves crashed against the hull, the stormy seas gray and dreary. With some of the fog burned off, the city’s stark white towers stood tall among rows of tight buildings.

  Frank’s scout craft flickered with orange light as one wing lay high in the air, a giant hole torn into the blast shielding.

  “Shit, I did that,” she whispered. Sparking wires and pipes dangled along the side.

  “I should detonate the ship.”

  She hesitated, glancing between the city and the storm waves crashing around the sleek craft. Citizens would come poking inside, or maybe merchants would tear it apart and sell off the pieces.

  “Leave it.” Jon clasped her hand. “We have to get away from this city.”

  A smaller vessel with wine-colored sails slid alongside them.

  Jon pointed to where the others waited. “Go.”

  “You’d better be right behind me.” She hastened for the edge and leapt across the gap.

  Jàden crashed onto the deck, agony screaming through her hip and shoulder. She bit back a cry of pain and stumbled to her knees, the gun skidding across the deck.

  Jon cursed as he crashed to the deck beside her, clenching his fist. Blood soaked his lower leg.

  “You’re hurt,” she said.

  “I’m fine.” He clasped her arm and helped her up.

  She doused the firemark and slid the gun into her waistband as dozens of women in wine-colored bodices and breeches swarmed the deck.

  “Ship’s going down quick, Hevkor,” an umber-skinned woman with sleek, black hair shouted.

  Someone replied from the stern, but it was garbled under Thomas’s shouting. “There they are.”

  A dozen women raced to the rail, several tossing ropes over the side.

  Jàden stumbled over and pulled the gun from her waistband, swiping her thumb across the firemark until it glowed, afraid that Frank would be trying to climb aboard.

  Dusty and Theryn clung to a knotted rope and climbed up the side.

  But she was searching for a third head.

  For Frank’s defining mohawk among the swells or another of those white-haired bastards. Dozens of Rakir cursed them, clinging to wood planks or swimming toward the orange flickers.

  Frank was nowhere to be seen.

  “That bastard disappeared,” Theryn muttered as he pulled himself over the rail. He grabbed the gun from her hand, inspecting the weapon. Blood soaked his shoulder where a gunshot hadn’t quite missed his arm. “You are one terrifying Guardian. Remind me never to piss you off.”

  Jàden swept her fingers across the firemark, dousing its power before the bowman accidentally shot himself, but she kept searching the sea. Frank would find a way to survive—he always did.

  “I’ll never go back, Frank,” she shouted to the wind as snow scattered snow across the deck. “You come after me, and I’ll shoot you again, this time between the eyes.”

  Jon laid a hand on her shoulder and pulled her away from the rail. “Is everyone here?”

  She never wanted to see this city again. Tears burned in her eyes.

  Two years she’d waited for Kale to come, only to watch him die. Jon found her in less than a day. She clutched his hand and leaned against his shoulder as wine-colored sails unfurled to catch the wind.

  “So, the rumors are true.” A short, stocky woman with black hair pulled back from her face strode up to them, dressed in a long wine-and-gold tunic. Salty air weathered her plain features, placing the woman’s age somewhere near her eighties, just closing in on mid-life.

  “What rumors?” Jàden tightened her grip on Jon’s hand as women in dresses discarded their skirts, deck-hand uniforms the same deep burgundy as the ship’s sails. They let their h
air down to catch the wind, grabbing ropes and climbing tall masts like they’d lived all their lives on the sea.

  “Herana, the moonless Guardian has returned.” The shorter woman narrowed her eyes, almost as if she were displeased to see Jàden. “I’m Hevkor Naréa. Welcome to the Darius.”

  CHAPTER 23

  The Lonely Sea

  Éli pressed a dagger against the trembling figure’s throat. Wreckage floated across the harbor, upended chunks of wooden hull sinking beneath the stormy waves. The great silver beast lay dying on its side near the harbor wall. Life must still pulse through its veins, but he only had one thing on his mind.

  “Can you find the boy or not?” he asked.

  He’d never had a chance to get to the high council and exchange the faux-key for Connor. With the ship in pieces, he needed to know his son still lived.

  “I-If…” Their lower lip trembled as they pulled their spindly knees to their chest.

  They swallowed against the blade, blood beading along the sharp edge. The rail-thin dreamwalker tried to speak again, their lips and tongue stuttering without sound, but they nodded to show Éli what they couldn’t speak.

  “Try anything, and I’ll make your former master look like a lapdog.” Éli sheathed the dagger and tossed over the cuff keys. Who knew how many soldiers were left in the wake of devastation or if Connor’s small body already lay at the bottom of the harbor. The thought of anyone killing his son drove a spike through the center of his chest. “Find my son.”

  The dreamwalker’s hands shook as they inserted the flat slip of marble into the stone circlet until it clicked open and the cuffs fell away. They pushed their hands through their mousy brown hair.

  Éli searched the sea, clenching his dagger hilt until his knuckles were white.

  A soft voice whispered at the fringes of his mind, the tone surprisingly gentle and reserved. I ask permission to see a memory of your son.

  Éli nodded, the dagger’s hilt digging into his palm. The dreamwalker’s whisper of power slipped between his thoughts and retreated almost as quickly, leaving in its wake a single name: Evardo.

  Not like Éli cared, but he supposed he couldn’t call the bastard Hey You. “If my son’s alive, he’ll be among the debris.”

  Evardo closed their eyes then pointed across the harbor toward the silver beast. He’s frightened.

  Éli’s gaze slipped from the gray swells to the wine-colored sails disappearing into the storm. Jon and his men were gone again, leaving him behind to clean up their mess. He clenched his jaw to hold back the anger gripping his senses.

  “Commander.” A young soldier with sandy brown hair saluted him. “We’re ready to go.”

  “Head for the sky beast.” Golden sails with a black sun whipped in the storm. The smooth vessel slid away from the dock, the burly hevkor shouting at his men.

  But dark power thrummed below the deck, one of the high council, Kóranté Alken, who lurked in the hevkor’s private quarters. His black threads of power rippled through the brand on Éli’s shoulder, holding him bound to the ship. He’d give anything to be free of the old men, free of the Tower caging him in a web of lies.

  Today, all he wanted was his son.

  They sailed slowly through the wreckage, tossing ropes to any soldier still alive as thunder rumbled across iron gray clouds. The ship slowed close to the silver beast. Metallic entrails hung out of a hole in its chest.

  “Stop the ship.” Éli hastened to the rail, leaning far over as a shadow moved within. “Connor!”

  A small face peeked around a jagged tear, black hair slicked against his head.

  Éli climbed on the rail and leapt the gap between them, landing on the slippery interior. He grasped the edge to hold himself steady. Metal sliced open his palm, but he ignored the sting and crouched in front of the quivering boy.

  “You’re alive,” he said, his tone neutral. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

  Connor pressed his back against the side, water dripping from his clothes as he clutched his small arm. Tears reddened his eyes, his voice the merest whisper. “A Guardian tried to kill us.”

  One sleeve still intact, Connor’s left arm was bare, obsidian burned into his bony shoulder. The Tower and two moons emblem with a thread of Alken’s power touching the surface.

  Rage ignited in the pit of Éli’s stomach. “Who branded you?”

  His brother Sebastian had fought for years to keep them well fed so Éli never had to know the pain of being a soldier. So he would always be a free man, until Jon Ayers destroyed everything by digging a knife into his brother’s spine.

  History was repeating itself as Connor clutched his arm, hiccupping between sobs. Unless he lopped the boy’s arm off, his son was bound to the Tower now.

  Éli punched the sky beast in frustration.

  Every man needed two good sword arms. He would find a way to keep the boy from becoming a soldier, but he wouldn’t toss his arm away—not yet.

  “Guardians ain’t real, boy. What’s that damn mother of yours teaching you?” But with the urge to smack the nonsense out of the kid, even Éli had witnessed the high council’s barge explode down to the keel. If Jon protected a Guardian and felt something for the woman…

  A faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

  “S-Someone lives here.” Connor lifted a shaking hand, pointing over Éli’s shoulder.

  Éli unsheathed the dagger and whipped around, the blade held high.

  A burly man in loose, gray clothing lay against the beast’s innards, one hand pressed against his stomach with blood leaking between his fingers. Several deep cuts lined his arms and cheek, bruised skin circled his eyes. One of his legs bent at an odd angle as if broken.

  Someone had beat the hell out of him. The stranger clasped a glowing metal object in his hand and aimed it at Éli. “Kóro.”

  The urge to kill the dying fucker grasped Éli by the throat, but he didn’t know if the man held part of the beast or some type of weapon. A glass window next to him illuminated with a figure’s head, his hair glowing green like the dalanath and slicked to his head. “Oné Frank.”

  “The fuck is this thing?” Éli stepped between Connor and man moving on the glass. “Get to the ship, boy.”

  But the injured man started screaming at the glass and pounding his fist against small lights. “Bradshaw, bareh ró!”

  Evardo whispered against Éli’s thoughts, a vague image of Jon’s woman screaming in pain. Don’t let him find the Guardian. Kill him.

  Éli’s shoulders wound tight. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The glass turned smoky black and the face disappeared, but the injured man with the shaved head shifted his hand to the side, a loud pop as the metal object in his hand burned a hole in the beast. “Kóro!”

  Éli wasn’t sticking around long enough for the bastard to use that weapon on him, and he wasn’t certain he could get his knife in the man’s throat fast enough. He yanked Connor to his feet. “Jump to the ship, or I throw you across.”

  “Who—” Connor glanced at the waiting vessel then back at Éli with eyes as black as his. “Who are you?”

  Éli pressed his mouth into a thin line. Tightening his grip on Connor’s arm, he threw the kid over his shoulder and leapt off the beast onto the ship’s deck, dropping his son next to Evardo. “I’m your real father, boy. You’re lucky that bitch mother of yours is dead or I’d kill her myself.”

  He snapped his fingers at Evardo. “You, take care of the boy and finish stitching up my horse.”

  Power thrummed against his skin, a distant tug calling to him. Éli could sense the rest of the high council beyond the harbor, waiting like locusts. Most Rakir wouldn’t feel more than an urge to head to sea, but the dark threads of power tugged him toward the fleet of ships beyond the horizon.

  Éli ignored their pull and tossed the cuffs toward Evardo. “Put those on, or the high council will figure out what you are.”
>
  And he’d never see his new servant again. That still left the half-alive high councilman below decks to deal with.

  Hands shaking around the cuffs, Evardo tried to hide their tears as they cuffed themself with the stone, keeping the unlocking slip of marble clutched in their hands.

  Éli grabbed Connor’s shoulder, the skinny runt barely coming halfway up his chest. “How old are you now, boy?”

  “Seven.” His wide eyes glanced around at the other soldiers. “Sir.”

  “Good, old enough to be a man. Get to the rail and search for anyone in a uniform like mine. We’ll need more soldiers where we’re going.”

  To destroy your uncle. The boy might never forgive him, but he didn’t care. Jon deserved to suffer—for Sebastian, for Connor and for the pain in Éli’s heart that hadn’t eased once since his tenth naming day.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Lonely Sea

  Jàden shivered and leaned her forehead against Agnar’s nose. The soft, velvety fur warmed her skin as the stallion grunted and closed his eyes. They were tired—the horses, Jon and his men and she could barely keep her legs straight enough to stand.

  Cold to the bone, she needed to find dry clothes, but her body was so stiff she could barely move.

  Letting go of the stallion, she turned about the large room nestled inside the prow of the ship. Arced in a half-circle, the ungated stalls held harnesses for the horses. Each one could walk a step forward and back, but if the ship rocked too much, the hammock-like restraints would keep the animals upright and steady. Such a smart setup for transporting livestock between the landmasses.

  Two empty stalls at the back were stacked with the horses’ gear and most of their supplies. Jon sat next to the saddles, a small needle in his hand as he sewed up his injury.

  She stepped toward him, intent on helping.

  But Thomas cut her off, vivid blue eyes looking her up and down. “You tired?”

  She nodded. “Exhausted.”

  “Put on dry clothes and weave your hair into a single braid. You have three minutes.” He retreated toward Jon to speak in hushed tones.