Color blushed Margarite’s cheeks. She offered a quick curtsy, then headed out, but not before Laurelle rushed to her and again hugged her.
“I miss you so,” she whispered in her friend’s ear.
Margarite nodded, but her eyes were on Yaellin’s shadowed form.
They broke their embrace, and Margarite hurried down the stairs, casting many glances back at them.
Once out of sight, they set off again, climbing the stairs.
“Will she keep silent?” Yaellin asked.
“She’s our friend,” Laurelle said sternly.
Dart didn’t bother to mention that such friendship did not extend to herself. She had noted the familiar look of disgust in Margarite’s eyes. Dart trusted more in Margarite’s fear and awe of the Shadowknight than old friendships.
At last they reached the eighth landing. Yaellin led them off the stair and down the main hall to a door carved with oak leaves and acorns on its lintel.
“Stay behind me,” Yaellin said.
Dart needed no prompting to push deeper into the man’s shadows. Laurelle huddled with her.
Yaellin knocked on the door.
Footsteps approached on the far side. A latch snicked. The door pulled open, sucking some of the shadows over the threshold.
“Who calls so-?” The voice rang with irritation, then cut off.
“Healer Paltry,” Yaellin said. “I’ve come from the High Wing. Your presence is requested at the castillion. I’m to escort you on this black day.”
Dart remained hidden, but she heard the satisfaction in the other’s voice. “Of course. I’ve heard word. I’ll gather my bag and be right with you. Step inside. I won’t be more than a quarter bell.”
Yaellin followed the healer into his chamber. Dart and Laurelle stepped after him. Past the entryway, the chamber opened into the healing ward. A hearth glowed with a morning fire, and lamps shone upon the empty cots, lined around the circular chamber’s edges. In the center, a small brazier burned and smoked.
Yaellin closed the door and secured the latch.
Healer Paltry glanced back at the sound. “There’s no need-”
Yaellin let his shadows and cloak drop from him. Dart and Laurelle stood on either side of him.
Healer Paltry’s gaze fell upon Dart. Confusion crinkled his brow, and deep down something darker shone. Still, he kept his voice light. “What is all this?”
Yaellin pulled out his sword with a flash of silver. “I must ask you to keep us company, Healer Paltry. It seems that there is some matter of urgency that must be discussed.”
Healer Paltry ignored the sword. His eyes still fixed upon Dart. “The Hand of Blood,” he said. “And the Hand of Tears. The very ones wanted by the castillion guard. Ravens fly to every corner of Chrismferry. And you come here, I assume for my help.”
Dart stared into the man’s blue eyes, his handsome face. How could such beauty hide such a black heart? She met Paltry’s gaze, sensing his attempt to intimidate her with the weight of his attention, to hold her quiet. Before, Dart had left the healer’s presence trembling and panicked. She was not that girl any longer.
“Do not trust him,” Dart said with a firmness that surprised her, finding strength from the night’s terror to face the horror here. Eyes drew to her. “His vile wickedness runs to the marrow.”
“Dart?” Laurelle said, surprised.
Yaellin glanced to Paltry. “What do you know of him? Do you know why Tashijan seeks him out?”
Paltry’s eyes narrowed to sharp points, threatening.
Dart shook her head, keeping her gaze locked on the healer. “All I know… all I know is he took all from me…” The words came out, dragged up by sheer necessity, but still tearing, too large for her throat. Her vision blurred with tears, but she did not look away. Laurelle appeared at her side, taking her hand. Dart felt the warmth of her friend’s touch.
Walls broke inside her. Reservoirs of bile and bitterness, sorrow and terror, anger and misery burst their holds. She felt lifted and dragged down. She squeezed tightly to Laurelle.
“He sent Master Willet… to the rookery.” Dart began to shake. Tears took her vision, replaced it with flashes of the past, to a place of pain. “I… I couldn’t stop him. He took me by force, broke me, turned brightness to blood. I… I… I…” Her voice turned to a low keening cry of pain and grief.
Laurelle drew her tight. “Oh, Dart…”
She gasped and choked.
“You could’ve told me,” Laurelle consoled.
Dart shook her head, a bit too violently. “Spoiled… I was broken and impure. I had no other home.”
“She lies,” Paltry spat out. “She is corrupted, but not by my hand. She is foul where none can touch. I know!”
Dart felt a fury build in her that had no bounds, not even her own skin.
Laurelle must have felt it. She loosed her hold on Dart.
“Abomination,” Paltry said, pointing a finger at her.
“Quiet!” Yaellin boomed. His sword found the healer’s heart, poking through cloth to skin.
Paltry winced, dropping his arm.
“Do not speak of matters you know nothing about,” Yaellin said harshly. “She is stronger and purer of heart than any who stand in this room. What was done to her…” His voice filled with cold promise. “You shall suffer a thousandfold.”
Paltry glared at him. “That will be seen, ser knight. Not all in Tashijan share your sweet sentiment.”
“Is that so?” Yaellin said. “Then perhaps you’ll share your view with the new castellan. She comes this morning to question you.”
Paltry blanched. “What… how… why…?”
“Yes, I’m sure they’ll be asking you the very same.”
Dart took comfort from Paltry’s sick look, the fear in his eyes.
“Now all we have to do is wait for our new guests.” Yaellin nodded to one of the cots. “If you’d be so kind. We might as well be comfortable.”
Yaellin backed Paltry upon the point of his sword. “Laurelle, will you also bar the door back there? We don’t want to be disturbed while we wait.”
Laurelle nodded and hurried to obey.
Yaellin dropped Paltry to the cot, then motioned Dart forward. He kept his sword at the healer’s throat, but turned his attention to Dart. He reached a hand out. A dagger rested in his palm. “Take it.”
Dart stared. The black blade could not be mistaken. It was the cursed dagger. She shook her head.
“Take it,” he repeated, more commanding.
She obeyed, fingering its hilt with care.
“Here is its sheath.” He passed her a belt.
She accepted it, confused, feeling as empty as the leather sheath.
“Some call this blade cursed, impure, vile, but it is only a dagger. It is only steel. How it is employed is the true character of a blade.” He stared deep into Dart’s eyes. “Remember that. What was done to your flesh does not soil you or defile you. Your heart is still yours. It is still innocent and pure.”
Dart listened, but his words fell on stony soil. She could not.. did not believe them.
Yaellin seemed to understand. He sighed and nodded to the dagger. “It is yours. Wear it well.”
Dart backed up a few steps. She set the dagger down and tied the belt under her robe, over her nightclothes. She worked without looking down. Her gaze remained hard upon Paltry. He watched her. She retrieved the dagger. Its blade ate the light.
Slowly… very slowly she sheathed it.
If not comforted by Yaellin’s words, she was a tiny bit less empty.
She snugged the dagger tight, fingers on the bone hilt.
Cursed or not, she would wear it well.
She still had promises to keep.
21
FREEFALL
Tylarclung to Kathryn as the flippercraft plum meted. Smoke filled the cabin, steaming from the slagged mekanicals as the blood alchemies burned. Beneath the floorboards, the grind and scream of strained i
ron and steel shook through the ship. Shouts and cries echoed to them from the forward sections.
Slowly the steep cant of the deck rolled slightly more even. The ship turned, attempting a slow spiral. The captain and his helmsman must be wresting the craft by sheer muscle and will.
But it was Tylar’s chance to move.
He clutched Kathryn’s elbow.“We must get to the others… to the captain’s deck!” he yelled to be heard above the howl of the winds through the broken stern window. He had no plan, but they could do nothing here.
She nodded.
He helped haul her to her feet-and she helped him. The freeing of the naethryn daemon had healed his wounds, but it hadn’t replaced the blood he’d lost. He found his vision narrowing.
“The daemon…” Kathryn glanced back to the smoky deck.
Earlier, Tylar had explained about the naether-spawn. Kathryn had studied the black palm print with interest. But to see the naethryn rip from his body, shattering its way out, had transformed mere words into true horror.
“What it did to you…” she said as they reached the door.
Tylar grabbed the door’s locking bar. “That broken man you saw was not the work of the daemon, but the slave pits and circuses.” He could not keep the bitterness from his words, even when he caught the wounded look in Kathryn’s eyes. “The daemon keeps me whole.”
Tylar freed the bar that Darjon had set. The door fell open under him. They tumbled through into the main passage… into chaos. Smoke wafted here, a pall lit by fires licking up from cracks in the floorboards. The lower ship, the mekanical spaces, must be on fire.
Travelers crowded the passage, abandoning cabins. They tangled and fought in panic. Orders were shouted, prayers raised, cries echoed.
“There!” Kathryn pointed.
Tylar spotted the flash of bronze. It was Master Gerrod, brilliant in his armor. He stood braced in a doorway a few spaces down the tilted passageway. One metal hand gripped Rogger by the shirt collar, keeping him in place.
Across the passage, Eylan shoved several folks out of her way with the handle of a long ax. The Wyr-mistress’s dark eyes found Tylar and narrowed. Her efforts grew fiercer. Her duty had been to act as his bodyguard, to keep his valuable seed safe from harm. She seemed furious at how difficult he was making her chore.
Tylar and Kathryn hurried to the others.
He turned to Rogger and Gerrod. “We must get to the captain’s deck.”
Another explosion bucked the ship savagely. It rolled to port, throwing everyone to the wall. Cries grew sharper in alarm. Tylar snatched Kathryn around the waist. He felt her heartbeat pounding. He stared through the open door of a passenger’s cabin and out its window.
With the ship rolled over, the city appeared beneath the flippercraft. Tall towers stretched close. He spotted townsmen on the streets, near enough to see their faces staring up. He knew what they were seeing. A flippercraft, trailing a tail of smoke and fire, about to strike the city.
Then the ship swung back even, taking away the view below-only now the craft’s nose dipped more steeply.
A hand grabbed his elbow, as hard as any shackle.
He turned to find Eylan hauling him up.
Tylar attempted to shake free. “My seed will have to wait.”
She scowled at him. Using her free arm, she stopped one of the crewmen with the butt of her ax handle, pinning the young man to the wall. “Take us to the foredeck,” she demanded in a voice that offered no mercy.
The crewman balked, near blind with panic.
Not a good sign.
“I may be able to help the captain.” Tylar grabbed the man by the shoulder, shoving the ax handle away. “I have Grace that may serve to save the ship.”
The man’s eyes fixed to him, to any hope, then nodded.
Gerrod and Rogger joined them. With Eylan in the lead, roughly knocking folks aside with the flat of her ax, they forced their way forward.
The crewman unlocked the hatch of the captain’s deck. “We’ve lost all aeroskimmers. We’re riding on the dregs of Grace. If you can do anything…”
Tylar led the others into a mirror of the stern common room. A deck overlooked a curved wall of glass, the captain’s eye. But instead of open decking, the space was occupied by an arc of control seats. To the right and left, men fought to wield the starboard and port aeroskimmers. Smoke poured from one side, flames lapped on the other.
In the center, directly ahead, the helmsman sat, strapped to a chair that protruded out over the window, like the bowsprit of a ship. The position gave the man a full view of the city hurtling toward them. His feet worked a set of pedals, his hands a vast wheel. Smoke framed his form. A spat of flames danced under his toes.
It was deathly quiet as the team worked to save the flippercraft, to save the passengers, to save themselves. The captain stood behind his helmsman at the foot of the bowsprit. His brows darkened at the sight of the newcomers.
Tylar had no time for pleasantries. He hurried forward.
Below, the city filled the window.
Tylar recognized immediately the desperation of the captain’s plan. The Tigre River lay directly below them. The captain was dropping the flippercraft into the river, plainly hoping to cushion their crash, and in turn, spare the lives of the townsfolk below.
But there was a problem with his plan.
Directly ahead, a massive structure blocked the river. Nine towers and a keep. Chrism’s castillion. They were falling too fast. With the aeroskimmers out, they could not swing around. It was a dead man’s drop. They might strike the river, but like a skipped stone on a flat pond, they would crash headlong into the keep itself. Though the castillion was raised up on giant pillars to allow river barges to pass beneath, it was not high enough to accommodate the bulk of the flippercraft.
“Captain,” Tylar said, “where’s your main plumb to the alchemical tank?”
The captain pointed to the left. “We used all our reserves. We have nothing left.”
Tylar was already moving. Kathryn followed, along with the captain. They reached the plumb feed used to fill the tanks. It was a column of thick glass, sealed at the top. The entire crew’s eyes were on them.
Tylar ordered the captain, “Open the plumb.” He turned to Kathryn and bared his wrists. “Your sword. Cut deep.”
To her credit, she did not balk. The blade slid free with a flash of silver. With a speed borne of desperation, she thrust her blade’s edge across both wrists. She was not gentle. She sliced to bone. Tendons severed. Blood poured.
Tylar swung his arms over the open feeding tube. His blood flowed down the glass, heading for the mekanicals in the ship’s belly.
Rogger appeared at his side. “Your Grace’s aspect is water. Not air. This is no Fin.”
“It’s about to become one.” Tylar nodded to the window, hugging the tube, wrists on fire. The Tigre River swelled out the window. The castillion lay an arrow’s shot away.
Tylar closed his eyes and willed his streaming blood. He pictured the crimson river reaching the main mekanicals that flew the ship. He recalled the explosive effect his raw blood had on the Fin as they fled Tangle Reef.
Pure, undiluted power.
He prayed it was enough.
He cast his will along with his blood to the heart of the flippercraft. He flowed his Grace through the mekanicals and over the keel of the craft.
Water…
Into an ocean he had been born, birthed as his mother drowned in a sinking scuttlecraft off the Greater Coast. He touched that place, drew upon half memories buried deep within. Water flowed back with his first sensations of this world. He was pushed from warm womb to cold sea.
Falling, falling, falling…
He wailed, babe and man. His mouth filled with water, his lungs. Deep in his chest, beyond blood and bone, he felt the daemon respond, stirring and waking. Here, too, water swelled.
Once again, he drowned in it, lived in it, breathed it.
This was
his Grace, gifted by Meeryn.
He opened his eyes and stared out at the window. Water filled the world. A moment from striking. But they were one and the same: ship, river, and man.
“Hold fast!” the helmsman screamed.
There was no need. The river accepted its own, opening beneath them, drawing them to its flowing bosom.
The flippercraft fell smoothly into the river’s embrace, sinking rather than striking, drawn beneath its waves, joining the strength of its currents.
“The wheel’s responding!” the helmsman choked out, trapped between horror and hope.
Rogger yelled back at him. “The castillion!”
Though they had landed, caught by the river itself, Lord Chrism’s keep still rushed toward them. The window was three-quarters submerged, but there was enough view out its upper section to see the castillion’s massive stone pylons and the lower half of the keep.
“Take the ship down!” Rogger screamed, running for the helmsman.
Tylar nodded, too weak to respond… or stand. Hugging the plumb tube, he slid down its length, smearing blood. He felt arms catch him. A warm breath touched his ear.
“I have you,” Kathryn said.
He nodded again. Yes, once you did…
Vision narrowing, he saw Rogger yelling at the helmsman, but no words reached him. Still, he watched the waterline climb the window. The flippercraft submerged toward the bottom of the deep river.
The castillion pillars swept toward them, dark shadows in the river. The ship hoved over, turning slightly in the current. The pillars passed to either side. Sunlit waters became murky depths as they dove under the castillion. A grinding scrape shook the ship, coming from topside, as if the upper skin of the flippercraft were being sheared away.
The craft shook and rattled.
Then sunlight bathed down over the hurtling ship.
A cry pierced the pounding in Tylar’s ear: “We’re under and through!” Cheers followed.
Tylar closed his eyes. He still felt arms around him. He fell into them, gratefully and fully-then slipped away.
“Help me with him!” Kathryn screamed.
She lifted Tylar into her arms, drawing on shadows to give her strength. But she was surprised at how light he was, an empty shell of his former self. Blood ran down his arms, soaking through her cloak.
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