by Mary Weber
The airship swerves and the wraiths’ hissing soars as Draewulf’s hands clamp onto us. “What do you think you’re doing?” he snarls.
“Your wraiths killed our men,” I snarl back. I place my hand over the one that’s gripping my throat, and rather than push his off, I press it tighter to my neck. It’s burning my skin—cutting into the ice in my bones like a torch. I sense the beat-beat-beat of his pulse through his fingers.
They’re bleeding into the fury of my own heartpulse.
The wraiths behind us are hissing their confusion at seeing their master attack his own daughter. They don’t move though. Just stay standing in my peripheral as do Kel and the other captain who’ve half risen from their positions at the steering bench.
The beating in Draewulf’s fingers grows stronger and his hand grips tighter.
“Now would be a good time,” Myles half mutters, half gasps beside me.
The mirage around us shudders but stays in place. Suddenly one of Myles’s hands has clasped onto my owner-circled wrist. He begins squeezing as my lungs begin failing.
I swerve my attention to Draewulf’s eyes. Eogan’s eyes. Rimmed with barely a hint of green. Or is there? My gaze is blurring, and the hunger for power that has been scratching up my veins since Lady Isobel erupts to the surface.
I slide my fingers from his hand on my neck all the way up his arm, onto his shoulder, then to his chest. To warn the trainer inside to brace for what I’m about to do. What I now know how to do. What Myles and I can do.
Except . . .
I glance at Myles. What is he doing?
The look on his face has gone dark, and there’s a struggle clearly etched across it. A temptation. A hunger like that which is opening up the vortex in my chest.
My gut twists and my hand falters.
He wants to kill both Draewulf and Eogan.
Draewulf looks startled for a second. He snarls but I swear there’s an amused undertone to it. As if this is, on some bizarre level, a delightful turn of events to entertain him. He turns toward Myles and sinks his fingers all the way around the man’s neck.
Myles’s grip on my wrist weakens.
The vortex inside me wobbles.
His neck looks like a twig. It is a twig. He must know it, too, because the expression in Myles’s eyes goes from hunger to pure terror. He chokes as the mirage covering the two of us dissipates, and then Myles screams like I’ve never heard him, even when I hurt him back at the cave. This time . . . this time he is in agony.
It’s the scream that can only come from Draewulf using Eogan’s block to cut out Myles’s ability just like he did my Elemental power.
I shove both hands against Draewulf’s shirt and press into his skin beneath. I feel his muscles wince and weaken, but if he notices he doesn’t care because he waits, seemingly unperturbed, until Myles’s scream stops and his neck goes limp.
Draewulf tosses him to the wraith. “Take him below,” he roars. “Keep him and the princess locked up until I slit both their throats. And check on my daughter!”
Next thing I know he’s dragging me into his quarters. The last glance I get of the room is of the boys—their eyes are big as orange-fruit. Kel’s mouth wide open.
The door slams behind us and Draewulf drags me toward the room’s far window, still holding my throat, muttering something about the powers having to be in order. About needing me to understand that it will only be a little longer.
The first thought that enters my head is that he’s insane.
“The powers from the kings?” I whisper.
He stops and nods as if that’s what he’s been explaining and don’t I see that this is the only way. He’s talking like a mad person in a tone that’s trying to convince me. Of what, I have no idea. I’m hardly listening now. Something is wrong in my veins. As if the spider I swallowed is reacting to Draewulf, or Eogan, I can’t tell which. It’s clawing its way out of my chest to attack him while the vortex in my chest responds to the insanity in him.
The spider begins shaking beneath my skin, as if thrumming her web, drawing on all the fury and anger and scared-as-hulls confusion. “What do you want me for? What am I a vessel for—are you going to destroy me too?” I yank his arm and pull myself next to his face. “Because if you are, then just bleeding do it.”
His hand is still on my neck and I’m glad because it means he’s not noticing my palms on his chest. Working to pull his very soul from his host as the spider crawls through me to claim her victory. I can see it now, Draewulf’s eyes flickering before mine, even if there’s no green anymore.
I squeeze both hands against his shirt and command the hunger in me to take over. To take it all. To rip Draewulf from the very seams of Eogan’s sinew and skin.
Draewulf lets out another roar but doesn’t pull away. As if he enjoys the pain. Except the next instance he’s weakening. His shoulders slump away from me even as his essence begins to struggle for freedom from the host containing him.
His power attaches to my hands and slips up my wrists. I watch it creep up, a blackening in my skin, seeping up to look like cracked glass as it seeks to break loose. I can feel the energy inside him. Burning. Alive. Full of the lives he’s taken. Along with their fear.
That fear is all I need. The chasm in me surfaces, shooting ice through my arm and my once-gimpy fingers that are now perfect, the tips of them drawing every last breath from Draewulf’s lungs.
I smile and reach farther, harsher, pressing in stronger, turning my head to watch his eyes for flecks of green, his smile, his face for separation from this demonic spirit. Suddenly I sense it. The tearing inside. The ripping of power and energy and breath.
Black wisps like I saw at the Keep erupt around Eogan’s body. They swirl and hiss, and for a moment I can see the animal’s wolf face inside Eogan’s.
He lunges for my hand, crunching it with his. I cry out but don’t release him even as the thought erupts that I can’t take him down. He will win this.
I pull harder anyway.
“Eogan,” my soul calls to his. I wait for him to appear because I swear I perceive him slipping from the surface. There’s no answer.
Suddenly the energy I’m drawing is too fluid, too dark and dank, and too strong to be contained by a block anymore. As if Eogan’s block has broken. I press in harder and the coiling within him is unlike any I’ve felt. This is power and freedom and strength that is on a level my ability could not hold in a thousand lifetimes. Somehow I know this.
“Eogan, please!” I say aloud, but my voice sounds dull. Empty.
Draewulf’s energy begins receding from mine. I can feel it just as clearly as I can feel Draewulf’s chest shaking in laughter beneath my fingers and the fight draining out of me at the soul-level realization. There is no Eogan any longer. They are one being.
Draewulf glimmers those ghoulish eyes at me, which are not Eogan’s but black to match the beautiful black skin that once belonged to him. He pulls back and there’s not even a tug against my hands this time.
No.
No no no no no. Abruptly I’m screaming at him that “I will not allow this because I did not come this far and train this hard to let this be how he ends.” I scratch for his face, trying to rip it from Eogan’s, trying to tear his heart out even as my lungs compress.
Suddenly the airship dips down and slopes toward the water, suggesting I’ve drained the air from more than just this room.
Good. Then we’ll all die.
Draewulf yelps and grabs my wrist. He bends it back until my screams turn to pain, and all the while he’s murmuring those blasted foreign words. Then the ship rights itself and he looks down at me and smirks.
I spit at him. “It’s not going to end like this,” I hiss. Doesn’t he know death is too long, too thick a curtain to try to cross alone? I swear at Eogan because doesn’t he remember that I told him to hold on? Because everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve fought for, has just ended—disappeared into the sea of black that
is Draewulf’s eyes.
My body shakes as the realization settles in:
Draewulf has won.
He tucks a strand of Eogan’s jagged hair behind his ear and smirks. “It’s just you and me now, pet.”
CHAPTER 36
DRAEWULF STANDS THERE WATCHING ME, WEARING Eogan’s body like a shroud.
It’s all I can do to fumble forward and grab the wall to my left and hold on, hold still, and pretend that the grief washing over me is any less painful than that a week ago in Faelen’s castle when I believed Eogan was dead.
I scoot as far from him as possible, to the large window in front of us that overlooks the ocean, and press my cold spine against the glass. Keeping my face toward the beast. “Why?” I whisper, and it comes out all jagged.
“Why did I kill him? I think you know the answer to that. Or are you asking why I’ve not killed you too? I think it’d better behoove you to wonder why I shouldn’t,” he muses. “Except perhaps the simple fact is, keeping you alive is far easier than offing you at the moment.” He slinks backward to a chair, which aside from a small table is the only piece of furniture in the black-carpeted, wood-paneled room.
My gaze follows him as he drops into the cushioned seat and rests his chin on his fingers. I refuse my tone to shake with the anguish near-cowing me. “You seem to have found it easy to kill my kind in the past,” I say bitterly. “So I’ll ask again—why? What am I a vessel for?”
“I can assure you, your kind were hard to kill as well, especially early on in the war when they were more numerous. Although a pact with your kingdom definitely eased the burden of eliminating them myself over the last hundred years. Placing them in your ‘safety’ camps was brilliant, really.”
He sniffs and looks back at me. “You’ve never met one other than yourself, have you?” When I don’t reply he adds, “Curious. I always suspected they’d saved a few in reserve. Funny though how things work out. If I’d known sooner what your kind were useful for . . .”
“They didn’t even know I existed.”
“How lucky for me. In that case, I shall tell you the male Storm Sirens used the elements very effectively, but not as effectively as you. You can call them forth on a plane unparalleled.” He levels a leer at me. “Or, should I say, you used to be able to call them forth.”
I settle a glare right back at him, but his gaze takes on a distant expression and drifts to the window behind me. I shiver even as the emptiness in my blood flares in my chest. The irony doesn’t escape me that this is more about Elementals, about myself and my race, than I have ever heard, ever been allowed to talk about in my life. And here he is, the animal I hate, explaining myself to me.
From the corner of my vision I see him twitch his hand and suddenly my eyelids drift heavy.
Keep your eyes open, something whispers from the depths of me.
But I can’t. My lids are suddenly too heavy and my head too sleepy.
I feel my body slump to the carpet.
My eyes flutter open. Morning sunlight spills across a room of white curtains and windows, with a wooden ceiling much higher than my head. I peer down at the bed I’m curled up on and trail my hands over the cool sheets before wandering them up to touch the sun particles the breeze is lifting through the air. I take a deep breath. The air tastes delicious. Like homemade bread and citrus.
Eogan moves from his spot against a window frame where he’s watching me. The honeyed light slips down his messed-up bangs before shimmering along his black shoulders. “I thought I might have to shake you awake.”
I rustle my hair and smile.
“Good dreams?” he asks.
“The best one yet.”
His smile broadens suggestively, and my face warms before his expression turns stiff. He walks over as I slide my feet from the bed, but before I can stand he’s bending over, taking my cheek in hand and willing my gaze to center on his. “Don’t get up.”
But I want to. I want to be with him. This is the future I want with him.
“I have to go alone this morning,” he whispers into my hair.
Go? What is he talking about? Go where?
As if reading my mind, he tips his head toward the open window where the sunlight’s pouring through. I squint to see beyond it, to the valley that looks familiar and foreign all at once. There’s sweet air coming from it—that honey-blossomed scent—and entwined in that scent is music—an ancient melodic refrain wrapping its notes into the breeze and ruffling around Eogan’s beautiful black hands and face and gaze.
The Valley of Origin.
My heart nearly jumps through the roof of my mouth.
“No,” I tell him. “You can’t leave. Not like this.” I will not allow it. I will not lose him this way.
He brushes my fingers against his lips and inhales. I try to yank away, but his hand grasps mine to hold it in place as he raises a brow and smiles. “There are worse ways to leave, trust me.”
He leans down and draws his lips across mine, his mouth caressing my own in a kiss.
It tastes of life. And death.
It tastes of good-bye.
Abruptly his face blurs. “Get away from Draewulf. Or I swear I will haunt you with every last breath in me.” His words begin to shudder, then slur. “It’s time to let go, Nym. Open your eyes.
“Open them now.”
I’m blasted awake into a darkened airship room and a cold presence hangs over me. It’s so opposite the warmth and color of my dream it takes a minute to recall where I am. When I do, I freeze only to have my soul shatter all over again.
He’s gone.
I look around for Draewulf. To hunt him, to hurt him for what he’s done. Where is he?
The room is lit only by the stars out the windows and the lamp-lights along the rim of the airship’s deck below. Just like the other airships farther out lighting up the night. They twinkle like yellow fireflies—reminding me of the forest back home. My heart pitches. I wince and grit my teeth and, stretching my muscles, feel around the room until I reach the door.
Locked.
I twist, kick, shove against it, but it’s stuck tight. I slump against the wall and beg the darkness to either release or reclaim me, I don’t know. At least until we get there, when I will end all of this.
Because I will end all of this.
“Nym?”
Kel.
“Are you all right?” His small voice carries beneath the door.
“Kel, let me out. Unlock the door.”
A hesitation. “I can’t.”
“What do you mean you can’t? Just open it! Eogan is dangerous and—”
“I know but I can’t. He won’t—he’ll just—” His voice drops so low I can barely hear it. “Do you need anything?”
Oh buddy. “Kel, you need to stay away from Eogan.” My throat tightens even as I say his name. Eogan. I force myself to ignore it. “He’s not safe for you.”
“I know. Are you sad at him, Nym?”
I don’t answer that. I can’t. Unless I want my chest to bleed out.
A scuffle against the door. He curses. “I gotta go. I—”
“Wait, Kel!” But his footsteps are already padding away.
Bleeding litches.
I lean against the door and try to listen through but can’t hear anything further. I turn my head and stare at the dark.
Keep your eyes open, something whispers from the depths of me.
I glance around.
“For what?” I mutter back. Assess your surroundings and finish the plan.
Or what? I’m not sure it matters anymore.
Assess your surroundings and finish the plan, Nym.
Fine. I go to rise. Except that strange heaviness sets in again along with the scent of magic and I pitch over.
And fall back asleep.
Something is ticking and clacking, disturbing my sleep. The spider is beneath my skin, scratching and tapping its claws like fingers on a wall, as blazing daylight strikes my face.
I stand and curl both hands into fists. And bite back the nausea.
He smirks.
Where’s Kel?
Assess your surroundings and finish the plan, Nym.
I gulp. “Where are Rasha and Myles?”
“Under guard with my wraiths.”
“Under guard with your wraiths? Or being turned into wraiths?”
He utters a sound between a chuckle and a sneer. “Does it matter?”
“To the people you’ve made wraiths I imagine it does,” I growl, inching my way toward the tiny window that overlooks the main deck on the opposite side of the room. Through it I can see the airships surrounding us and the area where the soldiers stand side by side with a group of gray-shrouded wraiths that look more ghoul-like than ever. “Tell me, how is it that you do it? Turn them, I mean?”
He smirks. “I kill them and chop up their bones, then fuse them with stronger beasts. They don’t question or challenge, they simply obey. Rather ingenious, don’t you think?”
I hold back the urge to claw his throat out.
Focus, Nym. “Can they feel?” I eye how many ships are around us and try to calculate how many children like Kel are flying them. “The wraiths. Do they know what you’ve done to them?” Did Eogan know in his last dying moments?
He shrugs. “People ultimately embrace being controlled for the sake of safety. It’s a trade-off.”
“A trade-off for death?” I snort and peer at the soldiers on our ship’s deck. Will he turn them too? Has it already begun and they just don’t know it? Perhaps we’re all already being turned and just don’t know it. “Is that what the plague is for—to make them beg for it?”
“The plague is an unfortunate by-product. Experiments in magic can be so . . . unpredictable.”
