Siren's Fury (28 page)
It’s Eogan. Or, more accurately, Draewulf.
I pull away and smooth my shirtsleeves.
“Leave us.” Draewulf bats a hand in the air and waits for Isobel’s soldiers to exit the hall before stepping closer.
Bending down, I yank out a knife, but before I can lift it to his stomach, he wrenches both arms behind me and draws his body against mine in a move that, like most of his others, is faster than should be possible. He laughs an ugly sound. “So the Elemental girl can fight off an army but can’t handle a few Mortisfaire maids.”
Lady Isobel steps forward with that smile that’s like a plague on her lips and brushes a graceful hand down my hair. “Or perhaps
it’s that she has no fight left in
her
. I wonder—has watching her beloved trainer live out his final days left her . . . impotent?” Her hand moves from me to her father and presses down on his shoulder. He makes a bizarre choking sound.
I twist my head around to see his countenance alter as the black of his irises grows wider and his teeth longer. I writhe beneath his grip to stop her, to help him, but Draewulf presses harder on my wrists as any last bits that make up Eogan seem to fade before my eyes.
“Of all the—” I shove my knee up toward Isobel.
She dodges and retreats with a giggle, then releases her father in the process, allowing him to return to Eogan’s form. “Oh come now,” she says in a pouty voice. “Watching your pretty face flinch is
just
so lovely.”
“Let’s see if yours stays lovely when
I
make it flinch.”
She lets out a tinkle of laughter and glances up at her father. “I think our impotent Elemental forgets who she’s speaking to.”
“I’m speaking to the woman whose father now inhabits her onetime lover’s body.”
The same expression I noted back at the banquet when she stood looking down on Eogan in irritation and disgust flashes behind her eyes.
I smirk. “Must be awkward, no?”
Her hand goes up, but Draewulf releases my arms and slides around to block her from slamming it against my chest. “Isobel, quit fooling and tell me. Does she have what we need?”
She narrows her gaze. “Father, I—”
“Now.”
Her look is murderous as she slides close to me. “Don’t worry. That heart of his you only wished belonged to you is about to cease
existing altogether.” She pauses to lean into my ear. “Say good-bye knowing he won’t suffer. Much.”
I wrench a hand free and slap her across the jaw so hard, I think I hear her bone crack.
Her fingers are on my throat, but Draewulf’s quicker. He pulls her wrist away and crunches it loud enough with his own that she actually whimpers and I wince. His smile turns disgusted. “I said assess her, not kill her.”
Isobel’s glare could pierce ice through my skull. She clenches her jaw but stays put, then slips her hand onto my arm covered with memorial scars. She squeezes down as he murmurs against my neck, “Just think, Eogan’s gone all because of me. Because you weren’t strong enough. And now,” he whispers, “no one but you and I and your two Uathúil friends will ever know.”
I bring my foot toward Draewulf’s family heirlooms. It only lightly connects because he dodges, then jerks my elbow toward my shoulder, but we both cry out.
“There it is,” he pants.
“I will kill you—”
“Careful with threats you can’t follow through on.”
Lady Isobel’s hand begins shaking over my arm. It’s warming. I cringe and twist my wrist beneath Draewulf’s fingers enough to hover it over his chest. Forcing down, I yank as much energy as I can from his venomous, twisted soul.
Draewulf utters a pained curse word.
But it’s not enough. I can’t focus it adequately as Isobel’s hand latches onto something in me, and it’s as if I can feel the veins stiffening in my arm and solidifying all the way up my shoulder and down to my heart, freezing it into place. Into stone. My palm immediately
drops from Draewulf, my whole being going sluggish, as if I’ve been weighted beneath metal.
“Enough,” Draewulf murmurs as he sags back. He pushes Lady Isobel’s hand off me. “Is she ready?”
Her only reply is to nod.
“For what?” I hiss.
She smiles. “The question is, Father, are you?”
Perhaps it’s my imagination, but I swear I see the slightest wince in his eyes. “Only a day, maybe less.”
“Then the airships depart before dawn.”
I
N THE HOUR FOLLOWING MY FORCED RETURN TO my room, I lie splayed out in a near-paralyzed state on the floor where the Mortisfaire tossed me. My attempts to yell through the wall to Rasha get me nowhere. Either she’s ignoring me or the water pipes are flowing too loud because there is no reply, and after a while I give up and focus on breathing through the heaviness in my lungs. And the awareness that even if I could move enough to get around the wraiths to reach Rasha and Myles, we’d still have to find Lady Isobel and Draewulf.
And then what?
I close my eyes and curse myself for not focusing my ability more when I had Isobel in hand.
Eventually the breathing eases, bringing relief that whatever injury she did to my heart and veins is waning. The aching following it keeps me near doubled up the rest of the night though. As does the utter fury that I have no idea how to prevent what’s about to come.
It’s almost dawn when another shuffle outside my door alerts me just before Bron soldiers bust it down. They drag me out to join
Myles and Rasha, who’ve obviously been freshly pulled from their quarters as well, and proceed to confiscate our knives before shoving us down the hallway.
Sir Gowon leads the way with a stony expression and refuses to answer any of Rasha’s questions or Myles’s demands, while I glare straight ahead and feel my hatred pound through my chest. It’s like a drumbeat from one of the refrains the Faelen minstrels used to sing. Slow. Steady. Hammering in the thought that as much as I try to figure out what anything means anymore, the chill in my veins might as well be screaming that I don’t know.
Or maybe I don’t want to know.
“Are they bleeding jesting?” Myles grumbles as they force us through the doors leading to the giant loading area we landed on four days ago. It’s holding the same airship we flew in on. The balloon’s been reinflated. “Couldn’t they have waited until a less hellish hour? Especially since, from the looks of it, the wraiths have barely got their blasted army assembled.”
The guard closest to us doesn’t answer.
Rasha wraps her arm through mine. “How are you?”
“Fine.”
“Liar.”
Myles peers over at us. Clearly anything to do with one of us lying is of interest to him.
Five, six, seven steps I wait before dipping away from their stares. “Draewulf and Lady Isobel had the Mortisfaire bring me to them a few hours ago. They know about the power I consumed.”
They stop to look at me.
“He wanted Isobel to ‘assess’ me to see if I was ready.”
The Bron soldiers ram into us, shoving us forward—accidentally at first, then purposefully. “Keep moving,” the large one barks.
His dark eyes flicker menacingly against his smooth black cheeks and short hair that’s trimmed clean. He lifts an arm cloaked in its red-and-black soldier’s sleeve, and for the first time I notice the number of medals sewn into the material. He points to the ship as Sir Gowon strides up beside him.
“You are not coming with us?” the large guard says to Gowon.
“My duty is here to protect our people, just as yours is to protect our king. We will meet again, my son.”
My brow goes up as the two men lock forearms briefly.
Son?
Then we’re moving forward.
“Are you certain?” Rasha is asking, and her voice has its airy tone.
“Lady Isobel was assessing to see if you were ready for what?” Myles says.
I peer away from Gowon and the guard and up at the lantern-lit airship as we stop at the loading plank. I can still feel Lady Isobel’s hand on my heart. Chilling it. Beginning to harden it. I rub over my chest where the ache is so raw.
“I’ve no idea, but it felt like a test.” My mind flicks back to Draewulf and the wraith’s conversation on the roof.
“Is your vessel prepared?”
the wraith had asked.
“She performed as I said she would . . . Either way, it won’t be long.”
That word
vessel
keeps crawling beneath my skin, making me shiver. “I think he was assessing my abilities because he’s going to use me for something,” I whisper. “He said ‘she performed as expected.’ As if
he
was expecting
it to . . . mature.”
Rasha flips around. “What?”
“That assumes they were talking about
you
.” Myles keeps his tone low and his gaze cool, but something in both tells me he’s suddenly worried too. It makes me want to argue with him. But I don’t
say anything because the very thought that Draewulf could’ve known, could’ve been waiting for this thing in me to alter somehow, makes my blood curdle. Because it begs a new harrowing question:
What if “ready” meant I’d reached a point where he knew I could no longer stop him?
“It’s not just that.” I study Myles. “You heard him on the roof. They asked if his vessel was ready.”
“But how could he have known you’d go after the new abilities?” Rasha says.
“That’s a good question.” I look at Myles as half the guards shuffle past us to the ship’s boarding plank.
“If either of you are implying I had anything to do with it, you’re sorely mistaken. Or have you forgotten Draewulf’sss a wizard? A very smart one. If he wanted you to have them, he could’ve influenced any sort of circumstances to ensure that happened.”
“Circumstances involving you?” I say bitingly.
We’re next in front of the loading plank now. Rasha’s half looking around when she abruptly dips her voice. “Where are the other delegates?”
“Mossst likely being left behind.” Myles smooths his glossy hair down, as if anyone here cares what his hair looks like at four in the morning.
“Did the guards tell you that?”
“No, but it’s what I’d do if I were them. A few hostages left in the homeland are excellent security. In fact, I’m very much surprised he’sss even taking you, Your Highnessss.”
Rasha sniffs and watches her Cashlin guards ascend into the airship with an expression that says she fears Myles’s repulsiveness will rub off on her.
I look at the large Bron soldier standing in front of us. Gowon’s son. “Will they be killed?” I ask him.
His features stay stiff as he waves first Myles, then Princess Rasha onto the plank. “It is my understanding they’ll be left unharmed.”
I scoff. “By your Assembly perhaps, but what about the wraiths? Or will you just let them take care of that for you?”
“I’ve been assured they’ll be fine.” He beckons me to follow Myles and Rasha. “Except for . . .” His eyes flick up almost imperceptibly to the front of the silver airship, which is glowing from lantern light like the rest.
I track his gaze.
Squint through the dim.
What in—?
There’s an object tied to the forward-most staff—like a fish tied to a skewer—and it looks very much like Lord Wellimton.
“We’ll be taking him along,” the guard says. “By King Eogan’s request.”
“Is he—?”
“He’s alive.” The guard breaks into a smirk.
Very much alive in fact, if my ears are correct in tuning in to Wellimton’s yelled choice of Faelen swear words. My mouth goes dry. I glance back at the guard. “Are King Eogan and Lady Isobel on
this
ship?”
Suddenly everything within me is frantic, panicky. Oh hulls, I need them to be on this ship. The sensation is short-lived thanks to the pursing of his mouth. His gaze shifting toward the room above the airship’s dining area is a clear indication, whether he intended it to be or not. I smile smug-like as he gives me a shove onto the plank. Then the other guards are closing in behind, herding us up.
The closer we get to the airship’s deck, the thicker my skin
bristles and the more I can feel the hissing. Even without seeing the wraiths, their presence hangs like the cloak over my spine, clinging and clammy in the light wind. Their whispers grow louder. Just like the guards who, as soon as I’ve stepped on deck, are yelling to pull the plank up and telling the captain to take off before I’ve even had a chance to grab hold of something stable amid the bustling bodies.
I count to ten before the ship shudders and makes a groaning sound, and suddenly we’re floating up, up, upward into the air above the Castle and the city. It’s another ten, fifteen seconds before my stomach catches up with us, and by that time the glow of the morning sky is bubbling out on the horizon.
We’re rising faster now to meet two other ships in the air. The atmosphere surrounding them flutters and bursts into ribboned lines of periwinkle and gold as the metallic fleet reflects the morning sun stretching her rays out to greet us.
It’s beautiful. And breathtaking. And terrible all in one. Like these mirrors of glorious light hovering above the heavy shroud of land and city beneath us that is surrounded by half-emptied wraith encampments. The camps look like leeches spotting the area, like a plague on the skin of this kingdom.
“Looks like you should’ve done more damage with your Elemental powersss,” Myles mutters beside me. I follow his gaze to the forty or so airships hovering over an eighth as many warboats out in the ocean. If I thought the brackish army below was a pestilence on the earth, this, this is a pockmarked horror on the face of the Elisedd Sea.
They’re dangerous looking. And far too familiar.
“What do they need the warboats for if they have all these airships?” Rasha asks.
“I believe they carry fuel.”
Behind us, there’s a snap of fingers and we’re promptly surrounded by a horde of soldiers. “King Eogan would have us see you to your quarters now,” the large Bron guard says. He doesn’t give us time to question or argue but merely turns, and we’re pushed to obey.
They take the group of us through the same dining room to the same door leading to the same quarters we stayed in days ago. I look around the hall, at the lanterns, at the red carpet and metal walls. It also looks exactly the same, except this time, Rasha and I are given my tiny room to share, and Myles and the Cashlin guards are crammed into the other two.