“The mast!” Quinn roars, racing toward me. “Nile, stop! Some of the rigging here, it’s… Storms, it was decorative. Can’t bear the strain.”
Decorative. The word echoes in my head while another line breaks with a crack and another sail flails. My eyes widen, Quinn’s meaning finally penetrating. Snaps of hemp and timber echo like pistol shots through the deck. A rogue stretch of torn rope whips about, striking a man in the rigging. He hollers as his body is tossed into the dark sea. The deadly rope continues its sway, like a venomous snake striking at prey.
A man. I’ve just killed a man.
Storms. A panic washes over me, and I clamp down on my magic.
Except the magic is having none of it, hollering in fury and freedom, the wind as strong as ever. Stronger. Unlike anything I’ve felt before. The foremast bends beneath the strain, arching like the bow that it is not.
Stop, I demand of the magic, bracing my lungs for the ripping pain that will surely come. The pain does come, but the magic stays free. The sail inside me that I use to direct the wind strains as hard as the Stardust’s rigging. I try to slow the storm again, imagining myself a sail, a rope, a mighty giant taming a beast. Anything I can think of. My heart pounds, my breaths coming quick and sharp. My body shudders as I use every bit of willpower to haul a dam into place.
Another snap. This one more felt than heard. For a horrific moment, I think a mainsail slit along its seams, but it isn’t. It’s worse. That snap was inside me, the sound of my own magic breaking free of its leash.
I fall to the deck, gasping for breaths that feels like inhaling from a whirlwind. With no more need to heed my will, my magic summons its element with unchecked force and greater chaos. Terror races through my veins. The magic won’t stop. The wind won’t stop. The ship spins, gaining momentum with each rotation. The foremast cracks and falls into the sea, the sail dragging along the water.
I’m not just going to destroy the ship, I’m going to capsize us and kill every soul aboard. Just like I killed the man trying to rein in the sail.
“Nile.” Catsper’s face rises before me. My memory stirs as he grips my gaze. “I’ve a promise to keep,” the marine says quietly. “I’m sorry.”
With the speed of an adder, Catsper’s elbow connects with my temple, and the world dims.
Chapter 30
Nile
I wake to a kick in the ribs. The night’s darkness has given way to a waking dawn, and the infant rays of sunlight brush my eyes as I blink. I’m lying against the base of the mainmast. The coppery smell of blood fills my nose, and my left temple screams with each heartbeat. Teams of blond men and women are moving across the ruins of Stardust’s once-pristine deck, stepping over broken rigging and shards of wood, trudging over the mess I made of the ship when I lost control.
Me. Me and my magic.
I destroyed us.
The Bevnians sweeping over our deck look like sculpted ghosts, their muscles shifting beneath billowing shirts. Their skin is nearly as light as their hair and utterly smooth except for an occasional scar. No tan. No freckles. Not even a birthmark. The women are all taller than me, and even the smallest of the men rivals Domenic’s size. Beside the smaller, darker-skinned Diante, the Bevnians look like a different species altogether. Predators.
The boot that just kicked me now nudges the bruise. “Live one,” a male voice calls in Tirik.
I grunt and shy away from the pain.
“That one? She doesn’t look promising,” a Bevnian woman calls back. She has a crooked nose and holds a journal in her hand, making notes as she surveys everything. I decide to call her Clerk. “Hold fast until I check, Andres. It’s easier to cull them now than later.”
The man beside me, Andres, growls but stays where he is. Clerk strides over to the water-caller girl whom Kyra had befriended. The water caller is bleeding badly from small wounds and screams in terror. Clerk makes a note in her journal, picks up the wounded girl, and tosses her unceremoniously into the rolling sea. A Diante steward with a crushed leg, mercifully unconscious, is thrown overboard a moment later.
My chest clenches. My body is fully awake now, and fully terrified. On the foc’sle, those prisoners deemed healthy enough to be useful are being bound and organized into kneeling rows. Domenic is there, chin high and proud despite his painfully bound arms. Catsper and Kyra are there too, the latter shaking as fiercely as Catsper holds still. After a moment, I spot a tense Quinn and wide-eyed Vikon as well. Alive, alert, healthy enough to be holding themselves upright. The dizzying relief washing over me dissolves with the next heartbeat. Bound. Prisoners. My fault. A tingling sort of numbness grips my throat, my features settling into a mask of nothing.
Clerk’s boots are moving again, stopping beside a young man I’d last seen using air currents to juggle colorful balls. Now he stands on his knees, praying to gods that never bothered to protect him from me.
“Magic?” Clerk demands of the boy in accented Diante.
“That one’s mine,” Andres calls, his voice dripping with impatience. “Check the girl if you must, and let’s get moving.”
Clerk kicks the boy’s thigh. “Magic?”
“Air,” the youth whispers. “Is that good or bad?”
“Prove it.”
The youth swallows, and a small wind prances through the deck.
Clerk glared at Andres. “You trying to pull one over Lester?”
“My ship needs wind to move. Lester would be little pleased if we lagged behind.”
“Make do with what you are given, or Lester will find another who can.” Clerk sticks her broken nose into her journal and scribbles something before calling to another Bevnian to take the Diante air caller away. “Where is that girl, Andres?”
I push myself up onto my hands and knees, feigning health and strength I don’t have. Weakness will get me thrown overboard. Andres nods approvingly at my newfound consciousness, and the two Bevnians circle me as if examining a new piece of rigging.
“Fully intact?” Clerk asks Andres.
Andres kicks my thigh with the toe of his boot. “Get up,” he orders, repeating the command first in Diante, then Lyron.
I quickly force myself to my feet. The deck sways beneath me, but I bend my knees and ride the dizziness well enough to hide it. In the dawn-lit morning, mockingly calm with lapping waves crowned with white foam, I see three frigates holding position beside the dying Stardust. One of them used to be the Diante’s Crest, though now it flies Tirik colors. Small islands of fire in the distance remain as the only tribute to the sunk Wave. I swallow. At least the Helix’s hull is not amid the captured ships.
Clerk and Andres finish their inspection with coordinated grunts. “Good enough,” Clerk declares, and raises her pen over her journal. Her pale eyes flash to me. Pink with specks of black. “Magic?”
I lick my lips. The tingling inside me where my magic used to simmer is now nothing but terror. The mere thought of wind calling makes bile rise up my throat, and I must swallow before I can whisper the answer. “None.”
A rope pulls my hands tightly behind my back, and I’m forced to my knees beside the others on deck. A pair of Bevnians with knives move through the lines of prisoners, cutting away clothing until we are all in our small clothes and shivering. Cold air nips my bare skin as my own coat and shirt are stripped away. A moment later, my hair falls victim to a Bevnian blade, which snips my long locks at the base of my skull.
The sun moves two hours across the horizon before the Bevnians finish their sorting. Those too weak, too injured or too young are tossed overboard to drown. Those identified as Gifted are rowed out to the Crest. The rest of us—including Kyra, who decided against confession—are left as we are. Shivering, kneeling, bound, naked. Soft whimpers and sobs sound around to my left and right. I’m too far from my friends to communicate, provided any of them still wish to speak with me. That thought alone should crush me, but instead, I feel as empty as the emotionless mask I wear. Hollow. As if I watch all thi
s from afar. Even the sight of Admiral Addus, captured but alive, fails to rouse warmth.
My muscles are cramping by the time a Bevnian man in his fifties strides onto the raised poop deck and looks down at the lot of us. Two younger warriors, a man and a woman, flank the older man. All three move with an aura of power, though the two younger ones stay a step behind their leader. The pair’s arms are bare to the shoulder, black tattoos winding up snowy forearms and biceps in a pattern identical to that on the wide leather bands encircling their wrists.
There is something odd about the pair, something that turns my stomach and makes me vomit onto the deck. The horrid smell joins dozens of similar ones, ranging from blood to piss.
The older man flicks his hand at his younger companions. “Clean them up. No need to bring their vermin with us.”
Both warriors turn to the sea, which rises in an obedient stream and hurtles at us full force. A wind and a water caller. Powerful ones. Questions echo in my head, trying and failing to stir my curiosity. How has a water caller survived this long if he keeps pace with the others? How in the name of all storms did he consent to tattoos? I can’t bring myself to truly care for the answer. Not now. And certainly not when a hard freezing spray scatters my thoughts and I gag as water pours over my unprotected face. The cleansing continues for a full minute before a cold wind takes its place, and my whole body shakes like a foal’s.
On the poop deck above, the older man raises his hand for attention. His thin hair is slicked away from his square face and his intense, slightly bulging eyes spawn crow’s feet at their corners. “My name is Lester,” he declares in a deep, booming voice that appears to come from all directions at once. A voice amplified by the wind. Just as the too-quickly spreading fire had been. “I am an admiral of the New Republic of Tirik navy. Which, as my Lyron friends can tell you, is, and will remain, undefeated.”
I draw a sharp breath, finally staring at the face of the something that changed four months ago, when the beaten-down Tirik ships suddenly started sinking ours. The Tirik had allied with the Bevnians, and the Bevnians brought magic to the fight.
“Who is in command here?” Lester asks.
Admiral Addus rises to his feet, a difficult process for an older man with a limp and bound hands. Holding his half-naked body as if he were clad dressed in full admiralty regalia, Addus strides forward and bows to our captor. “You are in charge, sir,” the admiral says in much better Tirik than the Bevnian’s poor attempt at Diante. “But the people kneeling before you are mine. If you have instructions for them, I would be honored to convey them on your behalf.”
My chest squeezes.
Lester beckons the admiral to ascend the poop deck. Though of an age, Lester is in better physical condition, his muscles as corded as any seaman’s. Once the admiral stands beside him, Lester examines the man. Bare to his soaking small clothes and a bit saggy, Admiral Addus still manages to look the dignified leader, and the kneeling Diantes’ chins rise proudly.
Lester nods to Clerk, standing behind Admiral Addus.
The woman steps forward calmly. The next moment, a knife flashes, and Admiral Addus’s body crumples to the deck, blood burbling from his slit throat.
The screaming starts a heartbeat later as the prisoners realize what’s happened. I am too hollow and empty to find my voice. I hear the unmistakable crack of a whip, and the screams of horror turn to howls of pain, our captors restoring quiet with brutal efficiency.
Lester wipes his hands on the thigh of his britches to clean off Admiral Addus’s blood. He smiles. “As I’ve said, my name is Lester. You lot should think of me as God. It will help you get on.” He pauses, surveys us, and nods to Clerk, who descends with a bucket and brush to paint numbers on our backs. Lester smiles again and continues. “Some of you might believe you are prisoners. Let me snuff that rumor at once. You are not prisoners. You are slaves to a race that transcends yours. A race that is stronger and smarter, bigger and healthier, able to harness the magic that cripples your sad bodies. A chosen people. A race that now ascends to claim its rule above you. How comfortable your transition to your new world will be is entirely in your hands. The rules are simple: Do as you are told, speak only in Tirik—and never without permission. Now then”—he claps his hands—“who here knows how to cook?”
Silence reigns.
Lester sighs. “I little care whether the lot of you eat or starve. If you wish to eat tomorrow, however, someone better start volunteering his neighbor’s skills.”
Storms. After an eternity of silence, three men stand and bow. They are shaking, unable to even keep their heads lifted for the terror.
Lester nods to them. “Very good. I was worried about your hearing.” He snaps his fingers, and two of his warriors appear before him. “Take them to the galley,” he orders in Tirik before translating the order for the Diantes’ benefit. As the three cooks start to shuffle after the Bevnian soldiers, Lester raises his voice once again. “Don’t forget your meat. You need ingredients, do you not?”
With a dawning horror, I and everyone else finally realize what the man means, as his warrior directs the cooks to pick up Admiral Addus’s body and take it below. I look away, clinging to my memory of Admiral Addus’s kind eyes and wise, fatherly words. Admiral Addus, who was alive and proud just moments ago. A yawning chasm of darkness stretches so wide inside me that one more shove and I fear I will fall into it forever.
Lester turns to his own people. “Get the livestock transported to your ships, gentlemen. I want us sailing out before dusk. The same goes for supplies as well. We will be sinking this piece of rubbish.”
Chapter 31
Nile
Domenic’s eyes are on me, piercing my skin from the other side of the deck. I can feel them burning into my bare shoulders but cannot summon the strength to return the gaze. Could we have outrun the Bevnians if I hadn’t destroyed the Stardust’s rigging? Would this captivity be easier for Domenic and the others to bear if they’d done all they could to save the ship, instead of my having ripped the choice from them? Is their agony my fault?
A set of burnt-orange slop trousers and shirt—likely from the captured ships’ uniform stores—hits me in the face. My arms are released long enough to dress, then bound again. Rough hands shove me like a sack of grain into a boat, making my shins scream at the impact, but the pain is distant, as if it’s happening to someone else.
I can’t bear to twist back, to face Domenic, to see the empty space where Kyra had knelt before the Bevnians rowed her away. I’d asked for her to help with the Diante, and this is where following me has gotten her. My own magic is quiet for once, as if the wild run had burned it from my veins. My stomach turns at the memory, and I twist in time to vomit over the side of the boat.
Straightening up, I find us already moving and hold my breath to see which of two ships accepting prisoners I’m headed to, the Lester’s newly taken Crest or Andres’s much smaller Arrow, which had dispatched the suicide boat to the Wave. Thus far, all the identified Gifted have gone to Lester, as had Quinn, while Andres unhappily receives the boatloads of the remaining souls. Domenic is still aboard the Stardust, but Catsper and Kyra were taken to the Arrow hours ago, and I release my breath as my boat turns in the same direction.
Around me, the weeping wails of the Diante civilians are overwhelming. It’s all I can do to keep from whimpering myself. I’ve never been captured before. Even on the Aurora, where I was mishandled like any common seaman, the choice had been mine—the choice to be at sea, the choice to keep my identity hidden, the choice to fight.
There is no choice now. I don’t get to decide where I’m going, what I get to see, when I am permitted to relieve myself.
The boat comes to a halt with the familiar command of “Oars,” and I cling to that branch of stability. Whoever these people are, whatever their relationship with magic, they are still only human. And fallible. Somehow.
The Arrow is small for a frigate, about one hundred thirty feet long
and just over thirty feet wide. Snow-white Bevnians in sleeveless shirts reign over crews of… I stop and stare until one of the Bevnians shoves me along The hollow-eyed crewmen are Tirik. The Bevnians’ supposed allies. These specific Tirik, dressed in the same burnt-orange uniforms that cover me and the Diante prisoners, are anything but the Bevnians’ equals, though. These Tirik, men and women alike who move like landsmen, not trained sailors, regard our procession with a mix of hate and pity. Convicts, perhaps? Undesirables made to toil for their betters?
Andres watches us as well, his jaw tight.
“Another batch of landsmen? What in the gods’ wrath am I to do with these runts, sir?” A man who I presume is Captain Andres’s first officer growls as we pass.
“Break them to bridle, and they’ll work well enough.” Andres presses his lips together. “Admiral Lester generously gave us twenty-five percent beyond our allotment to compensate for the likely attrition. Make do, Saarik.”
I strain to hear the rest of the conversation, but the guards order us to descend down the hatch, and my attention shifts to navigating the ladder with my hands bound. I’m finally shoved into a hold, a thin viewport near the overhead providing the only light. The smell is thick, some from the airless nature of the hold, some the unmistakable stench of lost urine and over a dozen ripe bodies. Damn. I count to thirty after the door locks in place before speaking up. “Hello?” I say in Diante. “Who is here?”
No response.
“Someone answer.” My words take on a note of command and, for good measure, I repeat them in Tirik and Lyron. “Answer me. Someone. Who are you?”