Ferran's Map

  Sora shifted her weight uncomfortably.

  “I’m going to remove the stone,” Caprion interrupted. Not waiting for Crash’s objection, he reached down and gripped the stone firmly with his fingers. With a ripping sound, he pried the stone from the woman’s flesh. The woman groaned—perhaps it was meant as a scream, but her throat was too raw.

  “Tie her hands,” Caprion said.

  Crash took a length of rope from one of the barrels and quickly bound the woman’s hands behind her back. Sora watched. The woman didn’t look capable of fighting back, but perhaps it was an act. With the Sixth Race, it was hard to tell.

  Once he secured their prisoner, Crash returned to Sora’s side. They watched Caprion pull the woman up into a sitting position. He gripped her firmly by the shoulders and shook her slightly. Her head lolled, but Sora saw her eyelids flicker. She was conscious.

  Light shimmered around Caprion’s body. Sora saw the ghosts of wings protruding from his back. His magic vibrated through the room, causing her skin to prickle. She noticed Crash draw in a slow breath as his hands tightened into fists. She knew this couldn’t be comfortable for him.

  When Caprion spoke, his voice reverberated with power. “Your name,” he prompted the woman.

  Sora felt her own throat tighten in reply. She touched her necklace. With a slight jingle of bells, she felt the Cat’s Eye respond. Green light encased her skin, shielding her from the Harpy’s magic.

  Caprion shook the woman again. “Tell me your name,” he commanded.

  The woman stiffened in his arms. When she opened her eyes, Sora saw primal terror on her face, more fear than she could fully comprehend. “I have no name,” the woman whispered.

  Crash folded his arms.

  “What do they call you?” Caprion rephrased the question.

  “Krait,” she whispered hoarsely.

  “Are you a member of the Shade?” Caprion asked.

  “Yes,” Krait replied flatly.

  “Who is your master? Who is the leader of the Shade?”

  The woman’s jaw clamped shut in resistance. Caprion moved his right hand to gently clasp her throat. Sora cringed. Considering the woman’s burn marks, his grip must be painful.

  “Tell me,” Caprion repeated, his voice calm and assertive.

  “My master—my Grandmaster,” the woman choked. A trickle of blood fell from her lips. “He saved me.”

  Sora felt mildly impressed. The assassin’s loyalty was so strong, she would not give up the name of their leader, even under Caprion’s thrall. She glanced at Crash, but his face was cold and withdrawn. He stared at the woman without pity.

  “Does your master have The Book of the Named?” Caprion asked.

  Krait shuddered. “Yes.”

  “Why is he in The City of Crowns? Why does he want the sacred weapons?”

  Krait didn’t respond. Caprion’s grip tightened slightly.

  “I don’t know,” she murmured.

  “Tell me,” Caprion intoned.

  “I don’t know!” Suddenly the assassin's composure broke and a hoarse sob issued from her throat. Her expression changed. Sora saw vicious hatred twist her features. “I’ll kill you!” The woman shouted, writhing violently, trying to slip free of her bonds. “I’ll cut off your wings, you bastard Harpy! I’ll gouge out your eyes! I’ll rip out your throat—agh!”

  Caprion pushed her back to the ground and stood over her. His wings brightened until Sora was forced to look away.

  “Stop,” Crash said softly.

  Caprion’s light dimmed marginally.

  “I want to know—is she of the Hive?”

  Caprion repeated the question. The woman growled, biting back her words. “Harpies took me from the Hive,” she choked.

  Crash’s expression turned thoughtful. “After you won your Name?”

  Krait’s head whipped back and forth. “My master gave me my Name.”

  Crash raised an eyebrow and took a step closer to the woman, staring down at her. “You’re an impostor,” he said quietly. “You never earned your Name.”

  “No!” she moaned. “No, you lie!”

  Crash smirked. Sora didn’t expect such an expression from him. “Pathetic,” he murmured.

  Sora grew cold watching him. This was not Crash; this was Viper. She could see it in his eyes.

  “Why does your master want Sora?” Crash asked.

  Caprion repeated the question. Krait shuddered and convulsed, then spat, “I don’t know. Agh!” Her body stiffened, her face contorting with pain. Blood flecked her lips.

  “The more you resist, the more you will hurt yourself,” Caprion said softly.

  “I don’t care! I’ll die before telling you—agh!” The woman convulsed again. Then she spat out, “He has the third wraith. He wants to claim the last sacred weapon.”

  Tension ran throughout the room. Crash and Sora shared an alarmed look. Caprion appeared puzzled. “What’s a wraith?” he asked, glancing at Crash.

  “We’ll explain later,” he said. “Ask her where her master hides.”

  Caprion did so. Krait twisted on the ground, but the Harpy’s compulsion was too strong. “In the city. I don’t know where—agh!” she gasped.

  “Answer me,” Caprion asserted.

  The growl that came from her throat contained two words: “The Regency!”

  Sora’s eyes widened.

  “What?” Caprion asked. “What did you say?”

  “The Regency,” Sora replied. All noble-born people knew of this private district in the City of Crowns where the upper tiers lived. Many country nobles kept townhouses there. Sora's father had stayed with friends in The Regency before his death. But why would the leader of the Shade live there among the highest tiers? Was Burn there now?

  “Ask her about Burn!” Sora called. “He went through a shadow portal after Cobra. Where did he go?”

  Caprion began to ask, but the woman cut him off. A grotesque, choking laugh issued from her throat. “I don’t know. Anywhere. He’s probably dead.”

  “No!” Sora burst out. She rushed forward, but Crash caught her arm and held her back. “No! Where is he, you liar!”

  The woman laughed again. “Cobra killed him,” she leered. “Your friend is dead. His neck was slit, his eyes plucked out, his teeth pulled from his head—”

  “Don’t listen,” Crash said, and dragged Sora back against him. He wrapped her in a tight embrace, holding her steady. “She’s lying. She can’t know that. She’s trying to provoke you.”

  Krait turned back to Caprion. “Kill me now, Harpy. Finish it. I’ll happily die in service to my master.”

  Caprion stared at the woman with a look of repulsion. “What’s become of you?” he asked softly.

  Bound by the Harpy’s voice, the woman answered readily, “I was reborn! By my master’s will, my eyes were returned to me. I am a hand of the Dark God and will serve my master without fail!”

  Caprion released the woman and turned to them suddenly. “Both of you should leave now,” he said.

  Sora asked. “Why? What do you intend to do to her?”

  “Nothing dire, I assure you.” He gave Crash a solemn stare. “Leave. We will discuss everything tonight with Silas and his crew.”

  Crash nodded. He took Sora firmly by her good arm and dragged her up the narrow stairs to the deck. Sora tried to pull away, glaring over her shoulder with hatred in her eyes. “If she wants to die so badly, you should let her!” she snarled. The thought of Burn’s likely death filled her with helpless fury. “She deserves it!”

  “Where’s your moral high ground, Sora?” Crash asked in dark amusement. “Perhaps you should recover it.”

  “Those bastards killed Burn! How can you be so calm?”

  Crash opened the latch to the upper deck and lifted her through it. “I’m not calm,” he said.

  “Yes, you are!” she fumed. She winced as he accidentally jarred her injured shoulder. He released her and they faced each other in the galley. Afterno
on light filtered through a small porthole window at her back. Rain spattered against the deck above, thrumming hard and steady.

  Sora planted her feet firmly on the galley floor. “We need to go back and question that woman until her throat is too bloody to speak!”

  “Punishing her won’t save Burn,” Crash snapped. “Listen to reason. She wants us to kill her. Then she won’t be forced to betray the Shade. Don’t you see? It’s a trick.”

  Sora glared at him. She felt trapped and helpless. They needed to save Burn, but she had no idea where to start.

  She spun angrily on her heel and headed out the galley, through the mess hall and onto the outer deck. Rain fell hard against the wooden planks. A scant handful of sailors loafed about on the rigging, cloaked and hooded against the storm.

  Sora dashed through the rain back to her cabin. Shadows engulfed her as she went below deck. Thoughts of Burn’s tortured body kept rising in her mind. She had seen so much violence since leaving her manor, she could easily imagine what the Shade might do to him. And the best she and Crash could do was sit around and ask questions? She wanted to strangle someone.

  * * *

  Caprion knelt above the female assassin. She glared up at him viciously, blood leaking from the corners of her mouth. He knew that mouth, just as he knew her jawline, nose and ears. But her eyes were different, filled with malice, not as he remembered.

  “You know me,” he said softly.

  She spat at him. “I know you’re a sick winged bastard!” she growled.

  “Do you remember the city of Asterion?” he murmured. “The Lost Isles?”

  She writhed against her bonds. “Cut me loose and I’ll show you what I remember!”

  Caprion gazed at her impassively. She was helpless in this state, knew it and obviously hated it.

  “Tell me,” he murmured, resonating his voice. In his younger days, he would have abhorred the use of voice-magic to manipulate someone’s mind and had refrained from using it. But he was not so idealistic any more, and she was nothing like the fragile girl of his memories.

  Krait’s eyes rolled back in her head. Her body convulsed, resisting him, but he placed his hand over her chest. “Tell me what you remember,” he pressed.

  Her jaw worked. Her eyes fluttered. “They took me,” she rasped. “They stole me from the Hive. The light!” A hoarse wail issued from her throat, a scream from long ago. “They held me in their prisons…they took my demon…agh!” She cried out again and thrashed her head from side to side. “Their voices! Stop the voices!”

  Caprion placed his hand on her forehead, trying to calm her. Krait’s eyes fluttered back and forth, trapped by some unseen torment. “What else?” he asked slowly.

  Her eyes focused on his face momentarily. He thought he saw some flicker of emotion other than fear…but it vanished. “No!” she cried. “No—what they did to me—I can’t! I won’t remember!” She clamped her jaw shut, grinding her teeth together. Her eyes rolled up toward the ceiling.

  Caprion sat back on his heels, suddenly filled with doubt. He didn’t know for sure, but he thought, maybe, she seemed familiar. He knew a young girl once, one of the Sixth Race. But she was long dead.

  This woman, too, had obviously been held in the Harpy prisons on the Lost Isles. Her memory was badly damaged, perhaps stripped from her the same day they stole her demon. He found it surprising that she had survived the experience. Most of the Sixth Race did not. She must have pieced together fragments of nightmares from her time on the island.

  He felt an old, familiar sickness when he thought of what his race had done. The farther he traveled from the Lost Isles, the more pronounced that sickness became. The Harpies were no better in their cruelty to the Unnamed than the humans were to their treatment of livestock. In fact, the sheer brutality of The City of Crowns astounded him. The incivility of it all, how men preyed upon men. But his race had no higher sense of morality. No greater claim to mete out justice.

  He placed both hands on either side of her head. She twisted away, but he pinned her down with his knee on her stomach. He tried to be gentle, but her resistance made it difficult.

  He had to know.

  “Think back,” he said, his voice swelling with the force of his magic. “I want you to remember all of it.”

  She coughed, her body shuddering. Her eyes squeezed shut. “The light…” she moaned. “Please…no more….”

  “Remember me,” he intoned.

  She gasped brokenly. “I don’t,” she whispered. “Please, I don’t know you.”

  She weakened. He felt the strength drain from her body. She fell back on the floor, unconscious.

  Caprion released her and sat next to her body. He rested his hand on her stomach, a natural touch, feeling her chest rise and fall with each shallow breath. Most of her memories had been stripped away by someone stronger than he. But despite whoever had blocked her memories, their command still lived inside Krait’s body, even after so many years. Who knew how else the Shade had tampered with her mind? She didn’t seem at all like the girl he once knew, causing him to doubt her identity, even as he recognized her face.

  This is folly, he thought. Perhaps he was the one who didn’t remember. Perhaps he was so desperate to see her again that he imagined this woman looked like her….

  He couldn’t reverse the damage. Her mind had been stripped by magic, twisted and warped in ways he couldn’t imagine. No matter who she once was, he couldn’t bring her back.

  Now what? he thought. She was his prisoner, and for the time being, he would have to keep her in the cold, dank underbelly of the ship. How else could he restrain her? He would do his best to provide small comforts. Meals. Blankets. At least she wouldn’t be kept here as badly as in the Harpy dungeons. He wouldn’t repeat the evils of his own kind.

  That left a cold pit of guilt in his stomach. Moss, he thought. He remembered her well, the young girl he had met in the dungeons of the Lost Isles, meant as practice fodder for the Harpy soldiers. He remembered her face in the dark when they chose her name. He remembered defending her against his race.

  And he remembered the Matriarch’s words when Moss died. He remembered his own brother Sumas, who had finished the deed.

  But had the Matriarch deceived him?

  Would this woman remember that name?

  Perhaps he was a blind fool, seeing a connection that didn’t exist. Krait didn’t bear Moss’s scars. Her face was clean and clear, her eyes full of vision, though perhaps her story was true, and her Grandmaster had somehow repaired her eyes.

  Or perhaps he was simply trapped by his past, clinging to the dream of a now-impossible future. She’s a demon, the Matriarch’s words still rang in his mind. We put her down. You caused this. You overstepped your bounds.

  The guilt choked him as he stood up. He turned from her prone body and headed for the stairs. Whoever she was—Moss or Krait, or someone yet unnamed—he would not abandon her again.

  CHAPTER 14

  Lori roused slowly from a deep, exhausted sleep, awakened by her own discomfort. She didn’t know how much time had passed, only that it was still night outside and torrents of rain were lashing the window. The ship’s stove burned low and a single, small lantern lit the cabin.

  She lay on her stomach on the cot, listening to the rhythm of raindrops against the wooden shingles above her. Her wound throbbed stubbornly, barely manageable. She shifted and winced. Her body felt limp and drained, unimaginably heavy.

  “Ferran,” she muttered, her throat hoarse. She dimly remembered her bout of screaming before she passed out. “Ferran.”

  A body stirred on the floor next to her. Ferran sat up and ran a hand through his mussed hair, dimly illuminated by the light from the stove.

  “Ferran,” Lori repeated.

  “What?”

  “Water.”

  The treasure hunter climbed stiffly to his feet, stretching as much as he could in the cramped space. He stepped outside and brought back a heavy wooden ju
g. It sloshed visibly, splashing a little on the floor. Fresh rain water. Lori licked her dry lips eagerly at the sight.

  “Here,” Ferran said softly, and put a hand under her, gently helping her to sit up. Lori moved in small, painful increments. With each shift of her limbs or turn of her head, pain flared down her back. She held the quilt tightly against her bare torso, clamping it under her arms like a towel to retain some decency. She couldn’t stand to lean back and allow her wound to touch the wall. The burn was covered by a light, airy bandage, giving it space to breathe. She could feel a sticky salve on her blistering skin. Not bad, she thought. Ferran had obviously tended several stab wounds over the course of his life. Not hard to imagine, given his questionable activities during the last eighteen years.

  He sat next to her and held the heavy jug up to her lips, allowing her to drink freely. Every breath, every slight shift of her shoulders, pulled against her back muscles. She winced. First thing in the morning, she would send Ferran to retrieve poppy extract from her sickroom to take the edge off the pain.

  “How do you feel?” Ferran asked, once she had finished drinking. He lowered the water jug to the floor, lifted the bottle of whiskey and took a swig from it. The smell assaulted Lori’s nose, reminding her of the entire ordeal. She cringed inwardly.

  “Well?” he prompted.

  “Exhausted,” she admitted.

  “And the wound?”

  She grimaced at him. “Painful.”

  He gave her a rather charming look, then held up the bottle, shaking it slightly like a coin purse. “Best cure I know,” he said. “Relaxes muscles, too.”

  Lori considered it. She didn’t like to drink. But the muscles of her back felt tight enough to snap. She doubted she could fall asleep again like this. Finally she reached for the bottle and gave him an exasperated look, then plugged her nose and took several deep swallows, forcing herself to keep it down. The liquid burned at the base of her throat, then settled into her belly, spreading a warm glow throughout the core of her body. On an empty stomach, the drink immediately went to her head, and she felt her shoulders slump, her back ease immediately. After the first two sips, the taste became less overpowering, and she kept drinking until Ferran pulled the bottle away.