Vael’s voice became confused, lost. “My master instructed me to watch for a small girl, hair shorn short and dyed black, not . . . not a woman.” Vael groaned. “If the Black Heart discovers how I’ve failed him . . .”
It heartened Elena to know that the Dark Lord’s resources were not infallible. But this current ruse would only work this once. If Rockingham had lived after the assault aboard the Seaswift, the Gul’gothal lord would soon know of her transformation. Elena shook her head. She would worry about that later.
Setting aside the hammer, she slipped the silver wit’ch dagger from its sheath, cut into her thumb, and cast aside her worries. She had a friend to save.
Elena held her bleeding thumb over the wound at the back of Flint’s neck. A thick red droplet rolled off her finger and fell upon the snaking appendage of the monster. It writhed as if her blood scalded it. Satisfied, Elena’s lips grew tight. So the trace of magick in the droplet could harm it. Injured, the beast retreated inside Flint’s skull with a snap of its tentacle.
“Not so quick, my little pet,” she mumbled and called forth her magicks. She was confident now that she could slay the monster hidden in Flint. But could she do it without also killing their friend? Such a healing would require the deftest touch.
Leashing her magick to her will, tendrils of fire climbed from her wounded thumb and reached out toward Flint. “Careful,” she whispered to herself and her magick.
Closing her eyes slightly, she used her magick’s senses to explore the edges of torn skin. Where they touched, the rent tissues healed. Elena sensed the flow of blood slowing to a trickle. Cautiously, she sent the barest thread of fire deeper into the wound, hunting the lurker below.
Now she had to proceed on her magickal instinct alone. She sent her senses along the thread of fire, like a spider down a web after a hidden fly. Holding her breath, she closed her eyes fully and cut off any further distractions. Around her, even the soft sounds of whispers and the rustle of woolen garments faded. All she heeded were patterns of light and darkness. She entered a world of warm phosphorescence and knew it for Flint’s essence. She sensed that it usually shone stronger than it did right now, but the injuries and assault had worn away his brightness. Her own thread of magick was like a silvery red torch; she had to be careful that it did not overwhelm the glow around her. With too fierce a touch, she could burn away all that was her friend, leaving him an empty shell. This horrible thought helped her hone her penetration to the thinnest spark.
As she cast deeper into this strange world, her magick a beacon before her, she spotted her enemy ahead: a dark blemish upon Flint’s gentle radiance. The ul’jinn. It sat hunched, a tangle of blackness, like snarled roots in the luminescent soil. Rootlets and fine traceries of darkness were already spreading out from it.
At its foul sight, an angry fire was stoked in her heart. The darkness felt so wrong. It was more than just a threat to her friend; it was as if it tainted life itself. It sickened her just to see it. An urge to blast it away, burn it to ashes, trembled her control. Her torch of wit’ch fire flared brighter.
No!
She fought it back down. She would not let this hideous creature control her actions. Her flame died away to a sharp spark again as she delved toward the lurker. Now closer, she realized that not all the black roots ended at the edge of Flint’s spirit; two went beyond. She sensed power flowing strongly in these cords and cast her awareness nearer. Menace and disease throbbed out from them. Sickened, Elena lashed out and burned through them, severing both roots with a flash of wit’ch fire.
As she did so, she noted two things. In one root, she sensed a twisted mind linked through it and somehow knew it was Vael. Her hatred for him bloomed. The momentary brush with his spirit was so corrupt that even this brief touch made her want to scrub her skin raw. But this short peek into Vael’s mind was nothing compared to the impression she received as she severed the second root. It was as if she drowned in a sea of evil. It swept at her as she cut through the root, almost latching onto her own spirit. She railed against it, her magick flaring brighter.
Luckily, as quick as the assault came, it vanished—but not before she sensed the pair of baleful red eyes staring back at her, eyes carved of ruby. Eyes of the wyvern. Elena suddenly understood the statue’s presence on board the ship.
She reeled back from the cut cords, watching the roots shrivel away. Dread and panic gripped her, but she kept her magick reined in. Turning to the remaining mass of darkness, she quickly thrust out a net of fiery threads and enveloped the ul’jinn with her magick. In short order, she burned away all traces of the darkness, leaving Flint’s spirit unblemished. She lingered no further to appreciate her handiwork. A bigger battle loomed ahead before any of them could be considered free.
As she withdrew her magick, Elena’s awareness followed. She blinked her eyes open, taking a moment to orient herself to the real world. Once fully free of Flint’s spirit, she loosened her pent-up magick, and her fist blew forth with flames.
The others backed from her abrupt display.
Elena did not care. Pushing to her feet, she stalked to where Vael stood with Er’ril’s sword at his throat.
Tok spoke up behind her. “Is Flint . . . ? Is he going to live?”
“The ul’jinn is gone,” she answered, her voice cold with anger.
“What is it, Elena?” Er’ril asked. He knew her too well.
As answer, Elena grabbed Vael by the throat, her flaming fingers burning into his skin. He screamed as the smoke of his charred flesh scented the air. It would be a simple thing to burn through his scrawny neck, and for a moment, she even considered it.
Vael must have sensed her thoughts. “No!” he croaked.
“Why?” she hissed at him. “Why would you do it?”
He knew what she asked, terror clear in his eyes. She cared nothing for the tentacled ul’jinn and the slaves they made of these pirates. It was inconsequential compared to the larger menace hidden in the bowels of the ship. Vael tremored in her grip.
She lifted him by his throat, the magick giving her the strength of ten men. “Answer me!”
WITH HIS SWORD numb in his fist, Er’ril watched Elena shake the man like a dog with a rabbit, fury flaming her green eyes. Er’ril had never seen her so angry.
Elena leaned closer to her prisoner. “Why did you bring it here?”
Tears rained down Vael’s cheeks as smoke curled up from his neck. “The Dark Master’s servant . . . the one in the tower . . . the Praetor . . . he demanded it.”
Er’ril knew to whom he referred. He stepped closer. “My brother.”
Elena held up her free hand to silence him. She continued her interrogation of Vael. “Where were you taking it? To Port Rawl?”
Vael tried to nod as he hung in her flaming grip. “Yes, and from there inland by river barge.”
Er’ril could wait no longer. “Elena, what is it that you know?” He waved to where Joach and Tok stood guard by the door. “Speak plain. The other pirates aboard will soon grow wise to our escape.”
As answer, Elena tossed the thin man across the cabin. Vael struck the far wall and collapsed in a pile of jumbled limbs. He cowered as flames of wit’ch fire climbed up her arm in an angry blaze, but Elena ignored the man’s terror and turned to Er’ril. “The statue in the hold—it’s not just ebon’stone. While inside Flint’s mind, I sensed the statue’s link to the ul’jinn and caught an inkling of its true heart, the darker secret in the stone.” Elena began to tremble with fury.
Joach stepped closer toward his sister. “What is it, El?”
“The stone is a womb,” she answered. “Its belly brews an evil so foul that just the thinnest wisp of its spirit almost snuffed out my own.” Elena crossed and retrieved the Try’sil from the cabin’s floor. With the rune-carved hammer in hand, she faced Vael again. “Even if the hammer could crack the stone shell, I fear that what grows inside is already too strong for me to handle. If it should be unleashed now, it would
destroy us all.”
“But what manner of beast is it?” Joach asked, his voice dry with fear.
Elena shook her head and crouched down beside Vael, who still lay curled in a ball by the wall’s base. “But he knows.”
Vael tried to press farther into the wall.
Raising her ruby hand, Elena’s fingertips sprouted fresh flames, thin streamers of fire. Like outstretched claws, she threatened the man. “Tell us what lurks inside the ebon’stone statue.”
“I . . . I don’t know . . . truly. The Dark Lord’s servant bound my blood to its power so I could control the ul’jinn. I was to deliver the statue to Port Rawl, then inland to the mountains. I was told nothing else. I know nothing else.”
Elena drew back her magick, her anger waning with her growing exhaustion. Deep lines marked her tired face. “He speaks the truth,” she said forlornly.
“Not entirely,” Er’ril argued. “He leaves out more than he says.” Er’ril crouched beside the yellow-skinned foreigner. The man smelled of fear and dried blood. Er’ril used his sword tip to raise the man’s chin until he stared into the man’s odd violet eyes. “Where in the mountains were you to deliver this stone womb?”
Vael quivered under the point of the sword and under the intensity of their gazes. “A small town . . . near the highlands.”
“Name it.”
“Winterfell.”
Elena and Joach both gasped. Er’ril just stared, trying to fathom a reason for this choice of location. Why the town where Elena grew up? What did that matter?
Flint interrupted their shock with a rattling groan. Eyes swung in his direction. The old man rolled to his side, too weak to rise. Er’ril kept his sword on Vael as Joach crossed and helped the older man sit up. Flint’s eyes, bleary and red, searched the room. He seemed quickly to take in the scenario. One hand fluttered to the back of his head.
Joach spoke. “Fear not. Elena rid you of the beast.”
He groaned again. “Still it . . . it feels like my head’s been cleaved.”
Er’ril turned his attention back upon Vael. “The statue—what were you to do with it once you reached Winterfell?”
Vael shrank away. “Haul it to some old ruins and just leave it there. That’s all I know.”
Flint struggled straighter in Joach’s arms. “What is this statue?”
Joach explained the discovery of the ebon’stone sculpture and the Dark Lord’s plans for it. Flint’s face grew grimmer with the telling. Er’ril let the older Brother ponder the information, trusting to his friend’s keen mind.
“I must see it,” Flint finally said. He fussed against Joach’s assistance and pushed unsteadily to his feet. Once up, he faced Elena. “Can you clear a path to the hold?”
Elena slowly nodded.
Tok suddenly spoke up from near the ruined doorway. “Someone comes!” he hissed at them. He stepped to the hall for a brief moment, then darted back inside. A fierce clanging of a bell sounded from atop the ship. “They know you’ve escaped!”
“Elena?”
“You want a path?” Her eyes swung to Vael. “By his own admission, he is the hand that guides these men.” Before anyone could react, Elena raised her arm, and flames coursed out in a thick stream.
Er’ril ducked away, feeling the scorch as the wit’ch fire passed. Vael scrabbled along the wall, attempting to escape the flames. He failed.
The end of Elena’s stream of fire bloomed into a tangle of fiery filaments. They trapped Vael as surely as a spiderweb snags a fly. He screamed as he writhed in her web, clothes smoking, flesh burning.
Joach had joined Tok by the door. “There’s at least five men at the end of the passage,” he warned. “They’ve swords and torches. And more are coming. They must know we hide here.”
“Elena, what are you doing?” Er’ril asked.
“The man knows nothing more. I sense it with my magick,” she intoned, the words dull in her mouth. What she did next was done without passion. The flaming filaments snaked past Vael’s stretched lips, flowing inside him. “But he is bound to all the ul’jinn here.”
Elena thrust out her hand, clenched a fist, and twisted her wrist. Vael jerked as if his neck had been snapped, and his body went limp. “Cut off the head of a snake and the body will die,” Elena mumbled and lowered her hand. The fires vanished like a snuffed candle.
Er’ril crossed toward Vael. Smoke still curled from his body. The girl had killed him.
He turned in horror to Elena.
She merely stared at Er’ril for several breaths, then spoke. “You did not touch his mind. I did.” She turned away.
Joach reported from the doorway. “All the pirates just collapsed in the hall,” he said in astonishment.
Flint nodded. “Vael was the blood link. With his death, the ul’jinn die, too.”
Tok, who had again crept into the passage to investigate, danced back into the cabin. His face was flushed with panic. “The fallen torches and lanterns are starting a fire! Half the passage is already aflame!”
Er’ril straightened up from his crouch and hurried them toward the door. This was an old ship, its timbers ripe for the flame. A strong fire could burn the ship down to the waterline in mere moments.
Joach helped Flint, lending his shoulder for support.
Tok hung back, eying Vael’s body, then suddenly ran and kicked the man’s corpse, spitting on it. Tears streamed down the boy’s cheeks. “They were my family,” he yelled at the burned body.
Er’ril crossed and gathered the boy up under his arm. Tok latched onto him like a drowning sailor. They did not have time to waste on tears or comfort. Still, Er’ril sheathed his sword and pulled the lad up to his chest.
As he carried the boy toward the door, Er’ril caught Elena staring at him from the doorway. Her expression was one of sorrow and hopelessness. If he had had another arm, he would have gladly given it to her to lean on. But instead he could only softly urge, “We must hurry.”
She nodded. Her lost look hardened to steel again as she stared at the sobbing boy. She mumbled something as she moved to march alongside him.
Er’ril pretended not to hear the words, but he had. It was his own early words to her.
“. . . all of Alasea bleeds.”
ELENA CLIMBED WITH the others out of the smoke-choked passages onto the middeck. Behind them, flames already lapped skyward, lighting the early dawn with their own fire. Bodies lay strewn across the deck like scattered rag dolls, crumpled and forgotten. Even from the rigging, three men hung from tangled ropes after falling from where they had been working the sails.
As she watched, a lick of flame touched the foresail, and in a whispery rush, the fire raced up the sailcloth to the ropes and masts overhead. Hot ash rained down on them. Elena looked away as one of the bodies, hanging like a lantern far above, took flame.
To her side, Er’ril lowered Tok to the deck. “We must abandon the boat. Now,” the plainsman said. “The fire spreads wildly.”
As if accenting his words, an explosion belowdecks blew a flaming barrel of ignited oil up through the planks. It arced over the water in a blazing trail.
Ducking, Elena followed Er’ril aft. “What about the ebon’stone statue?” Elena asked. “We can’t just leave it here.”
Er’ril waved Flint and Joach to their side as he answered her. “Whatever evil it broods, the seas will claim it now. That is the best we can manage.”
Elena was unconvinced. Such evil would not so easily drown, even in a burning boat. With hammer in hand, she eyed the main hatch.
Er’ril must have read her thoughts. “No, Elena. Whatever its foul purpose in being hauled to Winterfell, we’ve at least stopped that part of the Dark Lord’s plan.”
Flint, ashen in complexion and still leaning on Joach, hobbled to them. He coughed the smoke and ash from his lungs before speaking. “Trouble,” he said between gasps. “There is no way off this ship, except over the rail.”
Er’ril scowled and glanced through
the smoke to the neighboring seas. Elena searched, too. They were far from the coastline and even farther from any of the Archipelago’s islands.
Flint pointed toward the distant coast. “There. See those lights?”
Elena squinted. “Where—?” she began to say, then spotted the scatter of lamps lighting the rocky shore just north of their position.
“It’s Port Rawl,” Flint explained, stopping to cough on a gust of smoke. “The currents here are strong, but with flotsam from the ship, we might be able to kick toward shore and make it overland to the city.”
Er’ril glanced at the others. Elena knew he weighed their strength against the cold and currents of the surrounding waters. He frowned at the exhaustion he found in all their faces, but it mirrored his own.
Flint persisted. “We may not even have to swim all the way to shore. This close to Port Rawl, our fire will surely be spotted. Scavenging ships will be sent out.”
“More pirates?” Joach asked.
Flint shrugged and fingered the healing wound on his neck. “As long as they’re just pirates, I’ll kiss their salty feet.”
Suddenly, the mainsail blew aflame, brightening the smoky gloom. Elena even felt the heat through her boots as the fires hidden below began to cook the planks.
“We don’t have much time,” Flint said needlessly.
“Stay here,” Er’ril ordered them all. Covering his nose and mouth with a scrap of sailcloth, he dashed across the smoky deck. Flint and Tok took up position by the rail.
Joach sidled next to her. She took his offered hand in her own, a touch of family. “Always flames,” he mumbled.
“Hmm?”
He smiled weakly at her. “Whenever we get together, we’re always chased by fires.”
She returned a tired grin, knowing he referred to the orchard blaze that had first driven them from their homes. Her brother was right. It seemed flames always marked her path.
Er’ril suddenly appeared out of the smoke, coughing, a small wooden door clutched under his one arm. “We can use this to keep afloat,” he said as he leaned the door against the rail and turned away. “I’m going to fetch something more. I spotted a broken table in the galley.”