Chapter 16

CHAPTER 16

Every hue of gold rose in stripes along the hilly horizon. The glittering turquoise water of the Settara deepened to an emerald green as they sailed into the middle of the enormous salt lake. A peak here, a memorized jagged edge there. By the time the sun began to set, the water reflected the red and orange rays, colors glittering upon the surface and stealing Vaasa’s breath.

Reid spent the day in the oarsbank with the soldiers, just like Kosana and Marc, drenched in sweat as they rowed. Located just below the main deck, Vaasa had avoided that part of the ship, opting to stay upon the upper deck above the captain’s quarters.

Vaasa asked Esoti and Mathjin if she should go down there and join, and Mathjin shook his head. “Look,” he said with an exhausted wipe of his squeezed-shut eyes. “Travel is boring. There is often nothing to do; that doesn’t make you lazy.”

Nodding slowly, she looked out upon the water once more and scanned the edges of the shoreline. They’d moved closer, opting for calmer waters. It shocked Vaasa how deep this part of the lake appeared, even this close to shore. Here, orange rock jutted into the sky and out into the lake, with plateaus dotting the towering cliffside. It was different from the soft hills she’d grown used to back in Mireh.

Isabel was entrenched in a heated game of poker with Melisina, Romana, Suma, and Mariana in the cool passenger quarters, while Amalie had stayed glued to Vaasa’s side. The setting sun drenched them all in rays of golden light so bright she had to put her hand above her eyes to make it tolerable.

Onshore, movement caught her eye, and she leaned forward on the bench. Squinting, her vision bobbed up and down. There was nothing. Had she imagined it?

Her magic coiled and sprang, leaking down her arms, like it knew something she didn’t. As if her intuition was blaring a warning.

Amalie sat up.

Panic started to rise.

“Draw your weapons,” Vaasa cried, right as she unsheathed the dagger at her waist.

Voices burst from below.

Mathjin leapt up, his little leather satchel falling from his lap and slapping against the deck. Esoti was already on her feet and standing directly next to Vaasa, gleaming daggers in each hand.

Esoti spun.

“Down!” she screamed as she leapt for Vaasa, the two slamming onto the ship’s deck as something whizzed past her ear.

There, jagged point piercing the wooden deck, was an arrow.

Vaasa whipped her head up. Studding the plateaus were soldiers, bows drawn and aimed.

Mathjin crawled to cover her as a shower of sharp, gleaming arrows began to fall like rain.

Instinct slammed through Vaasa’s veins and coated her bones, black mist pouring from her hands. She crawled to the side of the deck with Esoti, Amalie ducking with them, arrows skittering across the deck.

To her left, the magic hissed as it moved, hovering over the upper deck like fog. Her heart beat wildly. The ship rocked and she was tossed with the force, slamming into the side of the deck with a grunt.

Arrows began to fly from their own ship, bodies falling from the plateaus and slapping against the water.

Still, the ship cut through the sun’s reflection, and Vaasa pulled herself back to her knees.

Fewer arrows pierced the upper deck this time, but enough that one ripped through the billowing sleeves of Vaasa’s blouse. It didn’t cut her, though, and she tore off the fabric. “What the fuck is happening?” she shouted.

“We’re under attack,” Esoti snarled. “We need to get you in protected quarters.”

“I am not going into a room.”

The boat rocked again as voices shouted from below.

Something clanked against the boat, and Amalie lifted herself and bent over the side.

Immediately, she flung herself back down. “They’re boarding from the water,” she said, voice thick with concern.

Panic seared down Vaasa’s spine. She demanded, “Where is Reid?”

“He’s with Kosana. I’m sure they’re in the oarsbank,” Esoti said, though something about the way she spoke told Vaasa her guard wasn’t so confident. “We should find both of you a safe room.”

“Esoti,” Vaasa said, and both the witch and the warrior turned to meet Vaasa’s eyes. “I told you. We’re not doing that.”

One strong nod from Amalie, then a curse from Esoti, low and angry.

Vaasa sprang from where she sat and broke through the magic as it crept across the upper-deck floor. Just as quickly as she stood, Vaasa ran to the stairs and threw herself down them, Esoti and Amalie sprinting on her heels.

The main deck was covered in blood and arrows, and the door to the hull had been ripped open. Tiny boats surrounded their ship, each with at least four men, and a sailor near her slipped on the now-slick surface of the boat. Vaasa scanned the entire bow.

At least ten soldiers were down, and Reid and Kosana were nowhere to be seen.

Esoti hauled Vaasa back, just as another clanging noise beat against the side of the ship. A metal claw rested upon the edge, and one of their soldiers sliced vigorously into a connected rope to set it free.

An arrow slammed into the soldier’s shoulder and she cried out, falling backward as the rope snapped. Amalie rushed forward.

Arrows rained down again.

Vaasa lurched and grabbed Amalie’s wrist, hauling her away from the spray of blood. They all ducked beneath the overhang of the upper deck, the injured soldier crawling as far as she could from the edge. Concern for Mathjin was fleeting as he landed upon the deck and drew his sword. Vaasa noticed his hands shaking slightly, and didn’t know if it was caused by age or by adrenaline. Esoti pushed him through the door, commanding that he needed to find Kosana and Reid.

On the other side of the vessel, a man in an unfamiliar green vest and black breeches swung himself onto the deck. The sigil on his chest in gold and white indicated his connection to Wrultho.

“We are from Mireh!” Esoti yelled.

Still, the man from Wrultho launched himself forward. He and Esoti each drew jagged blades as steel clashed with steel. From the ratlines, arrows pierced the men who tried to board the ship, and bodies fell back into the water.

“They’re coming too fast,” Esoti shouted as she disemboweled the soldier.

Vaasa jumped back to avoid the spatters of blood, trying to fight off the instinct to disappear. They had trained her, too—she could fight. She picked up an abandoned dagger from the floor and squeezed it between her fingers. “Why are they attacking?” she demanded.

Someone burst from the other side of the deck.

Vaasa could have shuddered with relief at the sight of her coven.

The bow swarmed with green, at least twelve enemy soldiers tossing themselves upon the boat, and Esoti cursed something wicked before diving into the battle. Mariana howled as she lifted her arms and blackness began to hiss along the water surrounding them. Amalie sprung after her, mist bathing her hands as she shot the magic toward a soldier, the void of Veragi power circling his eyes and mouth and nose, cutting off his senses.

Vaasa leapt, felt the resistance of tissue and bone against steel, and pushed through it. Ripping her dagger from a man’s abdomen, she pushed him to the floor.

One arrow slid into the arm of a Mirehan near her, and he screamed as he hit the deck.

Any ounce of regret Vaasa felt at the death of the Wrultho Corps winked out.

Vaasa plunged into the fray, fear coating her tongue but her magic drawing her deeper and deeper onto the main deck. As Amalie expertly wielded magic, Vaasa finished the job, watching the life drain from the brown eyes of a stranger whose dead body she tossed to the deck. Soldier after soldier fell to the warriors and witches. The Veragi magic seemed to roar, twisting in Vaasa’s gut as arrows rained from the sky, and she unleashed it upon the man nearest them.

All she saw in her mind was Reid—his dark hair and a gaze so gold it put the setting sun to shame. Her chest twisted with agonizing fear, and then rage hotter than any she’d known before. Was this her own panic playing tricks on her, or was her instinct trying to tell her something?

She needed to find him.

“Esoti—” Vaasa said, but the boat rocked once more and Vaasa lost her balance, falling to the deck as Esoti slammed into the side of the boat, nearly splintering wood.

A man pounced at her, angry blue eyes blinking out blood.

Before Vaasa could react, a knife hurled through the air and slammed into the man’s chest. Red bloomed to soak the green of his shirt. He stumbled backward and lost all tension in his shoulders, knees buckling and cracking on the magic-coated deck.

When Vaasa turned, she found Marc, another knife at the ready.

Vaasa had barely a moment to gasp in relief before two more soldiers started in her direction. Eyes wide at the mist surrounding them all, they traced it back to her hands.

She lurched forward and pulled the knife from the fallen man, then sprang to her feet. The fear that washed through Vaasa lit a fire in her stomach, and her magic morphed from a fleeing mouse into a roaring jungle cat.

When the first man dared get close, she gave a feral snarl as she pounced. Her knife sank into his gut and she pushed him off her blade, spinning to the next one who dipped toward her. Black mist coated her hands and knife, tendrils of the magic flaring from her skin and wrapping around a man’s neck, then plunging down his nose and throat.

She watched the life snuff out from his eyes after she’d stolen his air. As the magic ripped back from his mouth, he sank to the deck. She silently thanked Romana.

A man in green to her left took a step back, and he spat the word witch .

Vaasa froze.

Asteryan.

He’d said it in Asteryan.

It wasn’t Wrultho they fought, but her own damned empire.

Everything Romana had taught her flexed in her muscles, and she let the tendrils out again, guiding the obliterating void around the heads of soldiers in green and letting them fall with the rock of the boat, just like Amalie did. As they collapsed, the Mirehans dealt the finishing blows. Two soldiers defended her front and back, so she could drain the balance and life from those in green. One by one, assailants slammed to the deck and lost their lives, some being hauled over the edge and dropped into the water.

More men spilled onto the deck, one after the other, in a never-ending waterfall.

Mirehan soldiers with their shields pushed forward, trying to form an enormous wall and block the invaders.

One point of a shield impaled an Asteryan as he tried to slide up over the wall, and his blood ran down the Mirehan black and purple sigil like a fountain.

Yet what caught her eye was just beyond him—the monstrosity of black mist that morphed along the green water.

It bent and twisted, hissing in a language Vaasa didn’t understand, then rose from the depths. Water streamed from the shadowy creature as it formed a mane and tail, shadows feathering along the edges and snapping against its thick torso. A horse, made of shadows and wisps of darkness, with eyes so white they seemed to harness the moon.

And at the other end of the boat, Melisina, whose own eyes glowed.

The phantom horse glided over the water with a body as large as three sailboats, slamming into the clusters of assailing men who tried to row away. Screams pierced the air as they were hauled under the water, their lives forfeit to the depths of the Settara or the void of Veragi magic.

She’d seen these witches summon their power in the form of animals, but never one so great.

Would she ever be able to do such a thing?

Kosana emerged just then from the far left side of the deck, her own teeth bared, a dangerous thrill lacing her eyes. The warrior leapt at two others who spread out onto the deck, gripping someone’s head and twisting to break his neck before somersaulting over his body and plunging her long-bladed knife into the other’s groin. His piercing scream could be heard for a flash, and then she snarled at him and cut his throat.

Their eyes met.

Vaasa froze.

“What? You think I’ll kill you?” Kosana spun and swept her blade up the chest of another, ripping directly through his sigil, and then kicked him to the floor so he could bleed out of her proximity while she closed the space between them. “Get over yourself.”

Torn between amazement and fear, Vaasa clenched her knife in one hand and broke through the soldiers around her. “They speak Asteryan.”

Another tried to climb over the wall of shields, and Kosana’s knife rang true, piercing the spot directly between his eyes. “I know.” Running, she gripped her dagger and kicked the man’s stomach, sending him plummeting off the side of the boat, while Amalie’s tendrils of magic burrowed down someone’s throat and caused them to back up and fall, too. “Where is Reid?” Kosana demanded.

Everything in Vaasa dropped. “I—but he was with you.”

“He left the oarsbank.” Kosana paused, then continued scanning, eyes catching on the horse and blinking.

Vaasa didn’t think—she only ran.

Esoti screamed after her as Vaasa barreled through at least three men and ducked around the side of the deck, plunging into the passenger quarters and immediately climbing the stairs.

Darkness bathed the narrow corridor as she climbed and Kosana’s curses of protest echoed behind her. “I should have fucking killed you!”

The sounds of battle could still be heard on the main deck. Steel. The smacking of bodies. Screams. Awful, desperate panic washed over her and her hands began to shake. Vaasa called over her shoulder, “Help me find him and you can kill me after.”

“Deal.”

The boat rocked so hard she slammed into the wall and then slipped on a step. Kosana cursed as she helped lift Vaasa to her feet, and they scrambled through a doorway into a hall of passenger quarters.

If he’d left the oarsbank and hadn’t made it to the bow, he would be in one of these rooms.

Kosana must have come to the same conclusion, because she started slamming doors open, cussing a storm each time she found an empty room. Vaasa sprinted toward the door at the end of the hall, the one that led to their personal quarters. She swung the door open.

Four men spun at her intrusion. In the corner, Mathjin lay unmoving, a small smear of blood in his silvery-blond hair. Vaasa’s heart rose into her throat. One man stepped forward just enough that Vaasa could see the scene beyond them.

Reid was shirtless and on his knees in front of the bed, wrists bound by rope to either side of the footboard. His shoulders were tugged back and stretched, though no marks marred his skin.

Yet.

A lanky man with a wild, dark gaze smirked, holding a winking iron-toothed comb.

Vaasa’s breath caught.

Those familiar blue eyes. The serpentine turn of his mouth. That weapon .

She knew this man—an Asteryan general.

And suddenly Dominik’s letter, the mention of a gift , spun in her mind.

Kosana gave a battle cry as she ran into the room. Magic burst out of Vaasa on instinct, the glittering darkness whipping over the men and wrapping around the eyes and throat of the Asteryan general. Power constricted with her anger, strangling his airway and causing the comb to clatter to the floor. His mouth parted for a scream he couldn’t make.

The other men pounced.

One tackled her to the floor while another grabbed her wrists, tugging at her arms. She bucked hard against the restraint, and the one who tackled her tried to catch her foot, which she promptly smashed into his nose. Gushing blood coated his mustache and lips. He screamed something vile in Asteryan and brought his fist down into her stomach.

Vaasa lurched upward in pain, but the one who held her wrists pressed down so she couldn’t raise her arms. She gasped for air, and the man she’d kicked grabbed her ankles, blood dripping onto her pants. The gold and green emblem of Wrultho, right over his heart, mocked her.

He would kill her.

He raised his toothed knife.

Faintly, she heard Reid’s horrified roar.

And then a jagged onyx blade rammed through the soldier’s throat.

Blood spurted to cover her blouse and face and the man gurgled, his body immediately going slack as the life winked out of his eyes. The blade slid back, and when the man in green fell, Vaasa let out a desperate choke of her own.

Kosana snarled as she glided her knife across the neck of the man who held Vaasa’s wrists.

The man fell backward and his jugular drained upon the floor.

One moment.

Vaasa shook for one single moment.

A hand appeared in front of hers. Kosana’s.

The world sped up again, and Vaasa darted her hand to the commander’s, finding the strength to rise. Immediately Kosana wiped the blood from Vaasa’s face, dragging her own decorated jacket over her skin. “Thank you,” she muttered.

They turned and saw the general writhing on the floor. Two feet away from him was his severed hand. Kosana laughed at her work, which she must have done while Vaasa had been on the floor. The snake in Vaasa’s gut turned far fiercer, amusement entirely distant, morphing and growing into something it never had before. An animal she didn’t recognize. Teeth and eyes so white they could rival the moon, much like the horse she had just seen Melisina conjure.

It stalked forward in tandem with her steps.

Slow.

One step.

Two.

Ruthless malice burned in the white of this creature’s eyes. In her own. Ice froze in her veins, lip curling as she released the magic once more. It slid across the floor. “Please,” he choked in Asteryan. “We are—” He choked again, unable to finish his sentence.

Her magic plunged down the general’s throat. She knew what they were to each other. Comical, really, that he thought it would save him.

An idea, burning and bright, came to life. Vaasa’s lips parted. She heaved the flow of magic until he lost consciousness.

Kosana raised her blade, but Vaasa said, “He’s a general. You want him alive.”

The commander lifted a brow but, much to Vaasa’s surprise, did not argue. The creature within her faded, and Vaasa immediately slumped. Though she felt like falling onto the floor and sleeping for a lifetime, she dropped to her knees next to Reid. His hair hung loose, and sweat drenched his neck and chest. She refused to allow any emotion to beat through her as she reached for the ropes at his wrist. They looked like any other set of ropes, but there were fibers of black intricately woven into them.

The moment she touched them, something emptied in her stomach. The magic. Like it burned out. Gone. She cursed and pulled her hand back, the magic roaring back to life inside of her.

“What are these?” she whispered.

“Magic,” Reid breathed. “They dull magic.”

Vaasa felt nothing.

Everything.

All at once.

She held her breath through the process. The magic in her drained out miserably until she felt as though there were entire parts of her insides missing. Still, she sawed at the rope.

“How long have you been here?” Kosana demanded from the other side of the room, fingers taking Mathjin’s pulse at the crease of his neck. Kosana gave a sharp nod. Mathjin was alive.

“He was only just starting.” Reid gasped as one arm released and he tucked it to his chest, jaw gritting. “I saw him dart after Mathjin, so I followed.”

Vaasa moved to the other rope, still unable to speak or to process what they’d tied to Reid. She cut through the tightly woven material, eyes fixed on the black threads. Her fingers burned slightly at the touch the longer she maintained contact.

The ropes frayed and broke, and Reid gasped again as he sank to the floor. Vaasa dropped her arms, shaking her hands out.

Kosana’s boots echoed past Vaasa until she crouched in front of Reid, gripping his jaw and moving his head left and right, inspecting him. Apparently, she decided he was fine, because she let him slump back to the floor as she lifted to her full height. “You are so fucking lucky.” Then, turning to Vaasa, Kosana dipped her head. “Your instinct was right. I take back our deal.”

Vaasa nodded silently, realizing that was potentially the closest she’d ever get to a compliment from Kosana.

They all turned to the man crumpled on the floor. The Asteryan general, still bleeding. If they wanted him alive, he’d need that wound cauterized immediately.

With one look at the burns on her fingertips, she decided Dominik’s “gift” had been just another warning.

“He’s a general?” Kosana asked.

“His name is Ignac Kozár,” Vaasa said. “One of the few members of my father’s family who still lives. He is my cousin.”