“S ewell.” I managed to keep steady in the doorway without floundering about. My father always called it gaining sea legs. Even on our
longships, when the tides awoke, it took a fair bit of balance to keep from spilling over the rails.
I lifted the supplies like a boon from battle, a triumphant grin on my face when I found the man still breathing.
“Tricky, little fox,” he said weakly.
I knelt beside him, inspecting the wound. Shallow, as he said, but hells, there was a lot of blood. I placed a gentle hand on the hilt. “I think we’ll be safe to pull out the blade without you bleeding out, but it’s not going to be pleasant.”
“Pull it straight, little fox.” He winked in one of his bouts of clarity.
“No pressure.” I chuckled nervously and padded some of the linens around the blade, ready to catch the blood that would come. Hand around the hilt, I grinned. “I’m starting to think you know—” I yanked the blade free. Sewell howled his pain, but blew out rough breaths when I stuffed the wound with linens. “Exactly what you’re saying.”
“Think what you think, little fox,” was all he said before the door clanged against the wall.
“Don’t touch him!” Celine shrieked. Blood was twisted in her braids, matting her hair together in clumps, rain dripped down her cheeks, but she seemed more disturbed at the sight of Sewell on the ground. She crossed the space in three sure strides, and rammed her elbow into my ribs, knocking me aside. “What did you do?”
Frustration gripped me like a vise. I swiped a lock of hair from my brow and shoved her back, returning my hand to the bloody linens on Sewell’s side. “What I did was help after he fell on a knife with all that damn rocking.”
I’d planned to reprimand her more, toss a few insults at their carelessness perhaps, but clamped my words off when I caught sight of the tremble in Celine’s chin.
Mere moments ago, the woman had false, shaved teeth in her mouth, now at the sight of a little flesh wound she was . . . weeping?
“Thunder fish,” Sewell said, beaming at Celine. “Save your rain.”
Celine swallowed. “I’m not raining. Maybe a little since I’m so damn mad at your stupid ass. What were you thinking going and getting stabbed? I ought to cut you off, old man.”
“Cut him off?” A flare of protectiveness jumped to my chest.
“Yes, cut him off.” Celine studied me with a bit of irritation. “Who do you think supplies the man with his favorite sour currants?”
Sewell smacked his lips and let his eyes roll back in his head. Even Celine snickered.
I set to work, wrapping one of the long linens around Sewell’s waist while Celine helped secure the binding in a tight knot over his belly.
“He’ll need stitching,” I said.
“Aye.” Celine stood, hands on her hips. “I’ll tell the king, but we’ll need to tend to it until we can get him to a boneweaver.”
“What the hells is a boneweaver?”
“What do you call the folk who fix your ails?” “A healer?”
Celine paused, confused, then shrugged. “I like boneweaver better. Help me get him up, we’re needed on shore.”
My blood felt too thick for my veins, but I buried the unease and focused on Sewell. “I heard Bloodsinger could heal wounds. Why not heal his own crew?”
“Taxing, that blood healing, and he’s detained at the moment.” Celine scooped an arm under the cook’s shoulder. “Now, hurry. The king doesn’t want you left alone on his ship. We’re all headed ashore, except you, old man. We’ll see to it you sleep in the king’s bed.”
“Sweet songs, Thunder Fish.” Sewell grunted when he staggered to his feet. The movement to his feet soaked the bandages with a new fountain of
blood, but he didn’t do more than wince and wrap an arm around Celine’s shoulders.
I followed behind, prepared to steady the man should he stumble on the stairs. Sewell pinched his lips and muttered something about eel tempers. Celine told him since he’d be sleeping in the king’s bed, it made him the king of the ship for a day. She seemed at ease with talk of invading Erik’s chambers, and I resented how it made the thought that Bloodsinger might not be a tyrannical fiend.
Once the cook was settled in the king’s chamber, Celine led us back to the lower deck. The door carved into the hull was lowered. Smoke choked the freshness of the breeze, and foam on the tides was tinged pink.
“Get in.” Celine gestured at a rowboat. Much the same as the main ship, nothing about the common boat was simple. Shaped like a jagged arrowhead and the rails were spiked with bits and pieces of what looked like fanged teeth. Some were chipped and cracked from wear, but it only added to the viciousness, and the oars were like knives, ready to slice through the waves.
Sweat gathered under my arms, my palms, at the nape of my neck. I’d tried to embolden myself at the masque, until I froze when Bloodsinger made himself known. Then again in the feed cart at the fort when I’d smashed his leg, until Rorik came, and I went boneless. I was empowered to chastise the Ever King for his wretchedness, until now.
Why would Bloodsinger drag me off the ship? I’d disobeyed his command. He’d been furious. A dozen different ways he might make me pay took hold and choked the air from my lungs.
“I think someone ought to stay and keep watch over—”
“Get. In.” Celine yanked a roughly made sword from a leather sheath. Only halfway, but the threat was clear. “I got no orders saying I can’t take a finger or two. Maybe an eye. Patience is long gone. Now, get in.”
I clenched my fists but complied. Celine took one oar, I took the other, and with great digs into the bloody water, we heaved the boat into the open tides.
On the shore, walls of fire toppled sod huts, a tower made of thick beams, and what appeared to be a worship center made of posts carved in runes arranged in an intricate pattern.
Amidst the flames and tangle of smoke, the ship’s crew kept tossing other men into a huddle near the water’s edge. Blades drawn, there was no
question blood would taint the sand soon enough. I cursed myself for leaving my knife in the kitchen.
Once the boat struck a sandbank, Celine hopped over the side, knee deep in the waves. “Out,” she said, and secured the oars.
I followed her onto the sandy shore. A dozen paces away, a shadow materialized from the dust and haze. His gait was staggered, but when Bloodsinger stepped free of the smoke, I saw why.
One hand gripped firmly on a thick rope; he dragged a bloodied man by the ankles. With a similar build and injured leg, Erik limped as he heaved his prisoner.
The sharp tang of bile burned my throat at the state of the man—a gash from the corner of his mouth split his cheek halfway open, two fingers bled from the tips, I doubted they were still intact, and small knives were rammed into the backs of the man’s arms.
With every tug, the hilts of the blades would shift and twist in the flesh, drawing out raspy, angry shouts of pain.
Brutal. Cruel. Mesmerizing.
I held a twisted captivation with Erik Bloodsinger. I despised him in one breath, and in the next, I couldn’t turn away from his cold, beautiful face. What created such a creature as him? What motivated such brutal punishments?
I knew war. I knew execution. But Erik seemed to enjoy the bloody game more than the outcome.
Low sobs peeled my gaze away from the king for a moment. My chest squeezed. Men and women, children and elderly were gathered to one side.
They wore simple clothes, most barely covering their bodies. Their hair was rolled in tight cords or shaved close to the scalp. Those who were grown wore piercings laced with slender gold chains from lip to nose to ear. Wives wept against their husband’s bare chests. Some children whimpered, their glassy eyes locked on the burning huts, watching their
village crumble.
I blinked back to the man in Bloodsinger’s grip. He’d been the one to cause this devastation. A strange sensation took root low in my stomach. Heavy and coiled, like a barbed knot of thorns it bloomed through my body until reaching my lips. The corner of my mouth twitched into a smile, into a cruel thrill that the man responsible for the tears of littles was paying his dues.
Never had I embraced gore, but a shiver danced down my spine. I wanted the man to suffer. For a moment, I wanted him to suffer more than I did Bloodsinger.
I didn’t know this side of myself. Truth be told, she frightened me.
The Ever King dropped the rope. His captive let out a haggard breath. One simple wave of the hand from the king, and two crewmen hooked their arms beneath the prisoner’s and leveraged him into a rough stance on his knees.
“The seas,” Erik said, dark and low, as he accepted a knife from Larsson. He glanced over his shoulder at the prisoner. “Lucien, whose voice commands the seas?”
The prisoner spat his blood. “Hard to tell these days, Erik.”
“Is it now.” Erik turned, a thoughtful pinch to his face. “It hardly boggles me. I wonder why it is such a struggle for you.”
Lucien scoffed, but said nothing.
Erik stalked the man, a beast to a mouse. With every step, he tapped the blade against his palm.
“What is your purpose in coming to Skondell? The only thing I can gather is you’re here for the lotus, no doubt for nefarious reasons.” The king came to a halt in front of the man. “Who financed your campaign?”
“Ah, king of the seas, you sail beneath your own dark banner. You know no privateer worth his weight gives up his financiers. Makes for bad business.”
“Hmm.” Erik inspected the blade in his hand. “This is a rather dull knife.”
Odd thing to say. Odder still was the way Lucien’s eyes widened in horror.
I startled when Erik lunged at his prisoner. He might’ve limped from whatever injury I’d caused, but I was right about my theories—Erik Bloodsinger was a snake, swift and deadly, always waiting to strike.
A guttural scream clawed through the air when the point of the knife, with horrifying precision, lodged into the corner of Lucien’s left eye. The two crewmen gripped the man tighter. Both held one side of his face, forcing him to keep still as Erik . . . worked.
The king didn’t blind the man, not right away. He tugged and teased at the eye. I covered my mouth, hot sick rising in the back of my throat. Erik
slowly lifted the eye, causing a bulge in the socket, but never finished the job.
Lucien sobbed and pleaded.
“Might consider a bit of mercy,” Erik said, calm as a summer’s breeze, “should you tell me who financed your campaign.”
“Finish it, gods, finish it,” Lucien sobbed, truly pleading for the king to pluck out his eye.
“Financier.” The king lifted the eye a little more.
I took a bit of pride that I wasn’t the one to vomit. A man somewhere near the water’s edge retched when bloody sinews bulged from behind the socket.
My nerves twitched, the desire to flee, to swim until I tried my fate with the Chasm took hold. Don’t look away. This was the man I’d face. Perhaps I was gazing into what the future held for me. Better to learn what I could now.
It gave me focus and purpose. It gave me a desire to act, not crack at the seams.
“These . . . isles are damned . . . anyway,” Lucien sobbed. “The lotus was a . . . new attempt at a spell cast to . . . heal it.”
Erik steadied his hand and looked to the northern tip of the isle. Beyond the smoke and flame, dark hills made of scorched grass were all that remained. Clearly the fire had eaten away whatever greenery there’d been.
Or so I assumed. Until the slightest burn of fear flashed in the king’s eyes.
The king blinked. “Who wanted the lotuses, Lucien? Lady Narza?” “I-I-I don’t know their name. Payments were made without meeting.” “What purpose did they have for the lotus?”
“Might p-p-poison the blight away.” Lucien groaned. “I was going to use s-s-some to b-buy entrance through the sea witch’s realms to the far seas.”
Bloodsinger’s lip curled, revealing the points of his canines. “Thank you, Lucien. You’ve been most helpful.”
Erik tugged on the hilt of his knife and removed the tip. It was horrible. The eye was bulged, out of place, and bloody. It was completely useless and no doubt painful.
The king left it in such a state.
He wiped the blood and fluids on Lucien’s shoulder and grinned. “But you’ve chosen for the final time to prove that you’re certainly not loyal to your kingdom.”
With a fierce thrust, Erik rammed the dull knife into the center of Lucien’s belly.
The man roared his pain and doubled over. The king spun on his heel, speaking to Tait and Larsson as he stalked away. “Hang him with his innards by a stake in the cove. A reminder of what happens when you cross the king.”
Blood stained Erik’s hands, but he made no attempt to wipe it off, nor the splatter on the sharp edge of his jaw when he approached. I dug my heels deeper into the sand and straightened my neck. The red of his eyes pulsed like a flame behind the pupil. For too many crushing heartbeats he merely drank me in, devouring me in a single glance.
Without a word to me, he stormed toward the crowd of villagers. “Where is the Daire?”
“Come on.” Celine appeared at my back and shoved my shoulder. “We’re to follow.”
“Where?”
“He’s going to speak to the Daire of the isle, the lord, or in this case, the lady.” She used the tip of her sword to point forward.
People huddled around Erik and a woman. She was taller than the king, eyes like moonlight, and a headdress of bone and intricate fabrics was tied into her corded hair. Bands made of leather and beads donned her wrists and upper arms, and a necklace made of jagged teeth covered the whole of her chest.
They spoke in hushed tones, their heads close. The woman hardly seemed unsettled by the Ever King. Strange as it was, there was almost a bit of respect. Not only from her. Upon his approach Erik had dipped his head and pressed her palm to his lips.
Not as a lover would, more ritualistic. Like a greeting shaped from turns of traditions.
The woman gestured around her village. Her people listened intently. I stepped back, unable to hear, and desperate to find clearer air.
Celine and the crew were focused enough on their king and the Daire, no one noticed I’d broken free. Down the shore, Lucien’s screams had died
off. I didn’t want to look. To me, it was like earning a glimpse of my own fate.
The sand thinned beneath me, making way for wetlands and bits of grass to peek through the sea soil. Or what should’ve been grass and blossoms. Darkened stems and shriveled remains snapped to dust beneath my steps.
A sniffle came at my back.
Five paces away, a small girl with her braided hair tied back in a knot on her head hugged a cloth doll. Heavy tears dripped onto her dirty cheeks. She looked at me, then down at the scorched land.
“Fires?” I asked.
The child tilted her head, studying me. Perhaps she could not understand me. I pointed to the smoldering rooftops, then back to the ground.
The girl followed my gestures, but soon shook her head. Clearly, she didn’t understand. Words could be spoken differently, but heartache was the same across the worlds. The child mourned her home and the beauty I was certain had once been here.
I smiled and waved her closer. Thoughts of my own fury magic were stored far away. What good would it do me here? I brightened gardens and thickened vines. For blossoms, I could make them more vibrant, smell sweeter.
A rather pointless gift for my predicament.
But with enough focus, I had succeeded in healing deadened fields, or low yielding crops even. Land destroyed by fire, I’d never tried. Still, I kneeled and pressed my palm onto the dark soil.
A bite of something sharp, almost as though a barb pricked my skin, welcomed my touch. Nothing so horrid I couldn’t keep my hand in place. I held my breath and waited for the familiar warmth of fury in my blood. The peace was there, a calm flow to the magic, but there was something else, something dark. A gasp slid out when the memories of the land seemed to hook around my palm and draw me in deeper.
No, no, no. Not again.
I tried to pull away, but some power, some force, clung to me and filled my mind with tales only the earth knew. Cries and pain from the ground under my fingertips dug through my belly, churning it in sick until bile rose
in my throat. I tried to catch a breath, tried to pull away before my fury dragged me deeper, but I was frozen in place.
Few people knew my fury could do this, reveal any horrors that had taken place here. A discovery made during the war with the sea. Deadly histories, pain, attacks, murder, suffering, anything done atop the soil, I could feel if I went deep enough.
Unwittingly, during the war, the land gave up its horrors and offered blood and terror a child ought never to see.
I’d kept my magic tamed ever since, never pushed too far, afraid it would drag me under again, but one touch to this soil and it was throttling me in agony.
This place wasn’t burned by fire, that much I knew. In my mind, a swirl of shadows surrounded a once vibrant isle. Next, a strange taste that bled into my tongue. Not the smoke or ash I’d expect from a fire-ravaged land, but a bitter taste like herbs and elixirs, tangled with a unique flavor like rain on the wind.
I’d sensed magic in the earth before. Each power had a different emotion, a different taste to the soil.
There was magic here. Dark magic.
The child squealed beside me, but her voice sounded muffled, as if she were submerged underwater. Still, it was enough to help me claw my way out of the grip of the fractured earth.
I opened my eyes, my hands trembling. While I was thrown into the unsettling realization that something dreadful had happened here, the girl beamed and clapped her hands in delight. By all the hells, where my hand had touched the withered stem, a brilliant golden flower had bloomed. I’d never seen anything like it—angular petals that gleamed as if they were made of pure gold, with leaves that resembled clover more than anything else.
I buried my unease about the dark magic in the soil and forced a smile at the girl. She grinned back, then dashed off to her people, shouting something I couldn’t understand.
A bit of pride took hold in my chest. My fury frightened me, but at least today, it had made a child more at peace with what had happened here.
But contentment shattered soon enough. “What have you done, Songbird?”
