“I don’t want to go.” His arms slid beneath me, circling my waist. “If it was my choice, I would never leave.”
“But you should.” Whatever this was, this place between worlds where we’d managed to find each other, it wasn’t a blessing as I’d first assumed. It was a torment. “Knowing this isn’t real, that it won’t last, that we’ll lose each other again and again will drive us mad. It will keep us from moving on as we must.”
I needed my wits to face what awaited me when I woke, and Reyker—Reyker needed to let go of me, so his spirit could find peace in Skjorlog Felth, the afterworlds of his people, where his family surely waited for him.
“What are you saying, Lira? That you don’t want to see me again?”
“Nothing.” I shook my head. “Don’t listen to me. If this is all we get, let’s not waste it.”
He tried to be gentle, but I had no patience, no restraint. My mouth was hard against his, my hands digging into his skin, using my body to beat back the words I’d almost spoken, the words I must say eventually because I knew he never would.
We cannot return to this place. This is the last time.
The last time.
The last.
CHAPTER 19
LIRA
The sea had been kind when I’d fallen asleep, a placid silver mirror, but I woke to an angered ocean, its frothing hills rolling across an infinite expanse of gray. The expressions of the Renegades were grim, but not fearful. Solvei stood on deck, arms spread wide, grinning at the pelting rain like a gleeful child.
We’d been sailing for three days. Every bit of my power had been expended during the battle at Stalwart Bay, so I waited for it to slowly seep back. Solvei had anticipated this. She’d moved Quinlan onto our ship, chaining him in the stern, threatening to kill him if I tried to use my gifts.
The longships had crossed into the realm of the Ice Gods, and beneath the water, shadows glided—whales and sharks and tentacled monstrosities big enough to rival the Brine Beasts. I could feel them, but not the way I’d felt the animals on Glasnith, and I doubted these creatures would listen to me if I called. This was Sjaf’s kingdom, and every animal here belonged to him and his kin. Power sloshed through me, useless and restless, like sap in a tree that could not be tapped. My heightened senses had dulled, still sharper than a mortal’s, but only a sliver of what they’d been. I wondered if I could even read a soul this far from my gods and home. I could feel the Fallen Ones in my veins, but the farther we got from Glasnith, the quieter my blood became.
Alarmed as I was at the loss of my strongest weapons, it was a relief to feel the fetters binding me to Veronis slacken.
Quinlan was watching me, as he often had on the journey. His head tilted, asking if I was all right, and I nodded. He needed the assurance, even if it was a lie.
For the thousandth time, I tested my manacle, pulling at it with all my strength. There was no way I could break it. If only there weren’t so many eyes on me, I could try to pry it open with the crystal dagger.
“Where do you plan to run to, magiska?” Solvei asked over the roaring of wind and waves. “You are no child of Sjaf. If you jump, the sea god will drown you.”
“If this ship capsizes, the manacle will drown me,” I told her, rattling it for emphasis.
“This is my ship. It is unsinkable.”
A wave crashed over the deck, soaking us. I shoved wet hair out of my face. “Do you enjoy tempting fate?”
Solvei was already gone, giving orders to the Renegade at the helm and encouragement to the men and women rowing to keep the longship from turning sideways as we plunged down the swells.
The storm lasted half a day before blowing itself out. We had a few hours’ reprieve of sun, enough that my clothes almost dried, before the next storm hit. I might have frozen, had it not been for the mercy of one of the Renegades, a young man who threw me a wool blanket when no one else was looking. I saw him give one to Quinlan too.
An uneventful sea crossing, Solvei declared. How could they stand it, being tossed about on waves ten times larger than our ship, soaked to the bone, cold and wet for days on end?
When land appeared on the horizon the next morning, I felt something like relief, until I realized it wasn’t land, but islands of ice floating in the middle of the sea. The longships drifted between them, and I craned my neck to take them in, their icy faces smooth and glistening, each one like a pile of crushed jewels—turquoise and topaz, diamonds and moonstones—sitting in the ocean’s palm. Though I’d witnessed such sights in Reyker’s memories, it stunned me that ice could be so beautiful.
Behind us, a silhouette continued to stalk the Renegade ships. It was a dark cloud riding the waves, far enough back that I couldn’t get a clear view of the other ship, close enough to be certain it was following, as it had been since we’d left Glasnith.
Draki. I didn’t dare call out to him.
Solvei raised a spyglass to her eye, trained on the creeping shadow. “What a prize you are, magiska. He’d attack us if he wasn’t certain we’d kill you for it. You may prove to be of more value than his cursed brother.”
“Brother?” I sat up straighter. Reyker hadn’t mentioned Draki having any family beyond the warlord’s serpent-goddess mother. “The Dragon has a brother?”
“I found him in the bay, just before I found you. Another token I stole from the Dragon.”
Draki’s brother had been in Stalwart Bay?
“The Dragon is my enemy as well,” I said. “He killed my brother and burned down my village. Let me go and we can fight him together.”
She lowered the spyglass, knuckles whitening as she squeezed it in her fist. “Draki killed my father and sister. He killed my wife. Now I will repay him. I’ll destroy him by destroying everything he cares for, just as he did to me.”
If that was the case, then I wasn’t a prize, I was a hostage. Innocent or not, deserving or not, Solvei would hurt me to get to Draki. “If you do, you’re no better than him.”
The insult cut her. Solvei leaned in, teeth bared. “For your sake, magiska, pray that you are wrong.”
We spent another two days sailing through ice fields before Iseneld was spotted. A cheer went up, all the Renegades celebrating and giving thanks to their gods.
Part of me felt like celebrating with them. I couldn’t wait to get off this boat—my skin was crusted in salt and my manacled arm throbbed so much I was ready to chew it off. But then I looked at Quinlan, pale and gaunt after a week on the sea, what little food the Renegades had offered him having crawled back up his throat during the worst of the storms.
As a captive, Reyker had suffered at the hands of my people, his enemy. Would I watch the same things happen to Quinlan here?