“Hold on.” I went to the mast, checking that the sail was undamaged.
Now, I called to Eyvor, and the serpent rose again. She angled her huge scaly head toward me as best she could, exhaling in a long huff that billowed our sail and sent us skating along the water, leaving Solvei and her broken army floating there, with the Dragon on their heels.
Before me was an island I knew well, but only through another’s memories. Seeing it with my own eyes made my blood pump faster, despite the ache in my heart.
I made it, Reyker.
If only you were here with me.
CHAPTER 20
REYKER
He woke with her name on his lips, as he so often did. Always expecting to find her beside him, in those gilded first moments between waking and dreaming, as if some part of him had never left the ruins and still lay with her beneath the thorntree.
It wasn’t branches he saw above him when he opened his eyes, but a hatch.
The caravel was fast, and they’d reached Iseneld days sooner than any longship could. Once they’d gotten within a day’s sail from Iseneld, the Renegades had unchained Reyker from the mast and shoved him into the hold to keep their destination’s location hidden from him. Even after they’d docked, no one had come. His body was cramped in the tight space, and all he could see was a square outline of light. If he pressed his eye to it, sometimes he could make out a pale sliver of sky. They’d left him a skin of water, and a tiny bucket to relieve himself that sloshed with the heaving waves, dampening the floor of the hold with his own stale piss. He’d started to wonder if the Renegades had left him locked in here to die slowly when the hatch finally opened, filling with sun, leaving Reyker squinting at the figure hovering over him.
“Paint me pink and call me a horse’s ass. It is you.” The man gripped Reyker’s arm, helping him out of the hole he’d been curled in for the last however-many hours—or, more accurately, lifting him out like a cat would lift its kit. This hulking man was not one of the Renegades who’d captured him.
“Do I know you?” Reyker rubbed the heels of his hands against his bleary eyes. The sky around him was pale blue, the caravel’s deck empty.
“Been a while, hasn’t it?” The man dragged his fingers through a thick beard, black streaked with rust-red, that matched the hair on his head. “Seven years.”
Reyker counted backward, remembering where he was seven years ago: a boy, in Vaknavangur. Heir to a village and a title, his parents still living, his life not yet destroyed. He stared at the warrior in front of him, familiar features standing out—light-brown skin that marked him as having a foreign-born parent, jovial expression that put everyone around him at ease—and recognized the boy inside the man. “Brokk?”
The man laughed, slapping Reyker’s back hard enough to hurt. “Knew you’d remember eventually, clever bastard.”
Reyker had to tip his head back to look up at him. “You’ve grown.” His childhood friend had been lanky, but now he was as broad as a bull.
“And you’ve changed.” Brokk’s demeanor darkened, his gaze latching onto the flames over Reyker’s right eye. “You obey the Dragon now.”
The last time Reyker saw Brokk was the day Draki and his Dragonmen stormed into Vaknavangur and killed his father. Brokk’s older brothers died that day as well—one on the battlefield, the other by an executioner’s axe while Brokk and his mother watched. Brokk had been twelve, the same age as Reyker. A year older, and he’d have met the axe too.
“It’s not what you think,” Reyker said.
Brokk’s arms were so bulky it was a wonder he could cross them. “Explain.”
“I will. But first, will you tell me what’s been done to the other prisoners on this ship? Three Glasnithian magiskas—”
“They’re fine. So is that creepy mare of yours that stares like she can see straight into your soul. The Fjull Uprorsmund don’t harm horses or unarmed girls.”
After having his rib cage shattered by the bone-healer, Reyker knew it was naive to call any Daughter of Aillira unarmed, but he nodded, glancing at their surroundings. The caravel was docked at a pier in a narrow fjord, one he couldn’t name. There were no signs of inhabitance except a worn path that led up a hill, into the mountains beyond. He took a deep breath and tasted hints of salt and snow, soil and rain. Home. “You’re one of the Mountain Renegades?”
“I joined Solvei’s army last year, after my mother died.”
“I’m sorry,” Reyker said. Before Brokk was born, Brokk’s mother had been a war widow and a sword-maid, sailing across the seas, marching into battle. Brokk was the result of her dalliance with a Savannan warrior, though she’d treated him the same as his older brothers and threatened anyone who insulted him for his mixed heritage. A strong woman, who’d raised a strong son. Reyker had admired her.
Draki had made a show of sparing her from execution when he sacked their village. It wasn’t a mercy—women from tribes Draki considered enemies were forced into servitude, and if they refused to submit, they were given as playthings to the Dragonmen. Reyker couldn’t bring himself to ask what had become of Brokk’s mother in the years between when Vaknavangur fell and her death.
Brokk shifted awkwardly. “I’m supposed to tie you up. The others don’t trust you. I don’t trust you, even though I want to.”
Reyker put his arms out, no stranger to chains and ropes. He’d spent the last seven years in one form of captivity or another: hostage, pawn, slave. Brokk leaned in, looking at Reyker’s neck, eyes widening at the sight of the brand. “Gods a-fucking-flame. What happened to you, Lagorsson?”
“It’s a very long story. I’ll tell you all about it over a bowl of stew and a pint of ale.”
That earned him a snort. “I should offer you a bath as well, I suppose. You reek of piss.”
“At least it’s mine.”
The snort turned into a hearty laugh. Brokk put a hand on his shoulder and pushed him toward the pier, a gesture both welcoming and threatening. “Don’t try anything, old friend. I’d hate to have to kill you.”
The path was long and winding, ending behind one of the mountains, where the Renegades had set up a spot that was half village, half camp—dozens of wooden buildings and grass-roofed cottages beside twice as many sheepskin tents. Fjullthorp, Brokk called it. It reminded Reyker of Ghost Village, only there were no families, no children. This was a war camp. Everyone here was a soldier, all of them glaring at Reyker as he walked at Brokk’s side.
Everyone, except the three frightened girls huddled together around a fire. The Daughters of Aillira were unharmed, as far as he could see, and left untied as well. Their eyes found him, following him desperately—the only familiar face in a sea of Iseneldish warriors who didn’t speak their language. Reyker nodded at them, trying to offer reassurance, waving Alane off when she started to rise.