“They were a package deal,” Fynn replied. “And I didn’t want my arm bitten off.”
Riel picked up a knife that Fynn had left abandoned on his desk. A sparkling blue sapphire was pressed into a tarnishing silver hilt. “You should have asked me before you brought her here. If she’d gotten on her knees and begged, and I wouldn’t have turned her away.”
“I would have asked,” Fynn said. “If you’d been there.”
The Quartermaster grunted an acknowledgement. “Did you manage to find what you were looking for? Or were you too busy playing the hero?”
Fynn crudely showed her his middle finger. “Don’t be an ass,” he said. “I am a hero.”
Riel scoffed. “Was it a wasted trip or not?”
The Captain grinned, pointing to the canvas sack that he’d shoved into the nearest deckhands arms the moment he’d boarded the Refuge. “It looks like an opal, but it’s not.”
Riel pocketed Fynn’s knife and pried open the sack. She crinkled her nose as she rummaged through the various crystals. “Don’t you have enough amethyst?”
Fynn rose to his feet and snatched the chunk of stone from her. “Nope.”
In the very corner of his cabin sat a small, glittering table with precariously placed crystals and geodes. Fynn swept aside a few of the smaller stones to make room for his new collectibles. He would fiddle with the layout for days until the stones were arranged to his liking.
“So, is this real?”
Fynn turned to find Riel studying the small, flat dragon scale that Abel had mistaken for an opal. “I think so.”
She traced her thumb against the scale’s smooth edge. “It flakes like one.”
“Yes,” Fynn agreed. “But I didn’t sense any Magic. Do you?”
Riel closed her fingers around the scale and gripped it tightly in her palm. She was quiet for several moments, her own Magic soft and caressing as she assessed the gem. “No,” she said finally. “But it’s definitely not a stone. My Magic can’t change its shape.”
Fynn sighed and took the scale. “I’m starting to think that that damned thing is just a myth.”
“It is a myth,” Riel said. “The story of the Dragon’s Heart is as old as the Irican continent, Fynn. It’s a bedtime story that parents tell their children to help them sleep at night.”
Indyr, the King of Dragons, protector of the heavens and sky. Blessed with infinite Magic. A single scale was all that proceeded him in death, a relic that the ancients called the Dragon’s Heart. Infused with Indyr’s Elements—Earth, Water, Wind, and Fire—the scale, lost to time, had served as the source of Wielders’ Magic.
Supposedly.
A gift it was, indeed, but also a curse. Wars had been waged for that scale, and Fynn knew the stories better than anyone. They were all he had left of his mother.
“It’s not just a story,” Fynn said, closing his fist around the scale that was not the Dragon’s Heart, but had belonged to a dragon, nonetheless. “Not to me.”
Riel placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “I know.”
“The tale of the Dragon’s Heart… I can still hear her voice telling me to find it.” Fynn’s throat bobbed. “She believed in it, and so do I. It’s out there, Riel. This just isn’t it.” He chucked the scale onto the bed. “And if it falls into the wrong hands…”
Riel’s expression darkened as she repeated, “I know.”
“I will find it,” Fynn vowed. “I promised my mother that I would.”
“Good.” Riel shook the dirt from her hands. “Now that we’ve lit a fire under your ass, I think it’s time we rescue your Princess from Amael. He’s probably trying to buy that damned beast from her.”
Fynn chuckled, fiddling with the cuffs of his shirt. “Draven,” he corrected. “But you’re probably right.”
A grin pulled at her mouth. “Can I be the one to tell her that we sleep on the deck?”
The Captain laughed. “Sure,” he said. “Ten gold coins says she cries.”
“Fifteen says she begs for your bed.”
“Hey,” Fynn said. “I don’t share. Not even with a pretty Princess.”
“No, just a pretty Prince, apparently.”
Fynn playfully slapped her arm. “Come on, heathen. We have work to do.”
CHAPTER SIX
SOL
Shards of sparkling ice crusted the Princess’ hair as she curled into Draven’s side. She could not feel her fingers as she fiddled with Silas’ necklace, and despite having buried her face into Draven’s matted fur, her sniffling nose and blue lips were beginning to crack from the cold.
Sol cursed this ship.
She cursed the winter and the wind and the sheets of ice that cracked against the ship’s tapered bow. She cursed the ocean that raged with Thymis’ wrath and the frigid saltwater that splashed onto the deck where she lay.
The Quartermaster had grinned like a wicked cat with a mouse caught between its teeth when she’d given Sol her sleeping arrangements. She had shown her to a wide, empty space near the front of the ship, big enough for both Sol and Draven to comfortably sprawl across the planks, and had left her there.
Amael, possibly the friendliest person Sol had ever encountered, had scowled and given her an extra blanket, like he’d known this was an awful place to sleep.
When she and Draven had settled down for the night, starlight flickering above in an inky black sky that merged with the midnight water, Sol had quickly understood why no one else slept here. Ocean water sloshed over the banister, flooding beneath the siren’s outstretched mahogany arms as they dove into the crests of rolling waves. Sol also understood why Amael had given her an extra blanket; not to keep her warm, but to sop up the salt pooling beneath her.
Sol shivered, and she cursed Riel, too.
But despite her blatant hostility, Sol found that she enjoyed the ship’s crew, even Riel who thundered over the deck like she owned it. They’d welcomed her with tentative smiles, a skeptical eye, and hands within reach of their weapons, but Sol could hardly blame them for not trusting her. She was a stranger who’d boarded their ship with a mob from Valestorm chasing after her.
She found she enjoyed Amael the most, who had not told her his own story as he toured her around the ship and prattled on about his crewmates. But if the beautifully wicked scars that sliced down his throat were any indication his life had been rough before the Refuge, then Sol didn’t want to know. But his eyes were bright, his smile brought out the dimples in his cheeks, and his kindness was enough to make her like him.
Even Draven had licked his hand when Amael scratched him behind the ear.
The soft exchange of midnight words floated down to Sol from the quarterdeck.
Tucking Silas’ pendant beneath her tunic, Sol rolled onto her side and squinted through the dark. Gracia, the girl who’d hidden behind Riel when Amael introduced them, was bidding her Captain goodnight. Her face was tired but grateful, and Fynn had taken her place behind the helm.
A gust of wind filled the ship’s sails as if to greet him.
The wooden planks groaned beneath Gracia’s weight as she descended the stairwell from the helm. Sol watched as she scrambled across the deck, calling Riel’s name as she stepped over blanketed bodies. The Quartermaster lifted her head near the mizzenmast, and Gracia hunkered down beside her, curling into the warmth of her arms.