CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
FYNN
He did not know what was worse: his own disappointment that they’d come all this way for nothing, or the soul-crushing grief still guttering in Amael’s eyes. Both, Fynn decided, were a punch to the gut. But at least that was better than a spear to the chest.
Amael circled the valley that was centered beneath the mountainous, smoking peaks of the island’s active volcanoes. He had done this seven times now—not that Fynn was counting—peering into the abandoned homes of slate-grey stone. He toed at the charred wood of old fire pits. Sol had tried to follow him at first, had tried to offer him whatever condolences she thought might bring him comfort. But Amael had asked her to leave him alone, and to Fynn’s surprise, she’d listened.
Sullen, Sol had resigned herself to sitting on an old tree stump just outside the village, the rotted wood tucked beneath the shade of a pine tree.
It was not like her to bounce her leg, to bite at her nails and spit little pieces into the grass. But without her braid to wrap and twist around her fingers, she’d needed some way to expel her anxiety in silence, to keep herself from pacing this valley and spout about the fears that she had not shared with Fynn.
He knelt into the grass in front of her, taking Sol’s hands and prying her nails from between her teeth. “Stop that,” the Captain said gently. He smoothed his thumb across her knuckles. “You’ll bite off your fingers if you keep going.”
Sol continued to bounce her leg. “I can’t help it,” she replied. “I need—I need something. My Magic is restless and there’s no water here.” She tugged her left hand free and began to fiddle with her necklace. “The entire island has been abandoned, Fynn. You don’t find that off-putting?”
A frown tugged at his mouth. She did not worry for just Amael, then. There was something about the Dryans having abandoned their home that unnerved the Princess, too. That shook her resolve so deeply she was gnawing on the ends of her nails.
“If there are any clues as to why they might have left, Amael will find them.”
And Riel, who was foraging through the trees for any indication of where they might have gone. If they’d been forced to flee.
Shaking her head in dismissal, Sol hunched over her lap and buried her face into Fynn’s shoulder. He steadied himself, positioned lower on the ground than Sol was perched on the tree stump, and wrapped his arms around her middle.
“I’m sorry,” he murmured, and Sol’s confusion was muffled against his shirt. He was ready to shuck it off from the heat. “We came all this way for nothing. If it weren’t for this, you’d be closer to settling in Nedros.”
He hated himself for this, for having dragged his crew all the way here on a foolish, unconfirmed whim. Even if they had found Nero waiting for them back on the beach, the island’s Elder would never have given Fynn the Dragon’s Heart. And if he had not had it in his possession, he would never have given Fynn even a hint as to where it might be.
Fynn had known this, and he’d brought them here anyway. Had brought Amael to an empty island where his family and the Dryuans once thrived.
Fynn rested his chin on Sol’s shoulder, biting down the remorse threatening to sink him like a battered ship at sea. “This was such a selfish thing to do,” he admitted quietly. “Bringing you all here over a promise I made to my dead mother.”
“Don’t say that,” Sol scolded. She wriggled in Fynn’s embrace until he let her go. “You are the least selfish person I have ever met, and if the promise you made to your mother still matters to you after all this time, it only shows how much you still love her.”
The Captain scoffed at their sudden reversal, the way it was now Sol consoling him. He preferred it the other way around.
Fynn took Sol’s hand and squeezed. “I think you might be biased, love.” He idly toyed with the bracelet around her wrist, spinning a puka shell with his thumb. “I’ve wasted years looking for the Dragon’s Heart. I’ve dragged my crew to the corners of this world trying to find it.”
“You haven’t dragged them anywhere. They’ve gone willingly. And that doesn’t make you selfish.” Sol swatted at a fly that buzzed by her ear. “It makes you determined.”
“Yes. Determined to find something that probably doesn’t even exist.”
Stupid—so utterly stupid to have come all this way. The Dragon’s Heart was not real, was not something of this world, and he and the Grayclaws were in a race to find the desires of a ghost. Fynn’s mother had given him this task, had made this final request before she’d died. It was all that had fueled him ever since.
A story that was not true.
Sol took his chin between her fingers, lifting his head and forcing the Captain to meet her gaze. He did not realize he’d been avoiding it. “I don’t like this.”
He frowned at her. “What?”
“This look like you’ve been defeated.”
A weak laugh rumbled out of him. “I have been defeated,” Fynn lamented. He took Sol’s hand, pulling it from his face only to squeeze her fingers. “Let me sulk about it for just a moment. I’ll be fine.”
“If the Dragon’s Heart isn’t real, then where does our Magic come from?”
The Captain shrugged. “The Gods?”
“You don’t really believe that.”
Fynn pretended not to notice the way Sol traced her finger over the scar across his palm, the way her thumb was smooth compared to his own callouses. “It doesn’t matter what I believe,” he said. “Everything I was ever taught about our Magic has been proven wrong at every turn.”
Her nostrils flared. “Stories are born from truth,” she told him. “From legends and history and faith. Perhaps the details have eroded over the centuries, but someone somewhere believed so fiercely in the Dragon’s Heart that the stories they told withstood the weathering of time.”
His Magic stirred—then extinguished. “You’re only trying to make me feel better.”
“Yes,” Sol agreed. “I am trying to make you feel better. But I will also drown you in the Emerald if you give up on something you’re so passionate about.”
He smiled at that. “I appreciate the sentiment.”
A heavy sigh escaped her. “Fynn—”
A branch snapped. Leaves rustled from just beyond the tree line.
Sol leapt to her feet, stumbling into Fynn’s chest and gripping his shoulders for purchase. “What was that?”
The Captain nudged her behind him. “I don’t know.”
Fynn angled himself towards the dense foliage that eddied around the base of a tree, a vine of sharpened thorns twined through the leaves. He slid his sword from the scabbard tied to his belt and gripped the pommel with both hands. “Who’s there?” he demanded, shifting his feet and dropping into a stance he wished he were not so familiar with. “Riel, if that’s you, I swear to the Gods…”
A chirped, agonizing cry sounded from beneath the shrubs, a bushel of red berries scattering through the grass at their feet. Fynn reeled back a step, his heart jumping into the back of his throat as a thin, pale blue tail wriggled between the branches. A silky wing fell sprawling from inside the greenery, shining white claws at the apex of two arched, iridescent peaks.