He could not smother the flames, could not save his crew as they coughed and inhaled smoke.
“You said you’d let them live if I came with you!” Fynn shrieked. He choked on the smoke beginning to curl into the air. He did not bother using his Magic to send it drifting away from him.
“I said I’d let them live,” Dinah grinned. “I made no promise not to burn your ship and make you watch. Whether they live now is up to them. Aren’t you glad I let you say your goodbyes? You owe me.”
He did not care if the crew on board burned or asphyxiated from the smoke. He also didn’t let Fynn watch.
Fynn was still staring at the flames, the Elemental fire burning through the mizzenmast and cracking the beam in half, when Dinah struck him in the temple with the pommel of a rusted sword.
Fynn collapsed to his knees, his vision going dark as the sound of Sol’s screaming reached him from above the roaring flames.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
FYNN
These hallways had not changed, were still the same stark grey that Fynn remembered from his childhood. He had always hated this palace, the midnight darkness that seeped from every such corner, the lack of all things that would have made this place his home. Even the burning braziers did little to chase away the shadows, their flames rising high until they scorched the slate stone ceiling.
He winced away from the fires.
The silver cuffs encircling Fynn’s wrists flashed in the flickering yellow light, and if he looked hard enough, he could see his reflection in the metal. The eyes staring up at him were hollow, carved into his skull with no purpose, because he certainly did not want to see. Their spark had gone out months ago, one that likely could never be reignited. Dirt smeared his cheeks, and his lips were cracked and bleeding.
Once the Captain of the Refuge, Fynn had seen better days.
His legs ached with disuse, having spent the last three months crammed into a cell that was barely big enough for him to stand. It was not the cabin he was used to, the wooden floor of a ship’s stinking bilge not the mattress he’d once taken for granted.
These hallways had not changed, and Fynn did not need the guidance of the guards who flanked him, of the bounty hunter who led him to his fate. He knew where they were taking him, could have found it on his own despite not having been here in ten years.
Pointed archways loomed above pillared columns, their cracked foundations sinking into a dark marble floor. The throne room had not changed, either, a state of despair symbolic of Fynn Grayclaw’s end. A guard gripped his bicep, and Fynn did not have the strength left to fight. He let himself be thrown to the floor, his knees cracking against the bottom step of the dais. Pain pierced through his bones.
“Well, isn’t this a pitiful sight?”
Hunched over his thighs, his shoulders shaking from the effort it took to keep himself conscious, Fynn lifted his gaze to the man who sat perched atop the throne. Like everything else in this palace, his half-brother was still the same, his harsh mouth quirked with a smile that shamed a snake’s deadly venom.
Thane had grown tall in the years since Fynn had seen him last, rising to his fullest height as he abandoned his jewel-encrusted throne. His curled black hair, several shades darker than Fynn’s own matted locks, was swept into an elegant braid that twined through the silver of his crown.
Sauntering from the top of the dais, Thane’s startling blue eyes were as frigid as snow-capped mountains, as glacial as the ice that hung like spears from the windowsills. Time had not thawed his demeanor, had not so much as even cracked the ice around his heart.
Fynn bowed his head. He did not want to look at him, could not stand the sight of his roguishly handsome face. But Thane did not grant him that courtesy, gripping him by the chin with enough force to bruise. He jerked Fynn’s head up to face him, his nostrils flaring as he sniffed at Fynn’s foul-smelling clothes. “I don’t suppose anyone let you bathe before tossing you at my feet. You smell worse than a pig that’s spent a day rolling in its own filth.”
He did not speak, did not think he had the voice to do so. Fynn blinked at him as if it were an answer, his eyes lingering shut a moment longer than necessary. There was a part of him that prayed they did not open, that he never saw the light of day again.
Thane’s upper lip curled over his teeth in a snarl. “Have you nothing to say for yourself?” he asked, digging his fingers into the hollows of Fynn’s cheeks. “Ten years, and you haven’t so much as sent a letter. Did you enjoy making a mockery of me on the battlefield? Of our father?”
Fynn’s eyes moved sluggishly towards the throne.
“The King has recently fallen ill,” Thane informed him. “They say it’s a condition of the heart. Good riddance. His time will come soon enough, as will yours.” He shoved Fynn back in disgust. “If the old fool were of sound mind, perhaps I’d let you tell him goodbye. Avedea will come for him any day now.”
“I have no desire to see him.”
The words were a breath of air, a low rasp in the back of his aching throat. He could not remember the last time he’d had something to drink, the last time he’d bothered to speak.
“Then you’re an even bigger fool if you think I care what you desire.” Thane reached into the pocket of his ornately threaded robe, one that Fynn recognized as King Caidem’s. He was not even dead yet, and his brother had helped himself to their father’s wardrobe. Thane procured a small leather pouch, tossing it to the man who had decimated the life that Fynn had built for himself. “For your troubles,” Thane said. “I can’t imagine he was easy to capture.”
Dinah weighed the bag of gold in his palm. “Where’s the rest of it?”
Thane’s eyes flashed with such rage, such unbridled fury that it struck Fynn like lightning. “Be lucky I’ve paid you at all,” he snapped. “It took you nearly a year to bring him to me, and I’ve heard little word from you since your departure.”
“We agreed—”
“I am the future of Dyn,” Thane spat at him, reaching for the jeweled hilt of the knife that hung from his belt. “The Crown Prince and Heir Apparent to King Caidem. I decide what we agree upon, and I decide whether those agreements are to be amended.”
Dinah pursed his lips. “That bastard stirred up a wind storm that nearly sank my ship and killed three members of my crew. This bag of gold is horseshit.”
Thane quirked his head, a predator monitoring its prey just before it struck. If Fynn cared at all about the fate that Thane would deal him, he would warn Dinah to shut his mouth. “If it’s not to your liking, then give it back. There’s no point in holding on to such ‘horseshit.’”
Dinah blinked at him. “I want the rest of my payment.”
“And I want the Gods to bestow immortality upon me.” Thane flipped his knife, blade over hilt. The silver flashed in the firelight. “But we don’t always get what we want.”
He flung the dagger, hurtling it into the center of Dinah’s chest. Blood spread across the front of his dingy white tunic, and he gasped like a gaping fish before collapsing to his knees next to Fynn. He did not look at him as Dinah clutched the weapon, sliding it from between his ribs with a sickening squelch. The knife clattered to the floor, Dinah following suit, landing face-first in a puddle of his own blood.