Fortunately, if all went according to plan, she wouldn’t have to fight him.
“You made a wise choice turning yourself in, Your Highness.”
“It’s ‘Your Majesty,’” Vivia replied. “And I know. That’s why I made it.”
Beside her, Vaness huffed a sigh that on anyone else would seem dramatic. On her, it was threatening. “Let us dispense with conversation, Captain Kadossi. We are here as your doge desires, now call off your sailors, return the prisoners to shore, and let us make way.”
A slight bow, a nod at his second-in-command, then he motioned to the nearest railing, beyond which the Origin Well stood. “You may watch, if you wish.”
Vivia did wish. The entirety of her plan relied on all prisoners reaching shore. Only then would she utter the trigger for Vaness’s Ironwitched drills: a common Nubrevnan curse, but spoken in Dalmotti so no one would accidentally release the drills too soon. Vivia and Vaness needed to be far from land when that happened.
With Vaness beside her, Vivia strode to the balustrade, chin high. A perfect mimicry of the Empress, who, exactly as she’d done in Veñaza City, moved effortlessly. Boredom hooded her eyes, impatience sharpened her movements. All her life, Vivia had believed this performance was the true Vaness—the only Vaness—just as she’d always believed her father was actually a man of grandeur and accomplishment. The difference between them, she supposed, was that her father’s mask hid nothing but emptiness; Vaness’s hid iron and heat and sacrifice.
They stood together, Vivia with her hands behind her back and Vaness with hers gracefully at her sides, while they watched eleven dinghies bob toward shore, some Tidewitched, some rowed, all filled with Yoris’s hunters. Vivia’s crew, meanwhile, sat chained on a nearby warship, their heads bowed while Baile’s Blessing sailed in close enough to rescue them.
Vivia opened her spyglass. There was Sotar, posture erect and lips pressed tight. Beside him sat a lanky Cam with hair whipping on the breeze. Just seeing them made Vivia’s heart pump faster, her grip tighten on the glass. This plan had to work. No regrets, keep moving.
“When will you release my sailors?” She clacked shut the spyglass and rounded on the captain.
“After the hunters reach the shore.” Like Vivia, Kadossi stood with his hands behind his back. Unlike Vivia, he hadn’t watched the dinghies sail, but had instead observed Vivia with inscrutable eyes. “They are my guarantee.”
“Guarantee of what?”
“Guarantee that you do not try something. After all, you and a single ship beat us once before.” Respect glinted in his eyes as he said this, along with something else—something Vivia recognized from her father. Kadossi wanted to fight them again; he wanted a second chance to win. And, as if to prove her estimation of him, he flipped his hand her way, revealing a triangle tattoo.
Revealing he was a Firewitch.
No wonder he had elevated through the ranks so young, and, Vivia realized with a dredging sort of horror, no wonder the Iris had escaped. He hadn’t used his magic on them. He could have ended them so easily … but he hadn’t.
We are important, Vaness had said. So important that it was worth sending a navy after us. And so important that she and Vivia had to be kept alive. In theory, Vivia had known that, but it wasn’t until she saw Kadossi’s Witchmark—coupled with that gleam in his eyes—that it hit her viscerally.
She was important. So important it was worth sending a navy after her.
“There is only one prisoner that still remains,” Kadossi continued, and he pointed down. Vivia crooked over the railing to find a final dinghy pushing away from the Lioness. On it was a man with a cruel scar and crueler scowl. He caught sight of her, and for half a heartbeat, Vivia almost wanted to laugh at the sight of the old huntsman, chained between two sailors twice his size.
“Smut,” Yoris snarled, voice thick with spindrift. “Now you choose to do the right thing? After our village is ruined?”
Vaness hissed beside Vivia, and her lips parted. Vivia silenced her with a hand. Not because Yoris didn’t deserve a reply—he didn’t—but because for once he was right. So right that Vivia’s throat closed up and her joints locked tight. Worse, he wasn’t finished yet. He had one more thing to roar before his boat tipped away.
“May the Hagfishes claim your soul and may Noden reject it!” he bellowed, and Vivia’s breath caught. Her vision shrank down to only him. Don’t say it, don’t say it.
He said it, this time in rough Dalmotti with an accent thick as Nubrevnan sand: “May the Hagfishes claim your soul and may Noden reject it!”
The drills beneath the Lioness awoke.
FORTY-SEVEN
Aeduan did not know how long he stayed trapped in stone, neither living nor awake. All he knew was that, when his eyes fluttered open, he was on his back and the sky was thick with storm clouds.
He took his time rising, testing each muscle, each bone. But he had no wounds or pain, and he was alone. Gone was the child named Saria, and gone was the black bird who had laughed at Aeduan’s pain.
All that lingered was a scent like rosewater, and a second like forest fog. The clear lake waters and frozen winters were gone entirely.
Now you understand, said the first Aeduan. The mystery of that smell. The games it likes to play.
Yes, Aeduan did understand, and he hated it. The Rook King had always enjoyed his mischief, and now Aeduan’s existence was beholden to him. As Paladins, they had both been bound to the Aether all those centuries ago, but the Rook King had always been much stronger.
You also understand, first Aeduan continued, what you must do. I do not care what you do to me, but she must be protected at all costs.
“Yes,” he croaked in reply, a mere whisper choked with soil, and though he told himself he would help the dark-giver simply because Saria’s punishment was not worth risking, the truth was murkier. It lay submerged, bound to the very skin and bones of this body in a shade of deepest red.
He would help her because the first Bloodwitch loved her.
And he would help her because he, the Old One, loved Her. The goddess who’d made them all. Even in a thousand years of dark water, he had never lost Her memory. How could he? She was the closest to a mother he’d ever had.
Yet that hadn’t stopped him from betraying her in the end because, as Evrane had said, he always had been the weakest of them all. He had never truly become an Exalted One, yet he’d never joined the Six.
He knew what he had to do now, though. Which side he had to choose, and it was not between bickering Old Ones and Paladins divided. It was the side of the dark-giver. The girl who looked so much like She once had—and not by mere coincidence.
Stones in motion,
Tools cleft in two.
The wyrm fell to the daughter made of moonlight long ago,
He just did not know it yet.
Snow beat against Aeduan as he aimed for Corlant’s camp. Winds picked up speed, shifting from a charged breeze to icy gusts. They slanted against him, slowing his steps. Blasting snow into his vision.
Lightning cracked, and hail pelted down. The evergreens and winter hardwoods creaked. The ground began to shake. Soon, Corlant’s blood dominated all others. Wet caves and white-knuckled grips. Rusted locks and endless hunger.