Her brows lifted. “Why do you want it?”
“My queen wants it. I don’t get to ask questions.”
Sendes frowned. “What use could she have with a thunderbird’s corpse?”
He doubted Cormac would appreciate Sofie being referred to as a corpse, but he said, “Again, no idea.”
Sendes fell silent. “Does … does your queen have any necromancers in her employ?”
Tharion started. “What? No.” The only one he knew was hundreds of miles away, and she sure as shit wasn’t going to help out the River Queen. “Why?”
“It’s the only reason I can think of to go to such lengths to retrieve a thunderbird’s body. To reanimate it.”
Cold horror sluiced through him. “A weapon without a conscience or soul.”
Sendes nodded gravely. “But what does she need it for?”
He opened his mouth, but shut it. Speculating on his queen’s motives in front of a stranger, even a friendly one, would be foolish. So he shrugged. “Guess we’ll find out.”
Sendes saw right through him, though. “We have no claim on the body, but Prince Cormac, as her lover and a member of Ophion, does. You’ll have to take it up with him.”
Tharion knew precisely how that would end. With a giant, burning NO. So, short of becoming a body snatcher—not high on his list of life goals—he wasn’t delivering the goods. “Time to begin the spin cycle,” Tharion murmured, more to himself than to Sendes. He’d have to either lie about ever finding Sofie’s body or lie about why he couldn’t steal it. Fuck.
“You could be more, you know,” Sendes said, seeming to read the dread on his face. “At a place like this. We don’t need to lie and scheme here.”
“I’m content where I am,” Tharion said quickly. His queen would never let him leave anyway.
But Sendes inclined her head knowingly—sadly. “You ever need anything, Captain Ketos, we’re here for you.”
The kindness stunned him enough that he had no reply.
Sendes was called over by one of the deck officers, and Tharion observed the mer at the controls. Serious, but … smiling. No tension, no walking on eggshells.
He glanced at the clock. He should go back to the sleeping quarters Sendes had arranged for them. Check in with the others.
Yet once he did, he’d sleep. And when he woke, he’d return to Lunathion.
To the Blue Court.
It was getting harder to ignore the part of him that didn’t want to go home at all.
Ruhn slept miles beneath the surface, a fitful sort of slumber from which he rose frequently to ensure his companions were all piled into the small room with him on the cots and bunk beds. Cormac had opted to remain in the morgue with Sofie, wanting to mourn in private, to say all the prayers to Cthona and Luna that his lover was owed.
Tharion dozed on the bottom bunk across from Ruhn’s, sprawled across the top of the sheets. He’d wandered off after dinner to explore the ship, and returned hours later, quiet. He hadn’t said anything about what he’d seen other than It’s mer-only.
So Ruhn had sat with the lovebirds, Bryce nestled between Hunt’s legs as they ate dinner on the floor of the room, the sea drifting by their window. They’d reach the mouth of the Istros at dawn, and Tharion’s people would be waiting there to transport them upriver to Lunathion.
What would happen then … Ruhn could only pray it’d work out in their favor. That Bryce could play their cards well enough to avoid their doom.
Night?
Day’s voice floated into his mind, faint and—worried.
He let his mind relax, let himself find that bridge, the two couches. She already sat on hers, burning away. “Hey.”
“Are you all right?”
“Worried about me, huh?”
She didn’t laugh. “I heard about an attack on the rebel base on Ydra. That people were killed, and the shipment of ammo and the suit destroyed. I … thought you might have been among the ones lost.”
He surveyed her.
“Where are you now?” she asked.
He let her change the subject. “Somewhere safe.” He couldn’t say more. “I watched Pippa Spetsos and the Ophion rebels kill innocent Vanir in cold blood today. You want to tell me what the fuck that’s about?”
She stiffened. “Why did she kill them?”
“Does it matter?”
She considered. “No. Not if the victims were innocent. Pippa did it herself?”
“A group of soldiers under her command did.”
Her flame guttered to hottest blue. “She’s a fanatic. Dedicated to the rebel cause, yes—but to her own cause most of all.”
“She was a friend of Agent Cypress, apparently.”
“She was no friend to Sofie. Or anyone.” Her voice had gone cold. Like she was angry enough that she forgot to use Sofie’s code name.
“Sofie’s dead, by the way.”
Day started. “You’re sure of this?”
“Yes. She drowned.”
“She …” Day’s legs curled beneath her. “She was a brave agent. Far better and braver than Ophion deserved.” Genuine sorrow laced Day’s words.
“You liked her.”
“She went into the Kavalla death camp to save her brother. Did everything the Ophion commanders asked her just so she could get scraps of information about him. If Pippa serves only herself, then Sofie was her opposite: all the work she did was for others. But yes. I did like her. I admired her courage. Her loyalty. She was a kindred spirit in many ways.”
Ruhn slumped against the back of his couch. “So, what—you hate Pippa and Ophion, too? If everyone hates her and the group, why the fuck do you bother working with them?”
“Do you see anyone else leading the cause? Has anyone else stepped up to the line?”
No. No one else would dare.
Day said, “They’re the only ones in recent memory to have ever mustered such a force. Only Shahar and General Hunt Athalar ever did anything close, and they were decimated in one battle.”
And Athalar had suffered for centuries afterward.
Day went on, “To be free of the Asteri, there are things that we all must do that will leave a mark on our souls. It’s the cost, so that our children and their children won’t ever need to pay it. So they’ll know a world of freedom and plenty.”
The words of a dreamer. A glimpse beneath that hard-ass facade.
So Ruhn said, the first time he’d said it aloud, “I’m not going to have children.”
“Why?”
“I can’t.”
She angled her head. “You’re infertile?”
He shrugged. “Maybe. I don’t know. The Oracle told me when I was a kid that I was to be the last of my bloodline. So either I die before I can sire a child, or … I’m shooting blanks.”
“Does it bother you?”
“I’d prefer not to be dead before my time, so if her words just mean that I’m not going to be a father … I don’t know. It doesn’t change a lick of who I am, but I still try not to think about it. No one in my life knows, either. And considering the father I have … maybe it’s good that I won’t be one. I wouldn’t know the first thing about how to be a decent dad.”