Hymn of Breath and Bone (The Whispering Sea Duet #2)

Chapter 22

For the second fucking time in my life, I found myself in iron chains.

I assumed the chains had come from Marina’s father. I kept several sets in the siren cliffs, but the iron trade was illegal in Nordhavn—iron being the only material that could silence fae magic and inflict lethal damage with a single blow. Only dwarves and humans had no laws preventing iron from being made or sold along the eastern coast of the continent.

I spat a mouthful of blood at the floor, my battered face and body straining against the shackles.

I shifted, grimacing. One of the Stormcrow’s thugs had given me a black eye as he’d chained me up, and another had kicked me in the ribs repeatedly. The bruises hurt, but the cold iron was worse—a slow, sucking agony against my wrists—and I gritted my teeth in pain.

“If you lay a hand on my mate—”

“I know, I know,” Ilya sighed as he tightened the chains that secured me in the hold. “Your pretty mate is fine. My payment demands she be unharmed and returned in one piece.”

“How does it feel?” I wrenched against the chains, finding them taut. I hadn’t really expected anything else, but the Stormcrow must have known I’d try, because he laughed. “To be working for your old enemy?”

Ilya shrugged, leaning against the wall opposite me. “The Selkie King offered me a lot of money to bring him his daughter. I imagine I’ll get even more for you, the male who kidnapped, defiled, and turned her against him.”

“What then, Ilya? There’s no way the Selkie King will let you live. Even he is not that stupid.”

“Like you?” he smirked. “You just worry about yourself, fledgling. Now tell me where your other friends are. Astraios and the little dove.”

At my blink of surprise, he added, “I told you I did my own digging.”

“They flew back to the cliffs,” I lied. “To warn the others about the selkie attack.”

Ilya tsked like I was an unruly child. “For their sake, I hope you’re telling the truth. The cliffs will be far safer than where we are going.”

“Which is?”

“To the Isles.” He grinned, yellow teeth on full display. “Where the king and his armies are waiting for your mate. He was so pleased to hear I’d located her so that he could postpone his attack on your people.”

My heart sank. We weren’t headed for the cliffs. Astraios had sent his ship back there, and he intended to follow us south. That meant help was and would be too far away to reach us in time.

“Postpone until?” I tried to keep my voice neutral and casual, despite the fear I felt. A twin spike of fear told me that Marina could still feel me despite the iron, and I rattled the chains once more to no avail.

“Until you’re dead, of course. And I am king.” Ilya stretched his good wing, pushing off from the wall to leave. “But not to worry. Once you’re out of the way, I’ll make my triumphant return to liberate the cliffs once more with the Selkie King as an ally. It will be so easy to betray him and take the Isles for ourselves. Your little mate won’t have to live without you for long, and all will be as it should be.”

“It doesn’t have to be like this,” I shouted, straining against the chains once more as Ilya strode toward the stairs. “Ilya!”

He paused and turned, giving me a look that was almost pitying. “Peace is a foolish dream, boy. You know what keeps people together? Fear. War. A common enemy. You never had the vision or intelligence to see it. Your father did. But you? Death is an easy price for fools like you.”

There was a grunt and a shuffling at the door, and a female figure was thrown down the stairs to land at Ilya’s feet. Zephyr spat blood on his worn leather boots and cursed him so colorfully even I raised an eyebrow.

“Such a wicked tongue,” Ilya laughed. “I can think of better ways for you to use it.”

Zephyr rolled out of the way of the Stormcrow as he kicked out, and I strained against my chains again.

“None of that,” Ilya admonished, grabbing the end of Zephyr’s iron chains with a hiss of pain and looping them around a support beam several feet away from me. Zephyr flailed and kicked out as she was dragged across the floor hissing like a cat, but Ilya didn’t slow. “Where is good help when you need it? Down, you hell-beast, or I’ll break your pretty wings.”

Zephyr stilled at this threat, her face a scowling mess of bruises.

“Fuck you.”

“Pass,” drawled the Stormcrow. “Now be good, children, or I’ll feed the hell-beast to the sea dragons. I only need the king, after all.”

Ilya thumped up the stairs as Zephyr and I glared at his back.

Blood trickled down her chin from a split lip as she said, “Well, you look like shit.”

I laughed, then hissed as my bruised ribs protested the move. “Same to you. Where are they keeping her?”

Zephyr knew who I meant. “In your quarters. She’s shackled, too. Her father’s captain won’t leave her side, though, so at least she’s safe from the Stormcrow.”

I let out a heavy breath, trying to think beyond the pain in my wrists. “For now. Fuck, Zeph, how did this happen?”

She shook her head, her face pained beneath the bruises and the blood. “I’m not sure. I got your note and told the crew to get a few hours of sleep while we waited. They must have taken out the watch first. Boreas was on duty.”

I nodded. Boreas had been the only fatality. A great loss, but far less than it could have been.

Zephyr dropped her head back against the pillar with a soft thud. “I failed you.”

“Fuck that. No, you didn’t. Even I’m powerless against a dagger to the throat.” Sirens healed quickly, but not fast enough to prevent a cut jugular from bleeding out.

We sat in silence for a while, the sounds above deck were those of the ship being readied to sail.

“Where are Astraios and Sereia?” Zephyr asked quietly once the bob of the hull told me we were away from the docks. “Did they really fly back?”

“They stayed in Nordhavn,” I murmured, keeping my voice low so we weren’t overheard. “To rally the local selkies and their siren mates.” Zephyr raised a brow so high it disappeared into her hairline, and I laughed. “It was Marina’s idea.”

“Smart,” Zephyr murmured. “Not helpful though. I assume they plan to head south?”

I nodded in confirmation, trying to think my way out of this. Without magic, Marina couldn’t summon the kelpies for help like she had on the beach with Vitulus, and I was no better than the insufferable seagull she used to accuse me of being.

“He’s going to kill us.” I tipped my head back against my pillar and closed my eyes, grateful that at least for now my wings were still in one piece. “The Selkie King.”

“Marina won’t let him,” Zephyr replied fiercely.

I sighed. I’d been a fool to let the Stormcrow live. I’d been a bigger fool to meet with him. To take Marina to him.

Her certainty that her father never left the Isles had swayed me, and of course, that had been a lie along with so many others he had told her.

How he’d found Ilya, I had no idea. But a desperate male will go to desperate lengths, and clearly, the king hadn’t believed his daughter’s letter.

That incensed me all the more. Marina had chosen, and her father refused to abide by her choice. If I somehow managed to get free of this—if I didn’t die a horrible death at his hands—I would throttle the king myself.

A tug in my gut brought Marina’s desperation back to me, and I tugged back to let her know I was alive, if not completely unscathed. I sent a soothing caress down that bond between us, wishing I could hold her in my arms and murmur into her hair that everything would be alright.

I felt a caress return, and I clenched my teeth in frustration.

How Zephyr was so sure Marina would get us out of this mess, I didn’t know, but I prayed to the skies and the sea and any gods who might be listening that she was right.