Chapter 9
9
N YX SAT CROSS-LEGGED in the gloom of the Sparrowhawk ’s lower hold. She kept her eyes closed, not that there was much to see. Lamp oil was as precious as flashburn aboard the swyftship. Only a pair of lanterns lit the cavernous space, and one had been commandeered by Jace.
Her friend knelt nearby. He hunched over the tome on his lap, a text secured from the cabin he shared with the alchymist. He mumbled as he read, something she always found endearing, as if he were arguing with the long-dead writer. He sought further knowledge about what might await them beyond the Dragoncryst, but she suspected he also needed to distract himself from the more immediate danger.
She appreciated that.
A moment ago, word had echoed to them from the ship’s highhorn, the metal tubing and baffling that ran throughout the wyndship. In less than a bell, they would reach the mountains. Darant ordered every crewman to their posts. All others were to secure themselves in their cabins, less to protect them than to get them out from underfoot.
She had already decided to weather the storm and mountain crossing in the hold. She wanted to be near Bashaliia and Kalder, to calm the two during the tumult to come. Jace had informed Graylin of her plan when he went topside to fetch his book. She had been surprised the knight hadn’t returned with Jace to shadow over her. But Nyx already had a guardian far stronger than any man.
Shiya stood a few steps away, unmoving, not even breathing. She had become a statue again, a figure sculpted of bronze.
Graylin also likely knew that any evacuation must pass through this hold, where he could easily collect her. The Sparrowhawk ’s two tiny sailrafts, miniature versions of the larger wyndship, were stanchioned in the hold’s aft, their snubbed noses pointed toward the stern doors that could open to the skies. If the Hawk should become compromised, those two rafts would be the only means to abandon the ship.
As she waited, she hummed softly, a vibration of throat and breath. While Jace spent chunks of his day sparring with Graylin and Darant, Nyx had been honing her control over her bridle-song, a gift carried in her blood, passed down through generations.
Half a year ago, she had learned its true source.
Bashaliia—or rather, his brethren.
Lost in the depths of time, the ancients had instilled in his breed a heightened ability to communicate, to wend many minds into one, to form a vast, cold intelligence. That consciousness was likewise preserved and protected by its spread throughout the colony, where every individual was a poisonous fortress of strength.
The Myr bats had been devised to be living sentinels, stationed to monitor the Urth over the passing millennia, to watch for any dangers, and, if necessary, to wake the Sleepers buried around the world.
With her eyes still closed, Nyx cast out threads of power. They brushed against Shiya, one of those ancient Sleepers. Her kind were nonliving sentinels, artifacts crafted by those ancients, instilled with the same potent bridle-song.
Through Nyx’s gifted touch, Shiya grew into a torch in her mind’s eye. The enormity of the woman’s power was nearly incomprehensible, not just her strength of limb, but also the well of energies throbbing inside her. Shiya was a living furnace, one meant to warm the amber of this world and get it turning again.
But how to do that remained unknown. Time proved more powerful than the will of those ancients. Many Sleepers were lost, crushed under miles of ice or blasted by the heat on the Urth’s far side. Even the Sleepers’ librarie of knowledge had not survived intact, leaving Shiya potent but confused, a powerful weapon but one without an enemy to point it at.
It was up to Nyx and the others to fill in the gaps, to weave this frayed tapestry of history and knowledge into something whole and understandable. The only clues were the location of the emerald marker hidden deep within the Frozen Wastes and another on the Urth’s other side, out in the lands forever scorched by the Father Above’s merciless and unending gaze. Though much knowledge was lost, Shiya sensed it was vital to reach the site in the Wastes first. But no one, not even Shiya, knew why.
Without any other Sleepers to guide them, their group had no choice but to attempt this journey. Still, there remained a small hope. Shiya had discovered at least one other Sleeper who appeared to be intact, though still slumbering. The artifact lay deep within the Southern Klashe. Others of their original party—Alchymist Frell, Prince Kanthe, and Chaaen Pratik—had left to search for that Sleeper. But with no certainty of their success, Nyx and the others had to risk crossing the Wastes.
But what will we find?
Nyx let her tendrils of bridle-song sift away from Shiya’s bronze form. She tightened her throat, pitching her hum wider. As each thread reverberated back to her—bouncing off the stacks of crates, off the edges of barrels, even from the curves of the inner hull—a picture of the cavernous hold formed inside her. The space spread from bow to stern, buried under the bustle of the upper decks. With her eyes still closed, she gained a shadowy, wispy vision of its full breadth and entirety.
She smiled at the familiarity of that vague sight. For all her life, until recently, that was all she could see of her world. She had been afflicted as a babe with a clouding of the surfaces of her eyes, which dimmed the world into just shadows and muted colors. Even now, she still found a measure of comfort in that familiar darkness. It was her past, her home, all she had known until recently. Then one of Bashaliia’s brethren had come to her defense during an attack, poisoning her in the process. The envenomation cleared away that cloudiness, an affliction tied to those great winged beasts, while also inflaming the latent gift in her blood.
Much like Shiya, Nyx was a Sleeper awoken.
Some called it a miracle, assigning it to the blessing of the Mother.
For Nyx, it was as much a curse. The brighter world was often too much to bear. The gift of bridle-song still frightened her. She barely understood it, but with practice, she had learned to sharpen her focus.
Through the echo of her song and the weaving of her threads, she could discern the life hidden around her: the scurry of mice amidst the crates, the scritch-scratch of crickets, the flutter-buzz of flies, even the casting of a spider’s web. Each was its own song, and when she could find a harmony of her own to match, she could orchestrate that melody: get a furtive mouse to slip into slumber, lure a cricket to rub its legs into a chorus, trick a spider into changing the lay of its web.
This last ability was called bridling, to bend lesser creatures to your will. The rare few who shared her gift were greatly valued. They could ensnare massive sandcrabs to pull loaded trains across the desert, bind dogs and cats into loyal hunting companions, break horses to saddle and reins. Nyx found such control to be distasteful, somehow wrong—yet, she could not deny a measure of attraction to it. The power was undoubtedly seductive.
Perhaps because I had so little control over my life up until now.
Disheartened by this reverie, she opened her eyes and let her song die away, winding the threads back to her. As she did, a few strands drifted over Jace. Through that brief touch, she read his concentration. It smelled like a smoldering hearth. She also sensed his fear, which felt like air after a lightning storm.
He glanced up from his book, as if sensing her attention. “Nyx?”
She shook her head, shaking away the last vestiges of her gift. For a moment, as her bridle-song faded and with his eyes upon her, she smelled something musky wafting from him, a rose in fresh loam.
“It’s nothing,” Nyx mumbled.
Still, her cheeks heated up. She knew what this last scent portended. It marked his desire. For me. Reading and exposing his private heart felt like a violation.
Luckily, Jace didn’t press the matter. He straightened, working a kink out of his neck with one hand. With the other, he lifted the book from his lap. “I think I’ve delved as deeply as I can into what lies beyond the Dragoncryst. All I’m finding are tales, each more outlandish than the one before it. This one claims that there’s a great sea hidden in the Wastes—which is clearly absurd. Maybe my time would be better spent—”
The ship jolted hard, swinging sharply to portside. Crates and barrels creaked and groaned against the thick nets securing them in place.
Shiya closed upon her and Jace. Strong hands latched on to both their shoulders. “Stay close, stay low,” she warned, her voice calm but firm.
As the ship shook and vibrated, she dropped to one knee, anchoring herself and the two of them—and not a moment too soon.
In a few breaths, the Hawk became a sparrow in a gale. The ship made sudden rolls or whipped wildly side to side. Nyx gasped, her body flung to and fro within Shiya’s grip. She bit her tongue, drawing blood.
Jace reached over and grabbed her hand. Her fingers latched hard to his. She shared a worried look with him.
Darant’s voice echoed to them through the highhorn. “We’re in the brunt of it now! Grab your arses and hold tight!”