Chapter 37 Rhyland
“It is not gods I fear, nor death, nor fate. It is you, Talon—the way you love as though to conquer. To destroy.”
— a mortal lover's last words
Iknew something was wrong the moment we stepped out of the queen’s palace.
I could feel it, a shift, the persistent burn of the rune seared behind my ear; Laguz.
Her rune. The one that appeared on our wedding night.
It hadn’t made sense then, not really. Not until I watched her go under the water and my heart nearly ceased its beating.
Not until I dove after her and the sea lit up like silver fire, answering to the call in her blood.
Now, the deck reeks of death.
Mattias counts them in a low voice, each body a blade to the chest. Twenty.
Twenty gone before the antidote hit their stomachs.
More clinging to life with shallow breaths and blackened lips.
I kneel by Aizen, press two fingers to his lids and shut out the emptiness in his eyes.
His twin, Archer, stands a pace away, shoulders heaving, his grief raw and silent but contagious in the way it slips through me.
I did this. I brought them here. To Staygia. For my own selfish heart. For the crown. For her. And now she’s gone.
A gust off the harbor shifts the sails above and something cold crawls down my spine.
A whisper of warning. I rise slowly, in the way a storm builds.
Quiet, methodical. My eyes cut across the deck.
Reave and Briggs aren’t back yet from their search.
Nicklas is helping Sabre with the wounded bent low over a stretcher, face slate with worry . Cyprian—
Sabre staggers to her feet as if summoned by my thoughts.
Her hands fumble for a cup and she knocks it over, splashing ale across the nearest crate.
“Rowan’s gone,” she snaps, voice raw. “I left her on the forecastle a moment—she said she would stay put until we returned but she's gone. I thought she’d be below in our room—” Her words tumble out uselessly.
Then she slams a palm flat on the deck and looks up at me, all danger and worry.
“If she slipped off to find Vale and something’s happened—” She swallows.
“They're saying she helped do this, but I don't believe it. We’ll find them both, Talon. Or I’ll gut the first man who lies to me.”
Her promise is ugly as it is sincere and it lands in my chest like a gauntlet thrown down. I've never seen her cry before; the sight of it is haunting. Unnerving to the root of me.
My thoughts mirror hers. I look to the navigator.
He's too still. Too close to the gangplank, eyes shadowed, hands suspiciously idle. He hadn’t been among the sick.
He hadn’t touched the poisoned barrel. He hadn’t been at his post when I returned to find her gone.
When the ache of it splintered my ribs and the crew cried out in their poisoned haze, he wasn’t there.
The world had started to fissure and crack around me with the agony of loss.
I’d done that, too. Drove the nymph away. Lied. Used her one time too many. But I know she wouldn’t have done this. It wasn’t in her to kill in cold blood. Even the man who had hunted her, stolen everything from her—she’d stilled her hand instead of taking his life.
A memory haunts me. Sora, flushed and breathless on the wedding night, her raven hair cascading around her as she spoke low through my drunken haze. Cyprian was whispering to her, she’d said. To Avalon.
I’d brushed it off. The navigator was strange, but I trusted him.
He’d saved my life, twice. He’d earned his place on my crew.
And Avalon had been upset. Nervous. She needed someone and it certainly wasn’t me, or a nymph maid who was hardened as bedrock.
Cyprian had a soft touch, a gentle sort of understanding.
But then there was the serpent. The one slithering through my quarters, that would have killed her if Tannin hadn’t caught the young mute smuggling it in. And later, the confession of another crewman. A crewman who’d seen Cyprian whispering to that boy before. A boy I’d sentenced to the sea.
Something trembles within me.
But I hadn't been myself, not since I laid eyes on the nymph. It was a torment, how my memory blurred. How only she was clear, focused, glowing, the center of it all. How I can't recall if I’d seen Cyprian among us when we celebrated on the ship. When I drank and drank, far too much, to try and steady myself. The more I revisit the memory, the more I can’t recall him.
The more I question if he’d slipped off somewhere before returning to the isle shores with us.
And now his claims that she did this. That Avalon slipped off after managing to poison the better half of the crew. It just doesn’t add up. Doesn’t make sense. I knew she was angry, knew she wanted to enter the games, but why would she—
“You look like you’ve been to Eld?heim and back,” Mattias mutters, brushing Sabre's arm and trying to draw my attention. “Should sit before you drop. Both of you.”
“I want answers,” I say, but not to him. “Real ones.”
Sabre folds in on herself, crumbling to her knees, bending to grief. I long to do the same, but my legs won't let me. They push forward.
“Captain?” Cyprian’s voice cuts in, polite, too smooth when he finds me looming at his back.
Every muscle within me tightens. “Tell me again, Cyprian, what happened. Where she went. How it happened.”
His brows lift, a look like mock confusion. How didn't I see it before? See through it?
“I’ve told you. I was on watch. Aizen and Archer ducked off for a nip—”
“How convenient,” I interrupt, stepping closer. “One might say too convenient, considering Aizen is dead. And you’re not.”
“Talon.” He half gasps it, looking aghast. But his hands tremble and there’s a fine layer of sweat dampening his forehead.
“Listen to yourself. Avalon betrayed you. I told you as much. She must’ve planned it with her friend.
I can only assume the girl, that Rowan, poisoned the cask with something they found on Elaris or in the surgery Avalon spent so much of her time in.
Aizen went for a mug and some jerky for us to share.
There was commotion down on the docks, some sort of fighting.
I feared someone may be trying to breach the ship and went to investigate, but it was only a group of rowdy sailors, too much to drink.
I-I wasn't gone for long. When I returned to my post everything seemed normal.
And then dusk fell; I heard the shouts from below.
Screams for help. I ran to see what was happening.
Crewmen were down, spitting blood. Anyone who'd drunk from that barrel….” He points a shaking finger toward a lone cask on the deck.
“Fearing deception, I quickly returned to your quarters only to find the door wide thrown, the room empty.
A look over the railing, I could see Avalon's shining cloak disappear ‘round the gate. Another figure trailed her, her friend. I gave chase. Honest pursuit. They went around the smithing district.” Now he gestures off toward a path that winds and coils toward the east. “I gave earnest chase, but there were celebrations all over the lower districts.
Wild parades in the streets. I searched all night, well into the morning and afternoon, but couldn't find them. Ultimately, I knew I was needed here to tell you what happened and try to aid the sick—”
“Smithing district? Earlier you said they’d gone south, towards the hallowed temples. Which is it?”
"He's lying!" Sabre snarls, arms wrapped tight around herself.
Cyprian hesitates—just for a moment, but it’s enough. His face flushes crimson.
“Y-yes, sorry, south towards the temples. I tried to follow.”
Fury rushes in like a tidal wave. I’ve never been a patient man. War is not patient. The sun’s fury will shine despite shadows. Perhaps that is my greatest weakness.
“Cyprian,” I say evenly. “The truth. Now.”
He falters back a step and I know he’s going to run. But I won’t let him. I seize him by the throat, slam him to the deck with the force of a cannonball. The planks shudder beneath us. His legs kick—a strangled sound rips from his throat.
“Talon!” Mattias calls out, stepping forward. “What in the bloody depths—”
I don’t answer. I rip the sleeve from Cyprian’s shirt, fingers shaking with rage. And there, branded over his shoulder: twin serpent tails, fanged and snarling. House Black. Their mark, burned into the flesh, scarred now.
Mattias draws in a sharp breath behind me. “The boy. The mute one. We tossed him into the sea. You don’t think—” He can’t finish the sentence.
And I can’t finish the thought, the suggestion that maybe…just maybe….
No, not now. I won’t.
Cyprian groans, tries to sit up. “You’re mad! Avalon betrayed you! Took the crown piece and ran. She never loved you—”
The punch lands before I think. Then another.
And another. My hands move on instinct, every strike a release of fury and guilt and grief I haven’t let myself feel.
For the poisoned crew. For Avalon. For the part of me that ever believed Cyprian was loyal.
Blood pours from his mouth. He spits a tooth onto the deck, trembling, half-conscious.
Nicklas appears and grabs my wrist, strong and powerful. His eyes flash, for a moment the same shade of gray as his mother's. “Uncle, you're killing him.”
"Let him!" Sabre howls.
But the word grounds me. Killing. I blink, breath heaving. The runes down my arms are lit, the blue glowing like fresh flame. He’s right. If I don’t stop he won't be able to tell me where she is. My grip loosens. I start to drop him toward the deck, then—
A flash of silver. Steel glinting in sunlight. Cyprian moves quickly. The dagger slices into my shoulder: deep. Searing. Pain rips through me. Not from the blade but from what’s coating it.
Godsbane.
I stagger back in surprise, vision flickering. Agony lancing through me. My hands go to the wound. The pain spreads like ink in water.
“Talon!” Nicklas chokes on the word, reaches for the blade to try and remove it, but I jerk away.
“Don’t. It’s poisoned.”
Cyprian twists then, out of my grip, and claws his way upright, bloodied and wild-eyed. Nicklas considers grabbing him but I still his hand.
“Wait,” I say.
Confusion marks my nephew’s face.
“Fucking coward,” I breathe through gritted teeth as I let Cyprian dive overboard, a splash sounds in the bay below.
Mattias lunges for me. “We have to get that out now! It could be too late already—”
“There’s no time.” I hiss it, already moving. “He’ll lead me to her.”
“The godsbane will eat you from the inside out,” Nicklas argues, pale as bone. And I know he’s picturing it, the way the same poison had destroyed his sister’s eye when they were only children. What their mother had to do to stop it. “Uncle, if you chase him now—”
“If I lose her again, I’ll die anyway.”
I tear past them, muscles screaming, vision spotted, but the blood in my veins burns hotter than godsbane. Purpose. Rage. It’s the promise I made to myself the night I watched her vanish and then lifted her from that storm.
You are mine, Nymph.