Chapter Six #2
That was…not good. It was spectacularly bad, in fact.
The last time the shields of Lyonesse had locked in such a way was when her grandmother was a girl.
They had taken weeks to open and three witches had drowned; another had burned inside the portal when he decided he was strong enough to get through.
They had nearly hanged a woman on the suspicion that she was involved.
“I’m sure you’re mistaken,” she said, not because she thought he was, but mostly because she wanted him to be.
“Set sail.” Everyone scrambled to obey. “Prove me wrong,” he added to Briar in that lilt of his.
“How am I supposed to do that?” she nearly wailed.
“Easy,” Ethan said, even though there was nothing easy about him. “You dropped the shields; you should be able to lift them.”
“How?” Shield magic was beyond her ken. It was the providence of the Iron Witches in Holdfast. The mast was hard at her back, but at least it held her up.
Her hip ached. “Am I to throw rose petals at them? Grow them strawberries?” She’d had no idea until that moment that sarcasm was a perfectly reasonable reaction to panic.
“The shields will react to your presence,” he told her. “It should be enough. Moon charm or no.”
Which might well have been true, were she Petal.
“And then what? I swim to shore?”
“If you like.”
Her hip would never take her that far. She’d worry about that later if she wasn’t dead.
Right now, sparks of pale-blue light shimmered above the waves, hanging like a curtain. A warning. The power of it lifted the goosebumps on the back of her neck. Sailors shifted from foot to foot. A witch ball shattered.
The ship pressed on.
The sparks intensified. The smell of water was tinged with fennel seeds and salt, a mark of strong magic. Her witch knot burned in her palm, as if she were holding a hot coal. She wasn’t the only one, judging by the way the others rubbed their hands and cursed.
The waves moved against the hull and the wood creaked, straining, like some great beast on an invisible leash.
But the ship did not advance.
The prow was bathed in that eerie blue light, hoarfrost clinging to the rails and the floorboards and the anchor. The dragon figurehead wavered like a mirage and then snarled. The sound shivered around them, rattled their bones.
But the shields held.
Of course they did. She was Briar Foxglove. She made flower crowns and nettle tea and rosehip tonics for broken hearts.
Something snapped. Loudly, violently. Briar couldn’t see what it was, rope or board or sail.
“Fall back!”
The shields had formed a kind of bubble around the island, one made of magic and ice and a power that could not be reckoned with. It would take more than Briar’s presence to break them. More than Petal’s as well, she imagined.
There was a collective silence for a moment, wrapping around them like the Order’s iron chains, the ones that trapped a witch’s magic.
“Bleed her dry, cap’n,” one of the sailors shouted suddenly. “Feed the shields until they break!”
Briar went cold.
But not as cold as Ethan.
His entire body might well be a sword. He turned slowly, all sharpness and threat and blood on the floorboards.
The sailor was already advancing, dagger in his hand.
He didn’t make it more than three feet. Ethan laid him out with a single, savage punch to the throat.
He landed on his arse, gagging. “You’ll treat her with respect, Erasmus, or I’ll feed you the kraken. In pieces. Balls first.”
The man gulped, even as he tried to posture from his sprawl. Blood dripped from his crooked nose. “Yes, Captain. Beg your pardon.”
Anais was disgusted. “Up into the crow’s nest and shut your gob unless you want to be demoted back to swabbing,” she snapped at him.
Briar barely heard her.
They would try to bleed her sister dry when they found her. If not the Sea Dragons, then the fine lords from London who could not get home.
The entire island of Lyonesse would be after Petal.
Including hundreds of Midsummer visitors.
If the shields rusted shut, they were likely to try any manner of spell to open them, including pushing Petal right off a cliff or offering her to the mermaids if they thought it would do any good.
They’d use her blood, her bones, anything at all when they got desperate.
A new kind of fear bloomed in Briar’s belly.
She wouldn’t let that happen.
Even if Petal had stolen the bloody moon and damned them all.
“Let me send my swan out,” Briar said. Snapdragon was made of magic. And Petal was her twin, so their magic was linked. Always had been. It was worth a try. As many tries as necessary.
Ethan eyed her for a short, silent moment before nodding. Ice cracked and exploded behind him, sending shrapnel into the water. He didn’t flinch, only kept his focus on her. “Go on.”
She lifted her chin, pretending she was a woman who drank whiskey instead of mint tea.
Her swan pushed from her chest, crackling with energy and hissing with spite.
Now it would have drunk a barrel of whiskey and knocked the sailors overboard with a wing tip given half a chance.
Light streamed from each feather, filling the air with the same kind of cold light that made up the stars.
The crew stepped back, feeling the shiver of witchcraft, the bite of lightning. The shields of Lyonesse.
Ethan tipped his head back, tracking her familiar.
Snapdragon snapped its beak in his direction and then flew toward the prow.
Powerful wings beat and beat, but still it only hovered at the edge of the shields, blue light singeing its feathers.
The taste of mint was strong on her tongue, the way it sometimes was when she reached too deeply into her well of magic.
Pain prickled through her. Sweat gathered under her hair the harder her swan pushed.
All to no avail.
Finally, Snapdragon landed on the deck, screeching, light flickering. Briar slumped. She jerked once, violently, when the swan slammed home, shoving into her chest.
“Guess not,” Anais said.
Ethan’s jaw clenched. “Cut her down. We’re not out of options yet.”
Like hell.
Briar waited until Anais undid the knots, the rope dropping to the deck. Her shoulders protested when she rolled them forward, stiff and sore. She had mere moments to act. She took the gold fork from between her breasts.
And then she stabbed Ethan Swansea in the back.