Chapter 35
CHAPTER
Hours passed by with the deafening sounds of giant waves battering the sides of the ship.
Water rushed down the steps from the deck, and the constant flickering of lightning through the cargo hatch portended the booming thunder.
All around us, passengers held their stomachs and groaned in agony.
Buckets were passed around as quickly as possible, many of which arrived too late.
The acrid tang of vomit was quickly overpowering; it was enough to make me retch a few times myself.
With my hair already a sweaty, matted mess, Trace reached over and pulled the fabric covering it away.
For a brief moment, he leaned in close to me and I inhaled his scent selfishly.
It was a sweet reprieve from the horrific smell now surrounding me.
He handed me the fabric again, instructing me to tie it around my face like a mask to mitigate the stench as much as possible.
I angled my body into his so he could hear me. “I should go up there and see if there is anything I can do to help.”
“If you’re thinking of using your magic, don’t. You must save all your energy for what is to come. You can’t waste a single ounce of your power.”
“You’re right,” I said in resignation.
I leaned back against the wall, trying to ignore the heavy rocking of the ship as I sent a message to Varro.
“Is your ship as bad as ours?”
“Sailors, the Artumians are not,” he replied quickly, confirming his shipmates were just as inexperienced as ours.
The fact that these ships were so hastily built also had to play a role in their poor performance.
The number of times I gave Trace a concerned glance had become too high to count.
Each time, he would look at me and offer a comforting nod, as if to say we were going to be fine.
But it did not feel fine—it felt like we were going to capsize and drown at any moment.
“Any chance you could call your Siren friends to see if they could do anything about these waters,” I joked to my mate through our connection.
“Ha, it doesn’t work like that. In fact, they’d prefer if we all ended up paying them a visit, I assure you.”
My silence back to him made it clear that I found this idea more horrifying than amusing.
“That’s not going to happen, Cress. Just stay focused and keep your lunch in your stomach.”
“I’m already exerting more magic than I’d like to keep the sickness at bay, and the smell isn’t helping.”
Each time I focused in on these silent mind-to-mind conversations with Varro, I could tell it irritated Trace. But I wasn’t going to avoid speaking to my mate just because it bothered him. We could all be heading towards our demise.
I didn’t recall dozing off—the very idea seemed inexplicable—but I awoke to Trace squeezing my hand till I roused.
“The ship is slowing,” he said in a hushed voice. The violent sway had ceased; perhaps the storm had finally passed. “I’ll go topside and report back,” he continued.
“I’m coming with you this time.” If for no other reason than to escape the rank smell permeating the air in our current position.
The look on my face left no room for argument, and I was grateful we needn’t bicker about it since a raised voice would only draw unwanted attention.
It was nearly impossible not to accidentally bump into someone or step on the occasional foot as we progressed toward the stairway.
I whispered apologies as I passed by others who were still sleeping, or simply unconscious after hours of uncontrollable vomiting.
If this was supposed to be Zarif’s army, he had planned poorly.
As Trace and I stepped out onto the decks, the smell of fresh air and the chill of the wind was more than welcomed.
I took in long, deep breaths. It smelled of seafoam, but all around us there was dense, gray fog.
We walked to the edge of the ship and leaned against it, trying to make out our location through the mist blanketing us in all directions.
“It’s only very early morning; this fog should clear shortly. No chance of it thwarting Zarif’s plans,” Trace concluded regretfully.
“We need to get eyes on our surroundings. Do you think one of us could fly above the fog?”
“No, we can’t risk that,” he said.
“Then let subtler means prevail,” I said, not pausing to seek his approval. I began to sharply focus on the air surrounding the ship, when Trace clasped my wrist tightly.
“Don’t. You can’t waste any energy. Not yet.”
I ignored him, tugging my wrist away. Slowly, I pushed the fog farther north—as if it were something I could touch with my own hands—ever so gently giving it the nudge it needed. Trace turned the opposite direction, and my heart sank when I heard his horror-stricken voice.
“Gods be merciful…”
I quickly wheeled around—and that’s when I saw it too.
Bows of multiple large ships penetrating the fog, one after another.
On each ship, a Cambrian crest adorning the sail had been slashed through with black paint, representing that they were now under the control of Artume.
So many ships, more than I could count quickly, all marred with black-slashed sails.
They were not warships. They were merchant ships.
“They’ve commandeered Cambrian trade ships,” I uttered aloud, knowing Trace already understood the severity of the situation.
My eyes focused further as the ships came closer, and I could then make out the countless numbers of Fae all standing in military formation on the decks, wearing full Kingsguard armor.
I quickly conveyed everything we were seeing down the bond to Varro. He confirmed that he and Cairis now had eyes from a different angle, evaluating the same situation.
“They have the stones. They have to. We’re on the wrong damn ships,” Trace said quietly, slamming his fist into the wooden railing.
Varro responded with the same assumptions. “They didn’t have enough time to build all of their own ships. Maybe they never planned to. They’ve taken possession of every merchant ship from the North that anchored at Nasallus’ trade port.”
The fog had migrated far enough away by then that all of the ships were visible, but I had no idea what was awaiting us on the shore.
Had Saryn made it? Were Aeon’s people ready and waiting?
Maybe catapults and scores of archers were pointed straight at us.
All I knew for certain was that Artumian and Cambrian ships were lying in wait just off the coast of the Riverlands.
Saryn could not have known about the plan to steal all of those ships, and now they’d transported double—if not triple—the amount of infantry.
“I see him!” Trace said abruptly, pointing in the direction of one of the acquired ships anchored at the front of the new arrivals. I squinted my eyes to make out Zarif’s tall, slender figure standing at the front of a ship, barking commands to his military leaders.
At the same time, I heard Varro say, “We’ve got eyes on him.”
More passengers were emerging from below deck every minute, but Trace and I stayed focused on our target.
Suddenly, Varro informed me that he was going in for a closer look. I abruptly gasped out, “No,” not realizing I had spoken it aloud until Trace grabbed my arm, asking, “What? What’s wrong?”
“Varro is in the water,” I explained, shakily. “He’s swimming toward the other ships to get us more intel.”
Without a moment’s hesitation, Trace instructed me to focus on the sea and watch for Varro to breach the water. He’d keep an eye on Zarif.
I stared for the longest time at the rippling of the waves, my eyes scanning desperately for his white hair to peek through the dark blue.
Finally, I saw him emerge beside the ship farthest from Zarif’s.
He floated there briefly, looking for a place to crawl aboard.
I wanted to reach out, to speak to him, but distracting him was also the last thing I wanted to accomplish.
He’d have to be extremely quiet and careful to remain undetected.
Once aboard, his soaking wet appearance could easily set off alarm bells. This seemed like a terrible strategy.
“Cress, look at this,” Trace said alarmed, drawing my attention away from Varro and back to Zarif’s ship.
“Do you see the male with the large box in his hands? He’s stopping every few feet.
Those have to be the stones. I think he’s handing them out to the Kingsguards,” Trace surmised, though we could not be certain.
The distance rendered our superior vision inexact, but Trace’s observations seemed keen, nevertheless.
“I’ve got this one covered, look to see if any similar activity is taking place on the other ships,” he instructed.
By now, the upper decks of our ship had become noisy with angry and anxious passengers ready for a fight. My eyes scanned the other ships, looking for any suspicious movements, when I finally spotted another male carrying the same sort of box shuffling about the deck between soldiers.
“Trace,” I whispered. “I think they are distributing them on all of those ships.”
“Why not ours?”
“Because these people are nothing more than a distraction. The real threat is on those ships over there.”
My breath hitched at the thought of Zarif being willing to sacrifice even more Artumian citizens for his cause.
He had never cared about them. They were only sent here to die.
He knew they were weak, untrained, with nothing but vengeance and vitriol to fuel them toward a task that would surely get them killed.
Varro’s message to me was filled with worry. “Stones are present, soldiers are receiving them now.”
I relayed the confirmation to Trace, solidifying our understanding of the situation.
“What do we do?” I asked, fear mounting in my voice.