Chapter 4
Four
Avalon
Ipuked over the railing for what felt like the seventieth time that morning.
Apparently, I wasn’t a natural seafarer.
Vox was watching me with concern on his face, and I felt a small band of air around my ankle, like he was worried I was going to heave so badly that I’d propel myself over the edge of the boat.
As bile burned up my throat, and I jerked against the smooth wooden rail, I acknowledged it was a possibility.
Everyone else was fine. They’d all been sailing from place to place since they could walk, but I’d lived in the fucking mountains, about as solid a land lover as you could get. I wasn’t made for bouncing over waves.
Even the word bouncing made me want to vomit.
Hayle had come and held my hair, until I’d shooed everyone away so they’d stop hovering. I could be miserable and have the semblance of privacy.
At least the fish would be happy.
“Avalon?”
I groaned as Lierick appeared beside me. “What?” I snapped. Being seasick made me grumpy.
“You, uh, seem pretty miserable right now.”
“You think?” My growled response was punctuated with a noise that should only be made by a dying bullock.
The fucker laughed. Oh, he was lucky I was too miserable to ball punch him right now.
“I’m sorry you feel sick. Uh, we have this trick we use on the children in Ozryn who suffer like this.
But it involves letting me inside your mind completely.
I need to basically convince your brain that it’s used to the motion of the boat already.
It’s usually only done by parents or partners.
Being inside someone’s head like that is…
intimate.” He cleared his throat. “Although, I think you’ll naturally acclimate to the motion of the boat in another twelve or so hours, if you want to ride it out. ”
I looked at him over my shoulder, regretting it immediately as my stomach lurched. “Are you going to fry anything while you’re in there?”
He looked offended. “Of course not.”
My stomach lurched again. This was so much worse than the ferry between Ovl and Boemouthe.
This was even worse than that one time I’d been so desperately hungry, I’d eaten a meat pie I’d found behind the kitchen scrap bucket, which had given me food poisoning.
I’d thought I was going to die that week.
“Let’s do it.”
Lierick nodded, and Vox came closer. Hayle was also watching us from across the boat, like he was willing to rip off Lierick’s head, if he did something Hayle didn’t like.
Lierick sat down on the deck. “It’s best if we do it here, out in the open where you can see the waves. Sit; you’ll have to be close for this to work.”
With a groan, I knelt in front of him. He gripped my hips, dragging me closer, then placed his hands on either side of my face. His dark eyes were intense as they met mine. They kept dropping to my lips, until I was sure he was going to kiss me.
Instead, he swallowed hard. “Close your eyes.”
I ignored the urge to throw up as I did what I was told.
Almost immediately, I felt Lierick in my head.
It was a gentle tickle in my mind, like a buzz that was just pitched a little too high for you to really hear.
Thoughts flicked through my brain like memories scrawled onto a deck of cards, being shuffled gently.
Almost unbidden, they flowed through my brain, like they were being pulled out and examined.
How miserably sick I felt, the memories of the pie-poisoning incident when I was five, the reasons why I’d been starving at all.
It was just before the pie-poisoning that my father had realized Kian was caring for me and had forbidden him to continue.
It was also the first time he’d beaten Kian for disobeying him.
It had taken Kian months to work up the courage to stand up to my father again, but he had. Over and over again.
I thought about how much I wished I had some of Acacia’s seasickness remedy. And I wondered how she was, how they all were. Had they escaped Boellium? Where would they be going afterwards? Would they disappear into the mountains of West Ebrus, and if they did, would they go back to starving?
Maybe the Second Line would come down and help. I knew that Lierick was here, but I also knew that the Baron of the Second Line was rallying an army. We were just helping the cause over here, even if I didn’t understand what I brought to those negotiations.
I was glad Lierick was here; even if he’d upended my life, I felt a connection to him deep in my soul.
It didn’t help that he was hot as hell, and I would bet he’d look really great naked.
When I’d seen him and Vox kissing, all I’d been able to imagine was being in between their naked bodies as they did so, and it was like an electric shock of pleasure straight to my cli—
“Fuck me, Avalon. You have to stop,” Lierick groaned as he dragged his hands away from my face. The raw need in his eyes made me want to pant, but the residual taste of vomit in my mouth really quelled my lustful thoughts.
I paused, waiting for the nausea, but it never came. “It worked.” I grinned widely at Lierick. “You’re a magician.”
He slumped back on the deck, and I could see the bulge in his thick, woven pants before he covered it with his hands. My face flushed. I stupidly hoped that Lierick hadn’t actually seen my dirty fantasies about him and Vox kissing.
“Thank you for trusting me inside your innermost thoughts,” Lierick purred, and the looks he was casting between me and Vox left very little doubt that he’d been a participant in that dirty daydream. “It was intriguing, to say the least.”
I slapped a hand over his mouth and glared. “Enough of that. But thank you. The nausea is gone.”
“Anytime. And uh, the things I found there?” His voice was quiet.
“There’s a code of secrecy that is sacrosanct in Ozryn and among my Line.
A person’s thoughts are their own, and if you stray into someone’s mind or find something that you know is private, it goes with you to the grave, except in the most dire of circumstances. ”
This time, my embarrassment was scalding.
I just nodded and shifted to my feet. The sun had risen and was high in the sky, but tiredness was dragging against my limbs.
Throwing up a decade’s worth of food had been exhausting.
At the end, I was fairly sure I was throwing up things my ancestors had eaten.
Clearing my throat, I looked at the horizon. There was nothing but clear blue ocean as far as I could see, and now that I wasn’t trying to survive seasickness, I could acknowledge that the sheer nothingness was kind of unsettling.
“Where are we going?” I felt kind of stupid that I hadn’t asked before now.
It was Iker who answered from the wheel. “There are rumors of dissension among the Sixth Line about the current system, so we’re starting in Doend. Even if they’re just rumblings, it’ll be a good place to land.”
I’d never been to Doend, the main city for the Sixth Line Barony.
I hadn’t spoken much to Gerod Marlee at the tournament, but he seemed okay.
And the Sixth Line conscripts back at Boellium weren’t nearly as obnoxious as some of the other Upper Lines.
It was like they knew they were one false move away from being in the Lower Lines with the rest of us—better to not burn too many bridges.
“Plus, they also have eidetic memories and an impressive library, so perhaps we can find out more about Recreationists and the Ninth Line. Maybe about Ellanora Halhed. Something to help shed light on how and why you’re so important,” Vox added.
“My father dislikes the Sixth Line. They might forgive his transgressions, but they never forget. And they never hold back from correcting him during Conclaves, which he loathes.”
Hayle gave a bitter little laugh. “I knew I liked them for a reason.” He picked me up, his gait completely steady, despite the rocking of the boat. “Come on, Avie. Let’s get you something to eat, now that it’s not going to come straight back up as fish food.”
We’d almost made it to the hatch when a sea eagle appeared, circling above the boat.
I recognized it as his father’s bird. It landed on the railing of the boat, vicious talons gouging the wooden siding.
Hayle placed me back on my feet and bowed low to the bird.
He tilted his head, and I knew he was conversing with the eagle.
“They pulled all the Eleventh and Twelfth Lines, and a significant number of the Tenth last night. They’re passing it off as an important religious festival that everyone needed to return west to attend, and are hoping no one asks too many questions.”
“Any sign of my father?” Vox asked the bird.
Hayle shook his head. “Not yet, but the attack in the last reset didn’t happen for another couple of hours. We’ve done everything we can.”
Yet it still didn’t feel like enough.
The giant eagle squawked at me, hopping closer, and I tried not to flinch back. It was huge, its talons easily able to tear off my face. It made an annoyed sound, then hopped from the rail to the deck. It shook wildly, its feathers fluffing out, until something thudded to the boards.
A sleeping, purple lump.
“Epsy?” I squealed. The little stolt yawned and stretched, then raced toward my legs to climb my clothes until he was in my arms. “What are you doing here, you naughty little fleabag?” I choked out. “You were supposed to go back and live with your family in the woods.”
Chittering, he curled up around my neck, and I tried not to cry. I’d thought I’d never see him again.
Looking down at the eagle, I bowed low. “Thank you. This is a gift I will never forget.”
The eagle cooed, looking between me and my stolt, while Epsy chittered back. As the giant bird launched itself up and flew back out to sea, heading vaguely west, I rubbed my cheeks against Epsy’s soft fur.
“What did he say?” I asked Hayle, who was looking at me with proud, shining eyes.
“He said that every warrior of the Third Line should have their animal companion by their side in battle. He also said the creatures stand with you, Recreationist. Well, he sent me an image of a phoenix, but that’s pretty close.”
I gave him a tight smile. I knew the myth of the phoenix, that it rose from the ashes to be reborn again.
But to rise from the ruins, everything I loved would have to be destroyed first, and that was one fate I wanted to escape at all costs.