Chapter 14
Fourteen
Lierick
Vox used his power to gently lift us all to the side of the boat, and we climbed the ladder slowly, staying in the shadows of the hull as much as possible.
I doubted anyone would really notice, even if we climbed the rail and walked among them.
They were drunk on alcohol and a sadistic kind of revelry.
I sifted through the thoughts of the people on the large boat, and the siren song of fear was below deck, as expected.
Hayle was on high alert as we moved along the deck, staying close to the walls.
Inhaling deeply, he pointed to a hatch in the bow of the ship, probably for the crew to descend rapidly between levels.
I sent my awareness down the small, narrow space, but there wasn’t anyone in the area just below.
I nodded that it was safe, and Hayle opened the hatch, with Vox heading down first. Hayle tilted his chin, indicating I should go next, before he climbed in after me, silently lowering the hatch door behind us.
This was one of the sticking points, because right at this moment, we were fish in a barrel as we descended from the upper deck to the lower deck, but thankfully, we made it to the belly of the boat without alerting anyone.
We moved further down into the bottom level, sticking to the edges of the space.
I could hear the laughter from a different room, could smell the fetid stench of terror.
Building up my psychic walls, I let my magic out. I allowed it to sift through the people down here, finding the innocents, the ones who turned a willful blind eye because they were powerless or greedy, and the villains.
Shining brightly above them all, far above my head on an upper deck, was Yaron Vylan. His mind was like oozing pus in a necrotizing wound. This man was what I’d expected Vox to be: a rotten waste of lifeforce. A drain on the magic of Ebrus. A spit in the eye of the Goddess.
Pushing my rage back down, I sought out the minds of those who were scared.
There were three people down here who were here as entertainment.
Two men and a woman. We’d put the other two on a lifeboat back toward Cyne, and Moran Ingmire had promised to help any other victims if they arrived, putting fishing trawlers out at first light to scoop them out of the lake.
I pointed down another narrow hall, and my stomach turned as we came across a man walking toward us, pushing his shirt back into his pants.
His head snapped up when he saw us, and he opened his mouth to shout.
I immediately whipped out with my magic, but Vox got there first. He sucked the air out of the guy’s lungs, and I wasn’t sure exactly what he did, but the man’s face went red, then an angry shade of puce, before it just…
exploded. Chunks of bone and brain splattered across the walls and slid down Vox’s air shields around us.
“Thanks. Wouldn’t want to wear some fucker’s brains all the way home,” Hayle muttered. He kicked open the door, two large knives in his hands, and I followed behind him, my own weapons out.
It was pure training that stopped me from leaning to the side and vomiting. There was a lone figure standing there, jerking off as he carved his name into the back of a naked man, who was suspended from the ceiling by ropes of air.
A low growl bubbled up from Hayle’s throat, and he was a blur as leapt on the back of the First Line partygoer.
The guy was hampered by his pants around his thighs, but it wouldn’t have mattered.
Hayle slit his throat with so much force that he severed most of the muscles of his neck.
The man’s head flipped back like an open tin can, blood spraying from his artery like a fountain.
The room was a horror house. The three other people in the room were all hanging from ropes of air, naked and battered. Tortured.
Vox stepped toward them, cutting the air restraints with his own power. It was hard to tell who was who beneath the dirt and dried blood. The man who was being carved up fell roughly to his knees as he was released, but he showed no pain. He showed no sign of life at all.
Fuck, I hoped this wasn’t Powell Ingmire.
“We are looking for Powell,” Hayle murmured gently. “Your brothers sent us.”
The boy on the other side raised his head. Goddess, he couldn’t have been more than eighteen. His hair was a dark brown, but stringy and patchy. He looked at us with hope in his expression, though he didn’t say anything. His eyes drifted to Vox, then to me. He was the one we needed.
Hayle moved toward the boy, who quickly crab-walked backwards until he hovered over the only girl protectively. Burns marred both their skin, as well as open wounds that were actively bleeding, next to some older, festering ones.
Fucking Goddess. What had this poor kid endured?
Squatting down in front of the boy, Hayle softened his face.
“You don’t know me, but my name is Hayle Taeme.
I’m an Heir to the Third Line. You brothers want me to get you out and take you somewhere safe.
You don’t have to go home. You don’t have to go back to Fortaare.
You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, except get the fuck off this boat, okay? ”
The boy’s hands trembled, but he met Hayle’s eyes with stubborn determination. Finally, he nodded. “They come too,” he croaked out, his throat sounding like it was wounded. Fuck, we’d need to find a healer sooner rather than later.
“I would never leave them behind. But we need to go,” Hayle said quietly.
Powell nodded again, turning to look at the girl. He was completely uncaring about his nudity, and I knew that it wasn’t confidence, but a debasement so comprehensive that the idea of shame had fled from his consciousness.
He was protective of the girl, though, hiding her nudity from us. Vox pulled off his shirt and tossed it to Hayle, who passed it to Powell. “For your friend.”
Vox cleared his throat. “We need to go now.”
Powell dragged the shirt over the girl, and they both stood up on shaky legs. The girl was worse off, and I could see the bottoms of her feet had been burned. Vox ground his jaw, and I saw death in his eyes. The chances of this being a low-profile extraction had just disappeared.
Hayle leaned closer. “I can carry her, if she’ll allow it?” He looked between the two of them.
Powell whispered to the girl, who whimpered softly. After a moment, she nodded.
Hayle made himself smaller, whispering something I could only just hear.
“You’re very brave. This will be all over soon.
My wife is on the boat. She’ll take care of your injuries.
” He looked over at me, anger burning so hot in his eyes, I knew he was seconds from beasting out.
“And then we are going to sink this whole ship—and everyone on it—to the bottom of the lake, until they’re nothing more than fish food. I promise it.”
The girl held herself rigid as Hayle scooped her into his arms.
“Get them out of here. Vox and I are going to pay a little visit to his brother.” I could see Vox was now practically vibrating with rage. Nodding, Hayle left, with Powell and the third prisoner behind him.
For the next ten minutes, Vox and I went level by level of this Goddess-forsaken vessel.
I sifted through the shit, being the voice of judgment to every single soul we came across.
There was no hiding from the Second Line.
The crew were split pretty evenly between those who’d reveled in the cruelty, and those who’d had no choice.
Those who’d enjoyed the spectacle were rendered unconscious. Those who were there under duress were bound and gagged, placed in one of the life vessels.
The partygoers, though—they received no such trial. Every single one died by either my hand or Vox’s. They would go down with the ship to live with the bottom-dwellers forever.
Finally, we made it to the surface party. These people were so oblivious, completely unaware that fate had caught up with them, and that her hand of judgment was cruel. Like a puppetmaster, I waved a hand, and everyone collapsed to the ground like I had cut their strings.
Everyone except Yaron Vylan. I guess Daddy Vylan had found his Heir a charm. But that wouldn’t save him now.
“Brother! I thought you’d be hiding away in the caves down south. What brings you to Lake Vale with a dead man?” Yaron seemed completely at ease, despite everyone around him being unconscious.
Vox rolled his eyes at his brother’s arrogance. “I had some spare time, so I thought I’d drop by and send you to the depths of the underworld, as you so deserve.”
Yaron Vylan laughed, like Vox’s words were a great joke, and that’s when I knew this man was not sane. Any pretense of civility had been stripped from him, if he’d ever had it in the first place. “You and what army, little brother?”
Vox smiled. It was a cold, cruel expression. He waved a hand, and the water around the boat rose up like a tidal wave. “I don’t need an army.”
Yaron’s eyes widened, but he kept up his bravado. “Look at you, keeping secrets.” He struck out with his own lashes of air, battering against the shields around us. I crept around the back of their battle, element fighting element.
Once upon a time, I could almost imagine they’d been well matched. But his humanity wasn’t the only thing Vox had been keeping a secret. His strength was a threat and a promise, as he pushed through Yaron’s shields with a dagger of water. Air pried open Yaron’s jaws, and water poured in.
Leaping forward, I slapped my hands on either side of Yaron’s head and sifted through his thoughts. Painfully. I raked the claws of my magic through his memories, searching for secrets and clues, finding countless memories of sadism and pain.
Yaron gurgled as he drowned. I grimaced as I saw conversations with the Baron of the First Line. He knew far too much. He knew about the Second Line. He’d tortured our spies and informants. He could take an educated guess at our end game.
But he was too narcissistic to believe any of the people he’d ground beneath his heel would ever rise against him. I’d be glad to watch his downfall from a front-row seat.
I shredded the final parts of Yaron’s mind, scrambling them like shaken eggs, killing him before Vox had to. No matter how evil they were, or how necessary it was, killing your blood kin tainted your soul. I’d spare Vox that darkness.
Vox looked wild as he panted, staring down at the lifeless body of his brother. I reached out to touch his arm lightly, and he flinched. His eyes took a moment to refocus on my face, and I wondered what haunted memories he was lost in.
Leaning forward, I kissed him hard. The rough press of my lips to his was an anchor—to me, to here, to a place where those awful memories that plagued him didn’t exist. He softened beneath my hands on his chest, and his lips moved away from mine.
I rested my forehead against his. “It’s time. Let’s sink this cesspool and go back to Avalon,” I murmured.
Nodding dazedly, Vox flexed that incredible power once more. He floated us off the ship, back onto the deck of our much smaller boat. I could see the tiny lifeboat with the crew I’d deemed innocent already floating back toward the eastern edge of Lake Vale.
“Raise the anchors, Iker. It’s time to go.”
We were less than a mile away when a sucking noise echoed across the surface of the lake, and huge tendrils of water gushed over the ship, tipping it like a child’s bath toy. Fire lit the hull, and soon, the wooden siding was burning like a funeral pyre.
Vox stood alone on the bow of our boat, silhouetted by the fire.
So much power at his fingertips, but the taste of his thoughts, of his conflict, broke my heart.
Even in the face of the evil that had been Yaron Vylan, he grieved.
Not the man himself, but the idea of what he could have been.
Vox’s loneliness was like a blanket that coated us all.
Avalon walked up behind him, wrapping her body around his, her love pulsing out of her in near-visible waves. She would ensure he was lonely no more.
We all would.