Chapter 5
CHAPTER FIVE
Most of us remain on the flat barges as the night comes down. The fleet still needs to be guarded against attacks, and that includes our barge that only carries guards, not to mention the ones carrying the precious cargo of the sacrificial victims.
A stench wafts downwind from the cages, that of unwashed bodies and waste. It turns my stomach, as much as the knowledge that all those humans were caught like rabbits in a snare and are now sent to the anaktor to die in the trials of the festival.
Tru catches my grimace as he steps back onto the first barge, carrying baskets with flatbread and what looks like cured meat. “The humans are headed for the Death Games, little lady.”
Gods. He thinks I don’t know? That’s what the humans call the trials, and I wonder now if the fae call them the same.
I gesture at the cages, then mimic cleaning. Mimic eating.
“Yeah, yeah, we’ll feed them,” he says. “Grab something for yourself now, before the men fall on the food like wolves.”
Frowning, I reach into one of his baskets and tear out a chunk of bread. Then I grab a slice of ham. That settled, I point again at the cages.
“I said we’ll feed them. Arkin!”
“Coming!” his friend bellows, following him onto the boat, carrying his share of baskets with food. “Greetings, Rae.”
“You know her name?” Tru stops in the process of turning away from me. “Your name is Rae?”
I nod. Tentatively, I form the name with my mouth. It will have to do.
Tru smiles. “Well, you should have said so!”
Arkin groans and kicks at Tru’s leg. “You’re too stupid to live. Get moving, or the men will fall on us and eat us together with the bread.”
I watch them go, nibbling at the bread and ham. But my attention is caught by movement inside the outpost camp. Several fae are gathering and pointing up.
It’s a drak, circling overhead, a light blue with a darker belly and wings. A Jay drak, named like the bird for its colorings, its rider wearing a gleaming helmet and breastplate.
It’s coming down, I realize, at the same time as I realize that Athdara is there, near the group, muscular arms folded over his chest, his dark head bare as always. He’s standing apart from the men, a towering dark presence, brutally elegant in his black leathers and his crown of wild black hair.
Up in the air, the drak’s circles grow tighter as it comes down, until it’s right on top of the barracks, the surge of wind from the descent pushing me backward. I resist, sitting down on the barge’s side, making myself small as I watch this spectacle play out.
I’ve rarely seen a drak with a rider from up close before. The draks I’ve seen have always been wild, only diving down headfirst to grab an animal off the earth or water, like birds of prey, then swinging back up into the sky.
Flames and screams and death…
Yes, apart from that one time.
Draks are the size of horses and are used as winged mounts by the king’s elites in battle and to carry messages, unlike the Great Dara whom nobody can command. Draks were commandeered to save humanfolk as well as finnfolk during the last Reversal, something most people forget.
Whereas the dara are big like houses, dangerous and unpredictable. Intelligent, some say. Old. Highly magical. Keeping to themselves since they fell through the cracks in the firmament three hundred years ago, who knows from which world.
The king fears them even more than he fears the finnfolk.
They say that nobody has ever called one down.
They also say that the fae king has a Great Dara skull in his throne room in the capital, Siris. They also say that he has a host of darakins in cages and has them fight one another in the ring. That he has a tower as narrow as a spindle and high as a mountain to watch the skies, from which to study the wandering Eosphors and the dragons.
They say a lot of things. I wonder how much of it is true, if any.
The Jay drak lands, skidding in the muddy soil, leaving deep grooves as it flaps its wings and comes to a halt right before the docks. Its long blue tail and its wings are patterned with delicate stripes of yellow and black, and the frilled black crest on its head lifts and flares.
Its rider pats the creature’s scaly neck a few times, calming it down before swinging a leg over the saddle and sliding down its side to the ground.
He has barely landed, hunched over with his knees still bent to absorb the impact, when Athdara swoops down on him, pointing an accusing finger. “Where in the hells were you?” he demands, his voice a low rumble. “And where are the others? You are supposed to protect this convoy.”
“My lord.” The rider straightens. “Suspicious activity was spotted in the higher sky. The Great Dara were gathering, a couple of them flying quite low, and we thought?—”
“At least one drak has to remain with the convoy,” Athdara says, his tone implacable. “Those were your fucking orders.”
The man bows stiffly from the shoulders. “Lord Athdara. I believe dara activity trumps escorting, Commander, and since the dara respond to great surges of power?—”
“I’m aware of how Great Dara operate,” Athdara snaps, his voice carrying over to me. It’s slightly rough, I notice. Smokey. “Dara activity trumps escorting when our convoy is not attacked by merfolk. You will remain with the convoy until we reach the anaktor , is that understood?”
The drak rider bows stiffly. “Yes, Commander.”
Athdara says nothing more for long moments, seeming to be staring both man and drak down. The name doesn’t fit him, I think, though why would one expect a name given by others to fit a man? No clue. It’s not a name. It’s a title. I wonder what his real name is.
Then he turns my way, his gaze finding me immediately, as if he knew all along that I was sitting here, watching. Thinking about him.
A jolt goes through me, right through my chest, seizing my heart, stopping it, then starting it again. My breath catches.
He seems to radiate power, his focus on me burning. The dark swirls under his eyes and over his sharp cheekbones turn his gaze more intense. He’s marking me as a target, singling me out like a black lion of the plains, and I’m a prey in his sights, frozen with instinctive reaction.
I don’t move, don’t breathe, until he’s marched off and into the barracks of the outpost in a billow of darkening shadows.
Only then do I sag, bending forward, my heart racing.
Is this what fear feels like?
Still shaken from that look he cast me, I watch the restocking of the barges, the food and water arranged inside deep crates and barrels, then carried down into the holds. The humans yell from their cages, and the wind snatches at the words, shredding them, though I make out something about death and retribution.
If they think the sleeping gods will strike the fae king down dead for his crimes, they haven’t studied history very closely. Bad people tend to win. Oppressors, dictators, conquerors, kings… they rarely lose the war. It’s the innocents who pay the price.
Wishing for retribution won’t get the job done. Wishing generally doesn’t.
One needs to act.
Easier said than done, I know. After all, who would have come along willingly and become sacrificial fodder for the fae king’s twisted pleasure? And yet here they are, all these men and women, in filthy cages, carried to their deaths. They had no choice. That’s what bad people do: they take away your choices.
So, I’m keeping my choices close to my chest. If you don’t tell others your thoughts and plans, they remain safe.
The draks keep circling overhead as we slowly move through the river delta that opens to the sea. The Pillar is now towering over everything, the gigantic trunk of the world tree, the striations where it meets the sky resembling branches, though we all know by now that they are nothing of the sort.
They are cracks in the firmament through which the eldritch creatures pass.
The fae came through, as did the Eosphors, the Great Daras, probably the darakins, and also some of the great wyrms living under the earth. Our world is self-healing, like every world, so the cracks have mostly closed, leaving only enormous scars behind.
But are the gates really sealed? Are they closed until the next Reversal?
“He will open the gates for us!”
I shudder. A Reversal is a cataclysmic event. It causes a lot of death and suffering. Nobody in their right mind would want to experience it.
Kneeling near the center of the deck, I stare up at the sky as we inch downriver. It’s full of colors as the morning blooms, and the black cracks seem to throb in time to my heart.
“Watch out!” someone cries, and I reluctantly glance down from the sky. “Nokke! Nokke nearby! Take heed!”
Also called calpa by some, or kelpy, the nokke are watersprights that take the shape of horses, their nature evident in the fanciful colors of their coats—as rainbow-hued as draks, as lithe as colts, with long, beautiful manes and tails that almost reach the ground.
They stare at us from the riverbank, not even pretending to graze. Pretty as they are, one should avoid them, because they like to drag human and fae alike into the water and devour them. Like everything magical, they are both terrifying and lovely, their mouths full of black, sharp teeth, their jaw unhinging like a snake’s, allowing them to swallow big prey.
“Beware of beauty, little human lady.”
We float by the knot of nokke, the punters shoving their poles into the bottom of the river faster, pushing us forward. The nokke lift their equine heads, nostrils flaring, their tails lashing back and forth. One of them turns and slips back into the river, but the guards are ready, waiting with the spears lifted, in case it surfaces near us.
It’s warmer here, near the Pillar, and the guards have been sweating in their leather armor. They also seemed to have relaxed a little. We are within sight of the Sea Palace, nearly at our destination. They chat among themselves, and the occasional peal of laughter reaches me.
A female guard keeps glancing at me. I don’t think she likes me hogging the deck.
On cue, she says, “Why is this one allowed here? She should be in one of the cages with her fellow humans.”
But the other guards are gathering and pointing at the starboard side and everyone’s attention is redirected there. I get up to see, as I’d rather not be caught off guard by whatever rises from the river.
It’s not a nokke, as I’d feared, but nymphs. They are gathered in a pool in the shallows, combing their hair, watching us pass. They don’t sing or come after us. I feel their gazes on me, and I do my best to gaze straight ahead until we pass them.
With no mountains or hills to stop it, the breeze has turned into a steady wind. My hair keeps winding about my head in white sheets and tassels, getting into my mouth. I spit it out for the hundredth time as the punters hoy-ahoy at each other and shove us away from what seems like rocky shallows.
“Come here,” one of the guards says, a huge fae with long dark hair spilling under his helmet and over his breastplate.
I point at my chest. Me?
“Yeah, you. We have an argument we want you to settle,” he says.
Wary, I take three steps in their direction. The guards have ranged from indifferent to kind toward me so far, so I have no reason to refuse.
But his gaze hardens when I’m close enough to touch. “Varna here is right.” He nods at the female guard who’s observing me with a smirk on her face. “Who said you’re allowed to be on the first barge with us?”
Holy Wights. I shove my hand into the folds of my skirt, palming the hilt of my dagger. I grew complacent and lazy, thinking nobody in this convoy would attack me, but not even superstition can prevent people from seeking sick entertainment.
“Who said you could travel with us?” Varna demands, reaching for me. “By all rights, you should have drowned and saved us the trouble. No reply, huh? Nothing to say? Or do you want me to believe that you are actually mute? Think it’s a funny game to play?”
No, it’s certainly not funny. To get out of her reach, I step back, close to the edge of the deck—and something snags my skirt and yanks .
My breath stutters. Twisting about, I find a long, equine face leering at me, teeth like daggers, huge black eyes. Those teeth snap at my long dress again, shredding the hem as I jerk backward…
… and come short. He’s still got me.
It’s a nokke. Probably the one that had dived earlier into the river—had it latched onto our barge?—or perhaps another. It’s not like there’s any shortage of monsters in the water.
The teeth snag deeper in my hem, and it shakes its head, this time yanking me to the very edge of the barge.
My mouth opens to scream, but no sound comes out as I grab for something to hold onto, anything to keep from falling into the river and the jaws of the monster.
The guards start toward me, then hesitate, and I’m falling, tumbling down the side of the barge.
The air rushes past my ears, my cheeks, my arms, but my lungs can’t draw it in. The light slants and splinters.
Time slows, and all I can think of is that I need to grab the boat’s edge, but my hands are closing on air?—
A snake wraps around me, a rope, a snare, stopping my fall. It tightens around my waist and yanks me back up, higher and higher, finally releasing me in mid-air.
Flailing, I find myself tumbling once more, the world streaking around me… until I crash into a muscular chest.
Strong arms wrap around me, ending my fall, knocking the last of my breath out of me. Through the dizziness, the scent of wood smoke and leather envelops me, and I know who is holding me.
Athdara.
Where did he come from? I hadn’t seen him all day, and I never thought…
Never thought he’d make the effort to save me again.
I make the mistake of glancing up at his face, and the dizziness worsens. Shadows, so many shadows—dancing black flames in his eyes, a spiky crown on his tousled head, and arching over his shoulders, two huge wings spread from his back.
I’m seeing things.
Lowering my gaze, I take a deep breath, trying to settle my stomach and my heart. Two small marks on the long column of his neck catch my attention.
Two small wounds, close together, bruising around them. What’s the cause of them?
The barge lurches forward, the guards shouting warnings about the nokke to the convoy following us, but he’s still holding me, and I’m still caught in his eyes, his shadows, his strong arms.
I feel… safe.
But that feeling isn’t real. I’m never safe anywhere, ever.
He’s observing me, his mouth soft and his strong jaw clenched, at odds with one another. Annoyed. Amused. Vacillating between the two moods.
“You should be more careful,” he finally says, his voice a smoky rumble. “I have too much on my hands right now to keep an eye on you.”
I frown.
“And save you from treacherous situations,” he goes on and a smirk tugs on his mouth, turning slightly crooked.
A little dazed, I stare at that arrogant tilt of soft lips, the brash words he spoke, but the shadows are gone, I realize, and Gods above, he looks so different. So… young and beautiful. He was beautiful the first time I saw him, granted, but now his beauty is like a knife to the heart.
“You can’t speak.” His smile slowly fades, and that makes me sad. He lowers me to the deck. “Speak softly, but carry a dagger…”
I stiffen at the mention of the first line in the Book of the Maze and the Snail , an old classic. He must have felt the dagger hidden in the folds of my skirt, pressing against him. Will he take it from me?
The guards approach us, and his mouth tightens again, his gaze hardening.
“My lord Athdara,” one of the guards says. “Your orders?”
“I’ll give you my fucking orders. Stop talking and keep your eyes on the fucking water,” Athdara snaps, all trace of amusement gone. He steps back, towering over me, but his gaze has already dismissed me. “You swore a duty and you’re slacking. As for why she remains here… It’s simple. Because I said so .”