Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
Athdara is patrolling the barges of the convoy. He seems to be able to jump from one to the next somehow, without bridges, ropes, or other means. Another mystery.
At least, that explains why he is absent most of the time.
Whenever he is on the first barge and passes close to me, he ignores me. Very conspicuously.
Whereas a sudden urge to comb my fingers through my hair and straighten my dress grips me whenever he’s near.
Ridiculous. And not only because I look like something the mermaids dragged in.
He can’t even bother to glance at me, but why would he? Just because he decided to save my life with that smirk that set my blood on fire?
One would think you know nothing of men’s ways, girl.
Which may be true. I know little. But I’ve heard stories and should know better. Funny how my body won’t obey my mind. It must be the little mystery surrounding him, I decide. The shadows, the ability to command draks, his temper, and the rumors flying about when his back is turned.
Look at me. I’m just an old busybody sitting on her porch, indulging her curiosity. It explains my behavior toward him.
Mostly.
“Tyrren is an idiot.” Arkin passes me some rusk and a flask of fresh water after the midday point, sitting down beside me on the deck.
Taking the rusk, I make a questioning gesture and mouth the name. Tyrren?
“I mean Tru. That’s his real name.”
I point at him. And yours?
“I’m Arkin.” He sketches a small, perfectly sarcastic bow where he’s sitting. “Arkin Ath Rubeun. That is, Lord of the House of Ruby. It matches my hair.”
I almost choke on the hard bread I’m eating, snorting. Very funny, Arkin. But who knows, maybe his family did choose the ruby as their gem for being redheads. Why not?
He offers me the flask of water again, and I take a deep draught. Gods, I feel as dried-out as this rusk. I dare take another long draught before relinquishing the flask to him.
“We’ve followed him since he came to court,” he goes on, and he doesn’t have to explain who he means. Of course he’s talking about Athdara. “He became the king’s favorite right away, got promoted to commander after a few years. Tru says the king knows what he’s doing.” Arkin frowns. “I bet he does.”
I wave a hand to get his attention, then I point at his head and shake my hand back and forth to indicate a question. You disagree?
“I don’t know how the king knew,” he mutters, and I’m not even sure whether he’s paid attention to my gestures or if he’s continuing his monologue. “About Phaethon. About the dragons and the gates.”
Now, that gets my attention. That name again. I tap my lips to draw his focus there. Phaethon? Who is he?
Arkin’s frown deepens. “Someone you should not wish to meet.”
Right… Talk about non-answers. Sighing, I concentrate on eating the rusk in my hand. It’s hard like stone, but I need to eat. Keep my strength. I’ve made it so far. It won’t do to pass out and fall off the barge while in sight of the Sea Palace.
“Speaking of hair color…” He takes a long draught from the flask. “Cast out of your town for yours, were you? Unusual in such a young human lady, though it wouldn’t be strange on a fae. That would explain why you were standing in that sinking boat in the swamps.”
I stiffen. I had wondered how long it would take until someone started thinking more seriously about it, questioning me, and looking for the truth.
Time for a little theater and distraction.
So I mime sagging, pull the skin under my eyes, and hunch over.
“Yeah, sure, your hair is white because you’re so incredibly old.” He laughs. “So senile and decrepit.”
I shrug. The main thing is that he drops the question.
And he does.
“When we arrive…” A thoughtful look enters his blue eyes. “Steer away from the imprisoned humanfolk. And the water. Stay on the Temple Island, and stay indoors. That’s the safest place. The arena is like a walled lake, an enclosure in the sea, but separate. Inside, they throw the monsters of their choice, waiting for the games to start. Anything could crawl out at night.”
I give him a skeptical look, swallowing my bite of rusk. Why is he telling me this? Not that I won’t take any help I can get, but I already knew or suspected as much.
“Tru seems fond of you,” he says as if reading my thoughts.
Ah, right… His friend likes me, so he decided to help me. Fair enough.
The darakin from before circles over our barge, its barbed tail swinging as it dives and rises. It looks like it’s playing.
Dolphins jump ahead of us, silver backs shining, mouths looking like they’re laughing. Glittering fish arc over the waves, entire schools of rainbow-hued atherine and narrow-mouths. Blue jellyfish bob in star formations, pushed away by the boats’ path.
I think I can make out sea sylphs on a rocky reef, playing with a golden ball.
The whole world is at play.
It’s so fitting, then, that we’re heading straight for the games, even if they are games of death.
Every game can turn deadly in a heartbeat, and these definitely are.
For the first time since I boarded this barge, doubt hits me like a punch.
A little too late to ask yourself if this was a bad idea , I chide myself. You have no choice anymore. Not unless a kraken sinks the boats, ending your mission here and now, taking your life, returning you to the death you’re used to.
But no kraken obliges.
Instead, we get a charybdis. Careful what you wish for, right? A damn charybdis, a water sucker monster creating a deadly whirlpool.
And it’s sucking us right under.
Cries, screams.
The maelstrom churns the sea with a sound of echoing thunder.
Chaos.
I faintly hear Tru yelling, “Where is Athdara? Get Athdara here! Now! Where in the hells is he?”
The deck slips from under me as the barge tilts in a way it’s not made to tilt: forward, its prow going under.
I grab for whatever handhold I can, sliding across the aged wood planks, my dress snagging here and there—but not enough to stop my demise.
Not again , I think. Do something!
I want to scream, alert someone as I slip toward the water, but no sound escapes my throat. With the noise of the whirlpool, nobody would have heard me anyway.
And Athdara is not here to save me.
A howling guard slides past me on his back, the weight of his armor lending speed to his fall. He drops off the end of the barge with a cut-off yell.
Holy ghosts.
My fingertips dip between two planks, and I jerk to a halt before I fall off the edge. Pain shoots from my wrist up to my elbow, but at least I’m not sliding anymore.
The whirlpool is shrieking underneath us, a dark hole, the huge monster at its end swallowing and swallowing, hoping to get us down its gullet.
My arm is agony.
Straining, I pull myself an inch up. Then another. None of the guards have noticed me yet, busy pulling on ropes and helping the rowers push the boat backward—not that it’s working.
I’m frozen there, holding on for dear life, wondering if this is indeed the end. A return to the womb, to the deep, to that existence I barely recall.
How could Athdara even help? This isn’t a dragon he can cajole or command.
I remember him saving me last time, and then the memory of the blood dripping from his fingers hits me. Is that why he isn’t here, saving people? Is he that badly injured? Not that it matters, and he’s probably at the back of the convoy and taking too long to?—
Shadows swirl on the deck before me, thickening, and he steps out of them, brows drawn together in a thundercloud. Around us, guards scream, more screams coming from the barges behind us and from the ornate boats at our sides, all of us teetering on the edge of the whirlpool, and all I can think of is…
He’s an umbrashifter .
Surprised? I shouldn’t be. I just don’t know the extent of his powers, but I should have realized. That’s how he patrols the barges, shifting from boat to boat, walking the shadows between them.
He lifts a gauntleted hand, and screeching comes from above.
Draks.
After a moment, the flapping of their great wings joins in. I don’t see the drak with the rider, but these ones fly lower and lower until they’re hovering over the barge.
One of them, a black and silver one, is now so low that its huge claws grab the stern of the barge, offering a welcome counterbalance to the tipping prow.
As for me, I’m still hanging on for dear life from the gap between the deck planks.
“Spears!” Athdara roars, and the guards scramble to offer him their spears. He grabs two and turns around, marching along the side of the barge to the back.
To the black drak.
The creature shakes out its great leathery wings, opens a mouth full of fangs, and screeches. Its eyes glow like lamps, yellow and malevolent. Its crest rises in spikes of green and blue, tipped with black.
As I watch, Athdara runs across the deck until he reaches the creature. Then he jams both spears in one hand and uses the other to grab and haul himself onto the drak’s back, black boots finding footholds on the drak’s folded legs.
I’m watching with my mouth open as he settles behind the crested head, and the drak rises in the air with a mighty flap of its leathery wings.
Another flap brings him over the barge, a long shadow, Athdara holding both spears at his sides again, black hair whipping in the wind.
Together they dive down, into the heart of the maelstrom.
Getting to my feet is an arduous task. The barge is still tipped forward despite the rowers continued efforts to pull it back, the prow pitched over the abyss of the giant eddy—into which Athdara and the drak just dived.
My arm muscles burn as I drag myself further up the deck and put my feet under me.
My chest feels too tight. It’s fear, I tell myself, and it is that, too, but also… a tug inside me, behind my ribs. I have no idea what it could be.
Hunched over, I climb up toward the hold. When a strong hand grabs my elbow and helps me up, it turns out to belong to Arkin.
“Rae!” he yells over the deafening noise of the whirlpool. “Are you okay?”
I nod, clinging to the fae guard, my teeth chattering. Then I glance back down, where the water forms a dark hole, churning and swirling in the depths, pulling us in.
Athdara , I form the name with numb lips, gesturing at it.
“Didn’t I tell you he’s mad?” Arkin says, reluctant respect in his voice. “Completely, utterly, fucking mad. Tru is wrong not to believe it.”
Mad, how? I tap the side of my head, twirling my finger.
“Mad as they come.” His voice is barely audible over the shrieking of the whirlpool and the creaking of the barge. “Mad as a drak in the spring. Mad as a jackal. His shadow powers don’t work in the water. If the funnel collapses…”
Frowning, I let him help me to the edge of the hold. I grip it and hiss, my wrist burning. With my luck, I’ve broken it at the worst possible time. Then I grab the ledge harder, with both hands, as the barge tips forward more.
With a muttered curse, Arkin follows suit, looking down at the abyss into which we’re about to drop.
Behind us, muffled by the noise of the water, I can hear the oarsmen and guards shouting orders for the rest of the convoy to row back.
“Fucking games,” he grumbles, his long red hair whipping over his face. He’s lost his helmet somewhere, his sharply-pointed ears peeking through his hair, adorned with silver. “Fucking sea.”
Then, a great whoosh throws us backward. The barge wobbles, then crashes back on the water, throwing everyone and everything all over the deck.
The black drak and its rider fly out of the whirlpool in a rain of water, splashing the deck, the water streaming behind them as they corkscrew up into the air.
The sea follows them, a great wave surging up as the whirlpool sloshes, collapsing. Our barge lurches backward, hitting the one behind us, cries and curses ensuing.
As I cling to that merciful ledge, and as Arkin grabs me again, making sure I don’t slide away, one thought keeps playing over and over in my mind, twining around the daze and awe like a snake.
Athdara is powerful. And if his madness gets the work done… then it’s small wonder the king keeps him around.