Chapter 8
CHAPTER EIGHT
Cradling my arm to my chest, I stand and watch the drak circle back over the convoy. I’m still startled every time I see a drak from up close. The body may have the size of a horse, but the wingspan is at least two times that on either side, and their reptilian faces are like those in nightmares. As for their crests… fun .
If I wasn’t still reeling over almost losing my grip and going overboard mere moments ago, I’d enjoy seeing the drak hover over our barge, the finer, dark gray scales on its belly shimmering with an oily sheen.
But I can’t help but watch as the handsome dragon speaker fae jumps off the drak’s back and lands in a crouch on the deck, the impact rocking the barge.
With difficulty, I turn my gaze away.
So what if his form is so damn pleasing—his body so powerful, from the muscular shoulders and chest to the tapering of narrow hips and long legs, and that face, composed so perfectly, from the straight nose to the square jaw and high cheekbones, the thick brows and dark eyes and even those dark blossoms staining the skin underneath?
The brighter the light, the greater the shadow, isn’t that what they say? And he delivers on both, stark beauty and brutal darkness.
Pressing my lips together, I turn away resolutely and stomp to the opening of the hold. The smell of cured meat and fish wafting from inside turns my stomach. Maybe it’s the pain still thrumming through my arm, filling my veins with fire and making my head spin.
The guards hover at the sides of the barge as the drak flies away, joining the swarms crisscrossing the rose-and-gold afternoon sky.
One of the guards yells a name. Another yells another name. People start bowing over the sides of the barge, staring into the water.
Looks like we lost a few guards.
It makes me feel even luckier for managing to hold on.
The Sea Palace glows ahead, so close now, the Pillar phosphorescing behind it in the distance, taking up a good part of the horizon.
I’ve never been so close to the World Pillar in my life. It’s hard to describe its enormity and the power it exudes. It’s a pulse, a distant drum inside my head. A flashing beacon at the edge of my vision. An entity, so powerful and alien it twists my mind.
Someone steps in front of me, and a long shadow falls over me. The wind carries his scent first, smoky and masculine.
“Are you hurt?” Athdara barks. His black hair is wet and tousled, brushing his pale jaw and falling into those piercing eyes.
I frown up at him. Gods, he’s so tall. I have to crane my neck to meet his gaze. The dark swirls under his eyes seem to move, but that can’t be right.
“I said, are you hurt, little lady?” he demands again.
Rae , I mouth the word, since this is now my name, and tap my chest. I’m Rae.
“Rae,” he concedes. “Are you cold?”
I shake my head slowly. Why is he asking? I can’t figure him out.
“You shouldn’t be here at all. It’s dangerous.” He steps closer, way too close, and I take a precarious step back, still clutching my arm. “It’s a dangerous place, a dangerous time, and… and I…”
I stare at him. I stare as a grimace twists his handsome face. His lips peel back and his dark eyes flash. Gold glows in their depths.
“ Tenebra ,” he grunts, jerking back, the shadows thickening around his shoulders, lifting his black hair. “ Khora …”
That’s not my name. I glare at him and slap my chest again. It’s Rae.
But the gold in his eyes intensifies, and his mouth warps into a sneer. “Who cares about your name? You’re but a weak little human. Why did we allow you onboard? We should have left you to rot. Get out of the way, and let us do our job.”
I stare at him in shock. What?
Again he steps closer, but the cruel light in his eyes chills my blood. “You should be cowering in one of the human towns, crawling into your hovel or a hole in the ground to hide, not daring to show your face during the biggest games of the last hundred years. What do you think will happen at the palace? Pretending to be some lady? Nefasta. Thinking you can pass for one of them? Think again. I can’t wait to see you get thrown into some dungeon to die.”
Now I’m gaping at him. I can’t believe this man. And I was worried about him?
I was, wasn’t I?
Stowing my shock away, I glare and lift my little finger in a rude gesture. What is wrong with you? I mouth and I hope he can read lips. You asshole.
“ But I am sure they will notice nothing unusual about you, a human, bedraggled and infested with lice and worms. Infested with death.” He takes a step toward me, closing the distance between us again, then suddenly stops. He bows over with a gasp, eyes going wide, black hair falling over his brow. “ Mesadia halikras . Nefast onar. daraka anass… anass… ” He goes down to one knee, the thump making me wince. “ Fuck! ”
What is he muttering? What’s going on with him? My arm hurts too much, and my head is too full of noise for me to reach a good, boiling point of anger. That will come later. Right now, I’m only focused on backtracking, not sure what he’ll do next.
“Come on, Athdara.” Tru appears beside him, pulling him to his feet, and I can’t look away from the dark bruise on his jaw where Athdara hit him earlier, or Athdara’s white face and the strange confusion in his dark eyes. “Let’s go get you cleaned up. Drink some water, eat something, how about that, huh? Be good for you.”
Why is Tru treating him so kindly? Is he happy with the way Athdara behaves toward people? Then again, why wouldn’t he? They are both on the same side, both of them fae, violent, warmongering brutes.
I glare at them both as Tru grabs Athdara’s arm and hauls him away. As Athdara lets him. It’s no big wonder only Tru can stand him, that everyone else talks shit behind his back. He does sound a little bit mad and a whole lot heinous.
Arkin was right. Athdara is crazy. Crazy and just as awful as I’d expected.
He saved you. Told the guards to let you stay on the barge. He’s the reason you’re still alive.
He seems to be regretting that decision now, though, and I can’t afford to be thrown off the barge, not when I’m so close to my goal. I watch Tru drag the man away, anger finally blooming and warming my chest, giving me a respite from the ever-gnawing doubt living in my stomach.
Athdara thinks I should cower. He thinks I shouldn’t be here. These are his real thoughts, revealed. He would rather I’d stayed far away, not to get in his way.
Well, tough. This little lady is here to stay.
The wind keeps buffeting us as we rise and fall on the waves radiating out from the Pillar and toward the shore. Our flat barge isn’t made for the open sea, even if the Central Sea tends to be calm most of the time.
Not this time of the year, though.
I turn my glare toward the Pillar, the culprit for the heaving water. You, too , I think, hoping I’m not actually insulting a god or goddess. Like Athdara, being a nasty piece of work.
“Did you see how he rode the drak into the sea?” a guard asks somewhere at my back. “That was cracking mad.”
“I heard say his shadows don’t work in the water,” another says, “which makes it doubly insane. He must have dived into the maelstrom and threw the spears like this… and like that…”
I glance at them over my shoulder as they re-enact the fight with the charybdis. They are young, their normally unlined faces scrunched up in concentration.
“And then he swerved up,” the first one says, twisting from the waist to show the motion, “as the monster stopped sucking, releasing the eddy, chased by the water?—”
“—up into the air, urging the drak on, until he was clear,” the second finishes. “Whew. Mad drak riding skills. One day I want to become a drak rider.”
“Not everyone can become one, you idiot. The number of spots in the squadrons is limited. Besides, it’s a dangerous job.”
“I bet I can make it.”
“I’ll write your obituary. Here lies the shadow of a stupid fae who thought drak riding was all fun and games.”
“You are no fun. And speaking of shadows… Why can’t Athdara use his shadow magic in the water?”
Good question , I think, invested in the conversation despite myself.
“Water is eating at the foundations of our kingdom, rotting, filthy, and corrupt,” the young guard says.
“And?”
“And most importantly, the essence of his magic is fire, idiot. Fire and water don’t mix.”
The barge lurches over a wave, and I turn back to my contemplation of the Pillar and the Sea Palace. Dragons belong to the element of fire, that’s true, at least the winged kind of dragons, but what about those shadows?
The tall boats by our sides blare horns and trumpets to signal our arrival at the islands. The Sea Palace Island rises much higher than the islets forming the semi-circular arena, a long terrace leading right over the sea, and a square balcony extending on top of it, jutting right out of the palace.
It has to be where the king sits during the games.
I make out trees on either side of the palace, twisted by the magic of the Pillar, dark and jagged shapes, a forest of them covering the rocks of the island down to the waterline.
Banners are fluttering at the top of the white turrets, and cannons and catapults are visible on the terraces, set to prevent any monster from climbing out of the sea.
The other island, connected with the bridge to the palace, has to be the Temple Island. The buildings rising on it have to be the lodgings for the guests—High Fae families, perhaps a few human allies, as well as the priests and the personnel necessary to run the palace, the ceremonies, and, of course, the games.
But we aren’t about to anchor at either island. A third, lone isle looms before the palatial area. This one is lined with numerous rock wharfs extending out into the sea, and I wonder if all these boats and barges, a great multitude more following us, will fit. Other boats are already moored there, having preceded us, and the convoy alone will take an entire wharf to dock.
But as I soon realize, the entire isle is surrounded by wharves that jut out from all sides like the spines of an urchin, and one of those wharves is reserved for us. The black banner of the sacrificial victims flies on a pole stuck at its end, the crest of the royal fae house glinting gold on it: the pillar with a serpentine dragon winding around it, the reptile wearing a tall crown.
I’ve seen the royal fae crest many times in the past, always flying proudly on any convoy or caravan, stitched on any herald’s or highborn’s clothes—only normally, the hues are inverted: a black design on a golden background.
The cries of the oarsmen and the captains ring out as the convoy slows to a crawl, and we, the first barge, slide alongside the wharf until we bump against the rocks.
I take in the isle. Its entire surface is built like a town, with narrow streets and white two-story houses, but it’s unlike any town I’ve seen in my life. The houses are circular, spires sprouting from their roofs, their white walls woven with golden strands, creating symbols and shapes. The doors are black, all of them carrying the king’s crest in gold.
At the center of the island—which isn’t much bigger than a small village, from what I can see—rises a white watchtower with a golden spire on top and a spiral staircase twining around it, recalling once more the royal crest and the dragon wrapped around the pillar.
I wonder who lives here and where they will host us if so many boats?—
“We’re staying on the barges,” Tru says. “Until the games begin.”
Of course.
I point at the palace. Point at the darkening firmament and the wandering Eosphors glowing in changing constellations. When?
His jaw is tight when he says, “Tomorrow.”