Chapter 31
Bressen
The small boat carrying me and Cyra cut through the water toward the island, propelled by Cyra’s water magic.
Surgeon and Serise soared above us, still in their human forms, but wings outstretched as they circled overhead looking for danger.
We’d left any sailors behind on the ship this time since they wouldn’t do us any good.
If the four of us couldn’t handle the two people on the island, mortal sailors wouldn’t make a difference.
For that matter, it was questionable how useful Surgeon and Serise would be if things went wrong.
If one of the women on the island was who we suspected she was, the gargoyles wouldn’t be able to attack her.
It would be up to me and Cyra to handle her while the twins took on whoever the other woman was.
We’d debated whether or not to land at night to take them by surprise.
Surgeon and Serise were all for a stealth arrival, but Cyra reasoned we’d be starting off on the wrong foot by taking a hostile approach.
We were, after all, on a diplomatic mission, and sneaking onto the island in the dead of night to surprise its inhabitants wasn’t the way to build trust before we asked for a favor.
They’d left us alive last time, after all, just without our memories of having ever landed there.
A surprise arrival turned out to be impossible anyway, since the portals Cyra had tried to open failed. She’d tried one from Tide’s End, but it was likely too far. Her portal from the ship had failed as well, though, so the island was undoubtedly blocked by warding that prevented them.
“On the beach,” Surgeon called down, his tone warning.
I looked over the water to see two figures walking out onto the sand where it became more compacted by the surf.
They stopped, and we all waited to see what they’d do.
If either of them had powerful elemental magic, they could have the ocean try to swallow us before we reached the island, but nothing happened.
The figures, two women, didn’t move as our small boat ran aground on the beach, and Surgeon and Serise landed next to us. The gargoyles each grabbed the prow of the boat and pulled it further ashore until it was fully out of the water.
I stepped out and held out a hand to help Cyra, but she ported to my side instead, and I lowered the hand.
“It’s hard to play the gentleman when your wife is so self-sufficient,” I teased her.
Her look was serious when she turned to me, but she must’ve realized it, because her face softened a moment later, and she wove her fingers into mine.
A pang of regret hit me. Cyra was different since I’d returned from my captivity.
She was harder, her edges sharper. Having to accept she might now be as jaded as me was a bitter draft to swallow, but I couldn’t blame her.
I was ruthless with those I considered a threat, especially a threat to her.
I’d wanted to preserve her innocence as long as possible, to help her hold onto her humanity, but I felt her slowly slipping away, and I didn’t know how to stop it.
Killing Clarice wasn’t the only reason she was different, though. Something else had happened that she wasn’t telling me. I wouldn’t push her. Not yet, but I had a feeling something else of critical importance had happened, either on that field or while I was gone.
Cyra and I stopped in front of the two women on the beach, who stood silently as Surgeon and Serise flanked us.
“We assume one of you is Praya of Gonderil,” Cyra said.
The woman with chestnut skin and grey-streaked black hair who’d introduced herself as Miranda last time sighed.
“Yes, I’m Praya,” she said, “and I’m sure you remember my wife Ariel.” She gave a small smile. “Or at least, you do now.”
The tall, pale-haired woman inclined her head.
“Lord Bressen of Hiraeth, if I recall,” Praya went on, nodding at me. She turned to Cyra. “And Lady Cyra…Hand of the Nemesis.”
Cyra sucked in a breath. “Did you know that before?” she asked.
Praya inclined her head. “I did. You’re probably too young to feel it, but the longer you live, the more in tune with the Trinity you’ll become, and you’ll start to sense these things.”
“If you knew who I was, why did you erase our memories when we came here last time?” Cyra asked.
“How did you erase our memories?” I asked.
Maybe it wasn’t the most important question, but it had shaken me that Praya had been able to get into my mind and remove several hours from my memory without me realizing it. Not just remove the memories, but plant false ones as well.
Praya sighed again. “You might as well come up to the house so we can speak. I was expecting you back at some point.”
Without waiting for us to agree, Praya turned and walked back toward the house that I now remembered from the last time we were here. Ariel hesitated a moment, as if she was unsure about turning her back on us, but then she followed Praya, and the four of us did the same.
Inside the house, Cyra and I took seats on a couch – the one we’d sat on during the previous visit – and I had the oddest sense of having done all this before, even as it still felt like I was doing it for the first time.
Praya pulled over a chair from the small table, but Ariel remained standing behind her. Meanwhile, Surgeon and Serise took up posts at either end of the room, with Serise right behind Cyra. They’d stowed their wings, but their hands rested on the hilts of their weapons.
“I see you’ve acquired some gargoyles since we last met,” Praya said.
Cyra raised a brow at the phrasing. “Something like that,” she said. “Ajax also seems willing to serve me, although we didn’t bring him along.”
Praya frowned. “Ajax?”
“The gargoyle you imprisoned in the necklace,” Cyra said.
Careful, I warned into her mind. Her tone had been almost accusatory, and we needed Praya on our side.
Praya looked shocked. “You freed the warriors from the collar?”
“It was an accident,” Cyra said, “but yes. Just as a forewarning, they aren’t very happy with you.”
To my surprise, Praya laughed. “No, I don’t imagine they would be.”
“You left them at the bottom of the ocean to die,” Cyra said, and this time there was definite accusation in her tone, but also a question and a bit of pleading. She didn’t want to believe Praya could be that cruel, and hope swelled in my chest that Cyra was still herself.
Praya exchanged an odd look with Ariel, and I ached to push past their mind shields to know what was behind it. There was something akin to either relief or compassion in the look. Maybe both?
“It…it was a dark moment for me,” Praya said finally.
“I serve the Creator, so using my powers to destroy – to kill – is to be avoided at all costs unless absolutely necessary. I was angry, though. I’d trapped those warriors in the collar, but more kept coming.
We were fending off assassins sent by rulers on the continent almost weekly, and Magdalene continued to try and get to me.
Ariel and I finally decided to flee, to leave our home and everything we’d ever known.
When we were far enough out on the ocean, I created the storm that sank The Stalwart, but by then my bitterness at having to leave everything behind had eaten away at me. ”
Praya’s gaze was far away, as if she was seeing through us to the past.
“I should’ve left the collar behind when we fled, but I didn’t,” she said.
“I realized too late I couldn’t bring it with us to the island.
If I died before Ariel, the warriors would’ve been released, and Ariel would’ve been left alone here with three highly-skilled and angry killers.
We…I decided the only thing to do was let the collar go down with the ship.
I knew the fate I was consigning those warriors to, but part of me didn’t care. ”
“What happened to the sailors on the ship?” I asked.
“They survived,” Praya said. “When the storm started, I took over their minds and made them lower the lifeboats to abandon the ship. Someone had to make it back to land to carry the story that I’d died at sea, so I made sure their boats were swept far away from the ship before I sunk it.
It didn’t occur to me until the crew was already gone that I could’ve given them the collar to take back with them.
” She paused. “To be honest, I’m relieved you found it and brought it back up.
One of my nightmares is seeing those people dying at the bottom of the ocean. ”
Ariel put a hand on her wife’s shoulder. The bandage she’d worn on her forearm the last time was still there.
“How did you know this island was out here?” I asked. “It’s not on any maps.”
“It wouldn’t be,” Praya said, “because I didn’t find it. I created it.”
Cyra’s eyes widened. “You created this whole island?”
Praya nodded. “It’s a benefit of being the Hand of the Creator.”
“And you’ve been here for four hundred years,” I said.
“That sounds about right.”
“You clearly didn’t want us to remember we’d found you,” I said, “but you weren’t willing to kill us?”
“I couldn’t kill you,” Praya said. “Not without facing severe consequences. The Hands of the Gods are given powers specific to their god, and there are repercussions for straying too far from those powers or trying to use powers that aren’t theirs by right.
As the Hand of the Creator, my power to destroy is limited.
I couldn’t kill the warriors directly, but I could leave the collar at the bottom of the ocean and let fate take its course.
” She smiled. “Although apparently fate had other plans.”
“So you can’t defend yourself if attacked?” Cyra asked.
“I can,” Praya said, “but if I choose to kill, it must be a last resort.”
“Luckily, I can kill without consequence,” Ariel added. “The mate of a Hand isn’t held to the same standards.”
Ariel’s eyes drifted to me, and once again I had the urge to read her mind, but I held back.
We still needed Praya, and I didn’t dare do anything yet that might make her angry enough to refuse.
I’d never dealt with a perimortal as powerful as Praya – a woman who’d been able to break into my own mind, which I hadn’t thought possible.
“Your arm is still injured,” Cyra said, eyeing Ariel’s bandage.
“And it will be forever,” Ariel said. “The cut was made with a sword Praya created, the wounds of which don’t heal.”
Ariel unrolled the bandage to show us the neat stitches that held the two sides of the three-inch cut together.
“We’ve heard of the sword,” I said. I looked at Praya. “The legends claim you destroyed it when your husband cut himself and bled to death.”
Praya chuckled. “I never had a husband, but it’s true Ariel cut herself with the sword, and we couldn’t heal the wound. Thankfully it wasn’t a bad cut, so we’ve been able to manage it with careful cleaning and restitching every so often.”
“As for the sword,” Ariel said, stepping toward a closet, “I wouldn’t let her destroy it.”
She opened the closet and pulled out something long and thin that was wrapped in a soft leather hide.
She peeled back the hide to reveal a beautiful sword in a black leather scabbard.
It had a large obsidian cabochon embedded in the hilt, and the scabbard was adorned with smaller stones, as well as an intricate pattern of stamping in the leather.
She pulled the blade out a few inches to reveal black marbling in the steel that I suspected was caronium, or perhaps an alloy of it.
On either side of the room, Surgeon and Serise shifted to get a better look. I couldn’t see Serise from where she was behind us, but Surgeon’s face held a distinct look of longing.
Rather than putting the sword away, though, Ariel finished drawing it the rest of the way and took a fighting stance.
Every muscle in my body tensed. On either side of the room, Surgeon and Serise both tensed as well, and their blades were out of their sheaths before I could wrap my head around how quickly things had taken a turn.
“Now that we’ve gotten all that out of the way,” Praya said, “let’s talk about why you returned. Did Magdalene send you? Because if she did, then you’ve made a grave mistake.”