Sixteen
“I LIKE THIS plan,” Holland announced as he hefted his sword and moved into the third rathma position. “It involves food, courage, and the deaths of my enemies—three of my favorite things.”
Tal grinned as he nodded his approval of Holland’s form and signaled him to move to the fourth rathma.
Holland matched the grin with one of his own and then scowled. “Stop trying to make me like you. You still have a disemboweling in your future.”
“Elbow raised even with your shoulder. Chin down. Not sideways, down.” Tal moved around Holland, scrutinizing him carefully. “If you can’t even do four of the rathmas, how are you going to successfully disembowel anyone?”
“Care for a demonstration?” Holland straightened, his sword pointed at Tal’s midsection.
“Can we get back to the plan?” Charis asked from her perch at the edge of her bed. She’d spent three days recovering from her injuries, and while she still hadn’t slept much and had swallowed only a few bites before pushing the disgusting slop the Rakuuna called food around on her plate to make it look like she’d eaten more than she had, at least the room had stopped spinning, and her head ached less and less.
“Of course,” Tal said promptly, while Holland once again tried to master the flow from the third to the fourth position. “Chin down. Like you’re trying to touch your chest, except stop before you get there. And swivel your hips. Not like that, are you trying to break a bone? Like you’re dancing.”
“I hate dancing.”
“It shows.” Tal raised a brow in Charis’s direction as though inviting her to see what a struggle it was to teach Holland, but she looked away.
Tal wouldn’t get banter or playfulness from her. She was using him to save her kingdom. When his usefulness ended, so would her interaction with him.
A tiny voice in the back of her mind wondered if Alaric felt the same way about his son and that was why Tal was still a prisoner of the Rakuuna, two months after they’d demanded his ransom.
Once upon a time, that thought would’ve softened her with compassion, but everything soft within her had been whittled down to the bone.
Holland tripped over his feet and sprawled onto the cabin floor, nearly sending his sword into Tal’s shin.
“Charis, do you want to run through the plan again while I show him what it’s supposed to look like?” Tal asked, reaching down to help Holland to his feet.
“As long as you both pay attention to what I’m saying. These lengthy sparring sessions are getting ridiculous.”
Especially because it meant listening to Tal’s voice, and the way he accommodated the needs of the person he was speaking to. And it also meant watching him flex his muscles and demonstrate the lithe, graceful strength of his body... which meant remembering how it felt to be held by him, cared for by him.
Kissed by him.
Tal hefted his sword and flowed smoothly into the seven rathmas, his body moving as if there was music playing in his head. His broad shoulders strained against his tunic as the sword cut a graceful arc through the air, and then he dipped low, his leg sweeping out.
Had he been practicing like this his entire time aboard the ship? No wonder he’d been able to pick her up as if she weighed nothing. No wonder the calluses on his fingertips still felt rough against her skin as he checked her for injuries.
“Are you feverish?” Holland demanded.
Blinking, Charis tore her gaze away from Tal to find Holland looming over her, staring intently at her face. Instantly, Tal dropped his sword and rushed toward her.
She threw her hands into the air. “I’m fine. Stop hovering.”
Tal’s eyes were filled with concern. “You look flushed. Holland, feel her cheek.”
“I’m not a nurse.” Holland put his palm against her face.
“No, use the back of your hand. Didn’t your mother ever check your skin for a fever?” Tal asked.
“I had the good sense to never get sick.” Holland reversed his hand and smacked it gently against her forehead. “Seems warm.”
“I’m fine. You two are going to be the death of me if this keeps up.” She paused as her words struck something within her, echoing into the abyss where she’d pushed her grief. The echoes felt like fresh wounds, and she frantically reached for the willpower to focus on her duty instead. “Actually, the Rakuuna are going to be the death of me, but not before we have a plan in place to take them down.”
“Stop saying things like that.” Holland glared at her. “It isn’t set in stone just because some stupid Rakuuna said it was.”
She shrugged, because arguing with him was pointless. “Fine. Now, Holland if you can try to pay attention to what I’m saying instead of just watching Tal, we can continue.”
“You were the one watching Tal and forgetting to speak, not me.” He sounded offended.
The concern in Tal’s eyes softened into something warm and knowing. Something that used to send butterflies through her stomach. She glared at him. If anything, her stomach was still nauseous from the few bites she’d eaten of the cold fish stew they’d been served for breakfast. Not a butterfly in sight.
A tiny, crooked smile played at the edge of Tal’s mouth as he returned to the center of the room and scooped up his sword.
“We have very little moriarthy dust, and we need to figure out how it’s most effective,” Charis said sternly, as though Tal’s movements weren’t distracting in the least. “That means we need to find a way to make a Rakuuna ingest it, we need to wipe some on a Rakuuna’s skin, and we need to put some into an open wound.”
“Several of our crew members are helping in the kitchen since the food these monsters serve is about as edible as licking the bottom of my boots.” Holland brushed his hair out of his eyes and mimicked Tal’s motions, watching closely. “We can have them put the poison in that fish stew they like so much.”
“We don’t have enough to poison the entire thing unless they’re really sensitive to it, so let’s sneak it into two individual bowls. Then we can see how effective it is.” Charis turned to the porthole to admire the way the clouds scudding across the sky created gray, green, and muted violet-blue shadows in the water below. It was certainly preferable to admiring anything or anyone inside the cabin.
“I can wipe some on a Rakuuna when I’m on deck stretching my legs,” Holland said.
“If you do that, and they react, they’ll know it was you,” Tal said as he held the final position, sword guarding his chest, feet ready to lash out at an opponent.
“What if we just wipe it on something we know the Rakuuna often touch?” Charis turned back to the porthole when she found herself staring too long at Tal. Her traitorous body might respond to the sight of his, but her heart had learned its lesson well.
“The stairwell railing?” Holland raised his arm, checking to see that his elbow was even with his shoulder.
“The one who dragged me down the stairs took them three at a time. No railing needed.” Charis tapped a finger on her chin as she thought. What did the Rakuuna often touch that the humans could easily access without raising questions? “The helm is impossible for us to get to. The rigging? The door leading into the mess hall?”
“The portrait of their queen.” Tal nudged Holland’s back until he was satisfied with the position. “It hangs down the opposite corridor where the Rakuuna sleep.”
Charis met Tal’s gaze. “They touch it?”
“They bow and then press the back of their first two fingers to her collarbone every time they walk past.”
“You really are a good spy.” Her words were needle-sharp and tipped with venom.
“I’ve learned to be.” His shoulders dropped as he turned away from her to examine Holland’s next attempt.
“Have you seduced any of the female Rakuuna yet?” She hadn’t meant to say it. The words rushed out, an arrow shot from the wound he’d given her.
He stiffened and turned to face her, devastation on his face. Instantly, she realized she didn’t want the answer. Didn’t want to open the door to a discussion she didn’t think she’d ever be ready to have. Better to spend her final days focused on what she could accomplish, rather than on the pain that had stitched itself to her as though it had always been there.
Quickly, she said, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. What’s important is finding a way to test the poison on an open wound. That’s going to be more difficult because we can’t actually wound them.”
“I bet their skin slices open if you get close enough with a sword.” Holland tried the complicated footwork between five and six and nearly fell on top of Tal.
“And then they know you’re the one who did it, and they learn about the poison. Plus, they’ll kill you for it.” Charis blew out a breath and searched for other options. “Everything we try has to seem like a fluke. A strange accident that can’t be traced back to us. And since we can’t even get very close to them—”
“I can do it.” Tal’s voice was quiet, but there was a note of resignation in it.
“How?” She forced herself to meet his gaze.
“The sick Rakuuna.” He swallowed and looked away. “They have open sores.”
Charis’s stomach sank. It was one thing to go up against a soldier in battle. It was another to ambush one who lay helpless and dying. No wonder Tal looked upset. She supposed even he had a code of honor.
“Why are the two of you looking like someone kicked your favorite puppy?” Holland asked. “They might be sick now, but they were only on this ship in the first place because they joined their queen’s mission to kill our people and take over our kingdom. If you can’t stomach putting the poison on their sores, I will.”
“They won’t trust you anywhere near the medical bay.” Tal squared his shoulders. “It has to be me.”
“Well, it shouldn’t be too hard. If you can trick Charis into falling in love with you, surely you can manage poisoning some monsters, right?” Holland sounded genuinely curious.
Charis tried to breathe past the sudden ache in her chest. Her face burned, and she was exquisitely aware of Tal’s silence.
After a long moment, Tal said flatly, “I said I’d do it, and I will. Now, Charis, it might be a good idea for you to brush up on your sword skills, too.”
Fine. If he could speak as though it didn’t matter that he’d tricked her into falling in love with him, so could she.
“It’s not like we can get past the Rakuuna’s long reach,” she said because she did not want to be on display in front of him.
“No, the impostor is right. The poison might not kill them.” Holland walked to Charis and handed her his sword. “It might just weaken them. We have to be ready for anything.”
The sword dipped toward the floor as Charis struggled to hold its weight.
When had she become so weak?
Setting it aside as though she’d always intended to and not because she was about to drop it, she reached for her dagger instead, begrudgingly grateful that Tal had retrieved it for her from where she’d dropped it on the deck during her confrontation with the Rakuuna. “I prefer weapons that they can’t see coming until it’s already too late.”
“The fact that they think you’re safely imprisoned on their ship and therefore aren’t a threat to them any longer is proof they’ll never see you coming.” Holland sounded confident, but a whisper of doubt snaked through her.
She hadn’t seen the Rakuuna coming until it was too late. Hadn’t seen Tal’s betrayal coming either. If she couldn’t trust her instincts, what could she trust?
Abruptly sick of being near Tal, she said, “I’m not going to practice with my dagger in front of the two of you. I’m going to check on Reuben after this latest bout of seasickness and then make sure the rest of our people understand the plan.”
“Are you sure you should tell everyone what we’re going to do?” Holland frowned.
“Figuring out how the poison works is only the first step.” Charis sheathed her dagger and headed for the door. “Once we reach Calera, one of us has to survive long enough to get that information to Nalani. While I think Tal has the best odds, the three of us are the Rakuuna’s prime targets, and I don’t feel comfortable assuming any of us are going to live long enough to even send a palloren.”
“You flatter us with your optimism.” Holland swept his hair out of his eyes and picked up his sword again.
“You can figure out a way through this,” Tal said quietly. “You always do.”
Something dark and heavy blossomed in her chest until she thought she might come apart at the seams.
The old Charis could scheme and strategize, confident that she could outwit any foe. This new, hollowed-out version of herself couldn’t see the chessboard clearly, couldn’t understand her enemies, and clearly, given Tal’s true identity, didn’t even know how many enemies she faced.
All she had left was the ability to learn how the poison worked and the desperate determination to get that information to Nalani before the Rakuuna executed the queen who stood between them and crushing the Caleran rebellion.