Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The young maiden was a slave in the palace but became a queen in her dreams.
—Fabia’s Fables, “People of the Stars.”
The buzzing that slithered into my veins was a foreign, dreadful thing. Somewhere, far beneath the nullifying power of the cuff on my wrist, the Obscura and Transcindiel bucked at its trespassing.
The bone was here. And as we trekked in the coming days, its intensity would fade, as if we took a wrong turn. We’d adjust, testing out various directions until I picked up its scent again. We continued this game of hot and cold until a painful, spine-tingling howl stopped our pursuit.
I slapped my hands over my ears at the blaring roar and rushed from my tent to find the pirates forming a semi-circle around the camp. The bit of afternoon light that slithered through the fog sparkled off the ice-like scales of the dune runners that surrounded us.
Ten… Fifteen…
I stopped counting after twenty massive, reptilian-looking silver wolves with black eyes pinned hungry gazes on us.
Two large white horns sprouted from the tops of their heads, bordered by smaller, feathery antler-like bones.
Their silver, white, and blue diamond-shaped scales lined up in an intricate pattern, pointing to the center of their backs where the largest met in a sharp line of white spikes along their spine.
They clinked together as they stalked back and forth.
“Astraeus,” Ronan’s hiss cut through the silence that stretched through the camp. “Arm us.”
Lord Astraeus angled his curved blade at the dune runner closest to him. He bristled as if weighing the risk. The dune runner crouched, turning its head toward the pirate before launching off its hind legs.
“Second crate from the left!” he shouted as he dodged the dune runner’s attack and slashed with his curved blade.
The remaining dune runners crashed into the line of pirates. Screams echoed across the tundra as the ice wolves ripped into several of his men, including the mage in his crew. I followed Ronan as he sprinted to Lord Astraeus’s tent.
He tossed me two bows and a quiver with not nearly enough arrows, and I checked that Talon remained strapped to my ankle inside my boot. Lord Astraeus had forgotten to check me for the dagger.
Kresida caught the blade Ronan tossed to her and swiftly fell into a defensive position in front of Carina.
Nerissa armed Vienah, though I knew she had no training with weapons, and stood in front of her as a dune runner eyed the two of them, stalking back and forth.
Ronan stepped to her side, their movements a perfect mirror to each other.
Vulcan found himself at my side. He motioned to a small ridge after I tossed him the bow. “Get to the higher ground!” he commanded.
We scurried up the slippery ridge. He spun, taking aim at the dune runners, immediately releasing three arrows.
I slipped, the ice slicing through the side of my hand.
I caught myself, ready to turn and release an arrow of my own, when a line of black caught my eye in the distance.
I squinted at a row of dark trees lining a large sheet of ice that began over the ridge. A frozen lake.
The buzzing surged. There. The bone was there. The surety of it ran through my veins.
“Lyvia!” Vulcan’s snarl drew my attention back.
He released two arrows in the amount of time it took me to draw my own and scan the chaos for my target. The dune runner nearest Ronan and Nerissa dropped dead as Vulcan’s arrows caught him in the mouth.
Kresida stood between a circling dune runner and Carina, angling her blade as she feinted left, and the dune runner lurched after her.
She sliced into his side, her blade bouncing off its scales.
I let my arrow fly, aiming for the soft spot under its throat.
I missed, hitting it in the shoulder, but the momentary distraction was enough for Kresida to catch a glimpse of the fur beneath its coat and sink her blade into the soft spot.
Five…only five left, but as I scanned the bodies below, I counted only twelve dead dune runners. I eyed our shared quiver, and my gut sank. Empty. Vulcan grimaced as he scanned the slaughter below before he whipped his attention to the one stalking up the ridge.
“Dagger,” Vulcan commanded, holding out his hand to me.
I pulled Talon from my boot and slid the hilt into his hand.
Vulcan’s bandage had come loose, and his freshly slashed face only added to his lethal appearance.
He crept down the slope, as lithe as the dune runner in front of him, mirroring his steps in the thick, freshly fallen snow.
The dune runner’s dark eyes flicked to mine for a moment before turning back to his prey that stalked him down the slope.
I mimicked Vulcan’s movements, getting low and creeping in the opposite direction, as if to attack from the side.
The dune runner flicked his eyes again to mine.
He launched off his hind legs, aiming for my throat as Vulcan moved and plunged Talon into its chest. The massive form collapsed into the snow as he ripped the dagger free.
A scream echoed from below, and we whipped our attention to the camp.
Blood dripped from the maw of the ice wolf that had ripped through a pirate.
Lord Astraeus leaped to the side as it lunged, swinging his curved blade beneath the arm before skewering him in the chest. Silence rode the tangy scent of iron as it crawled over the wreckage.
I surveyed the damage. The blood of the dune runners glistened against their ice-like scales, sparkling in the sun that crept through the fog. Human bodies littered the ground.
Carina knelt beside Kresida, applying pressure to a wound in her shoulder. Nerissa allowed Ronan to brace her as she limped back to where Vienah tended to one of Astraeus’s men. Of the twenty-two that we joined from the Hydra, only twelve of Lord Astraeus’s crew members remained.
We made our way down the slope as Carina wrapped a bandage on Kresida’s blood-soaked shoulder, looking as if she might be sick. “She’ll need to rest,” she called to Lord Astraeus, who stood staring at the bodies his men dragged into a pile, his mouth set in a hard line.
“Did you hear me?” Carina called to the captain.
He turned a hard gaze on her. “We do not rest.”
As if remembering we were now armed, Astraeus’s men moved with slow precision, flanking our group.
“We don’t need to go anywhere,” I called as I approached the pirate lord. “It’s here. In the lake.”
Lord Astraeus’s dark eyes sparked for a moment, eyes slipping to the ridge behind me, before ordering his men to disarm our group.
The constant buzzing created a dull pulsing behind my eyes. A headache that wouldn’t go away. We’d burned Lord Astraeus’s fallen men and now sat huddled by the fire.
Lord Astraeus crunched through the crimson snow to our group and leveled a stare at Nerissa as he said, “You’re getting us below that ice.”
Carina pinched her brows, looking at her cousin curiously.
“How could I possibly get us below that ice?” Nerissa asked coolly, eyes sliding to her fingernails.
Lord Astraeus raised his brow, glancing at Carina and Kresida. A grin slowly spread on his face, whitening the scar on his lower lip.
“Have you been hiding it?” he mused, cocking his head.
Ronan tensed as he watched the captain and Nerissa.
“Is that why I didn’t see that magnificent light display during our attack in the gulf?”
Carina’s mouth fell open as she processed the captain’s words, and Kresida’s dark eyes widened. The black paint of her rank had been wiped free since the attack on the Centurion.
“Nerissa?” Carina asked quietly, eyes sliding to Nerissa’s wrists where she’d tugged her jacket over the glowing cuff.
Lord Astraeus didn’t balk from the daggers in Nerissa’s gaze. His grin widened as he shook his head and chuckled. “Not my business, I suppose. You’ll melt it and keep it melted while we go in.”
The muscle in Nerissa’s jaw twitched at the command.
“And you, as a mystic,” he continued, turning toward Carina, “should be strong enough to send a wind tunnel through that lake, splitting its water so we can look for the bone.”
Carina blinked. She opened her mouth to protest, and Lord Astraeus cut her off.
“You will come with me and my men,” he said, pointing to me with his white dagger. “As will the three of you.” He motioned to Ronan, Vienah, and Kresida. “As a little extra protection. Wouldn’t want you dropping a lake of water down on top of us.” He winked at Carina before stalking off.
Vulcan opened his mouth as three of Lord Astraeus’s men slammed into him. Lord Astraeus turned slowly.
“You,” he said, jamming a finger in Vulcan’s direction, “are more trouble than you’re worth. You stay behind. Under guard.”
Vulcan bared his teeth, struggling under the grip of the captain’s men, still weak from his beating and the trek here.
The afternoon sun hung in the bright blue sky, taunting us with distant heat.
Lord Astraeus gripped Nerissa’s wrist, murmuring something beneath his breath as he twisted the cuff ever so slightly, doing the same to Carina’s.
The glowing red light dimmed, as if whatever nullifying power the cuff used had lessened.
“This won’t be enough,” Carina said, looking at her hands as if they belonged to someone else.
“It’s all you get,” Lord Astraeus said, turning toward the lake, “I won’t dial it back any further. You drop the wind tunnel, we all die.” He motioned to Kresida, Vienah, me, and Ronan.
Nerissa flexed her hands, stretching her fingers. She slid her eyes to Lord Astraeus.
He met them with cool resolve. “Same goes for you.” Lord Astraeus glanced pointedly at Ronan, whose lips formed a thin line.
Carina and Nerissa stepped to the edge of the frozen lake, and my eyes cut to the line of dark trees watching in the distance.
Nerissa’s head fell back, and she closed her eyes.
The rays of the sun were golden against her tan skin, as if she allowed them to awaken the Soleia power within her that she’d shoved down all these months.
She held her hands in front of her, flipping her palms up.
A brilliant white light materialized above her hands, and the sun itself shone brighter above.
Nerissa opened her eyes and rotated her palms, directing the power of the sun to the ice before us.
I blinked, shading my eyes with my hand as a beam of blinding white light shot from Nerissa’s hands straight into the ice. Carina gaped at her cousin’s powers, and Lord Astraeus bristled, wary of Nerissa’s strength.
A crack sounded in the center of the ice. Then another. Soon, hundreds of tiny cracks spiderwebbed from the center of the lake where Nerissa directed her power. Dark waves sent thick chunks of ice bouncing to the edges of the lake.
Nerissa shut her fists, closing off the power of the sun, and gave her hands a shake. She rubbed her wrist against her leathers before nodding at Carina.
Her cousin, still wide-eyed from Nerissa’s display of power, stepped forward and steepled her hands as bits of little light shot from the center.
Lilac-scented wind snaked through the camp behind our ridge, gathering strength.
She widened her stance and grimaced as she sent a massive blast of it racing toward the edge of the lake, knocking against my knees.
Her brows pinched as she narrowed her concentration into a small spot in front of where our group stood.
Her hands shook as she closed them against each other and pointed the tips of her fingers to the edge of the lake.
The wind tunneled into a concentrated blast as it ripped into the lake, sending a massive blast splitting the water down the center and creating a dark path of wet sand leading to its depths.
“You have two hours, at best,” she said through shaky breaths.