Chapter 26 Goran
GORAN
The sea poured over the edges of the sailboat, threatening to swamp the small vessel and drag Dustin and me overboard, into the Northern Sea.
“Dustin! Tie down that sail!” I shouted, fighting to keep the rudder from breaking off.
My stomach lurched, still tender from the dose of whatever my damned wife had managed to slip into the ale.
I’d been sick for two days, sick enough I hadn’t been able to ride.
I’d sent the few men who weren’t as bad as the rest to check on the house, and they’d found that bullshit letter she’d left for Stellina.
Kellin had been sleeping off his own poisoning in the house when the men arrived.
He’d been back on his feet before I was, though he seemed equal parts hurt and subdued when he’d come to see me at the camp with some healing herbs in hand.
He’d delivered them, then stumbled toward the shoreline, his pelt dangling from his grip like he didn’t quite know what to do with it.
I wanted to assure him this was just how my wife worked.
She made you fall in love with her, then left you to wish you’d died instead of meeting the damned woman.
But I tried not to lie to my friends. I’d seen a seal close to the boat a few times over the past days, but it hadn’t approached.
I wasn’t sure if it was Kellin, but if it was, he didn’t want to talk.
“Warlord!” Dustin called out. “Hold tight, big wave’s comin’.”
I nodded and wrapped a length of rope a bit more firmly around my hand, my stomach trying to leap overboard on its own.
I hated sailing more than being poisoned.
I hated that the only Starlakian who was both well enough to accompany me, and knowledgeable about sailing, was the one I’d thrown out of my army.
He wouldn’t stop smiling, even as the storm lashed us. I’d promised him a reassignment to the same company as his friends, if we made it to Rada safely and returned her to land.
The little shit had shocked me, and shamed me, when he’d replied, “I wouldn’t leave her for your position, Warlord.
I’ve given her my vow to serve, and I wouldn’t break it even if she let me.
But we all know I need more training if I’m to be of any real use.
That’s why I’m going to beg her priest to teach me how to do anything she needs.
If I work hard enough, maybe I’ll be worthy of a mate of my own someday. Maybe even one like my lady Warqueen.”
I wanted to warn him that mating a woman like her was the same as riding a hurricane, but who was I to give advice? I was a madman; that was the only explanation. She had driven me insane, and I was chasing her to my death.
Still, I’d admitted I’d underestimated him, and apologized. He’d been grinning ever since.
“Warlord!” His voice broke on the shout.
“There’s a man!” He pointed to the bottom of the cresting wave, and I saw what he meant.
Someone was clinging to a broken piece of wood—possibly a piece of a boat.
I couldn’t make out much detail, but a crack of lightning lit up the slight figure, and another dark shape close beside him, pushing at the wood.
A seal’s head, perhaps? I squinted, unable to make it out.
It had to be Kellin helping. But who was the man?
Wait. It couldn’t be… The lighting flashed, and my blood froze when I recognized Alexios’s illuminated face.
I had to save him, but how could I without killing myself and Dustin in the process? The next wave was going to hit us in a moment, and I needed to angle the boat to keep from capsizing. If I timed it right, I might be able to…
While I thought, Dustin had grabbed a rope and wrapped it around a fishing float the size of a wine bottle. He tied one end in a quick knot to the small mast, then flung the float out on the water. It landed only a few feet from Alexios.
I shouted, “Good man!” to Dustin, though I wasn’t sure he heard me.
Sea spray whipped my face as the wave hit, then drenched me entirely as I fought with the rudder. But when I opened my eyes, Dustin was hauling on the rope he’d thrown, and Alexios had somehow gotten to the float. Kellin—if it had been him—was nowhere to be seen.
When Alexios was close enough to the edge, Dustin hauled him onboard.
He lay in the bottom of the boat, spitting up half the ocean while I fought with the other half.
But as if finding him had broken its back, the storm died down faster than it should have.
In less than a half hour, blue sky was peeking out, with the Northern Seas glimmering like something from the far Southern Reaches.
“Dustin, get him the blanket from the dry sack,” I ordered.
Dustin already had a cup of fresh water ready.
Alexios sat up slowly and sipped from the cup, then shrugged out of his soggy priest’s robe and accepted the dry blanket as Dustin helped him to the bench at the front of the tiny cabin.
The Beta had nothing besides the robe, and a belt with Rada’s obsidian dagger on it.
“Thank you,” he rasped, then coughed and drank another sip.
“Where is she?”
“Taken.” The word was as cold as the wind had been. I couldn’t speak. It felt like my gut had been kicked by a mule, and my lungs merely squeezed on the emptiness.
“By the storm?” Dustin asked. “Did the boat break up? Could she be floating, too?”
“No,” Alexios replied. “She was taken by the ice dragon.” He told a story of her being plucked straight up into the sky. “We were no more than a day’s sailing from Starvale, in a small skiff. The winds were against us, but we tacked north and east to work against the currents from Pict.”
“Pict. She was going to fucking Pict?”
He blinked at me, his dark eyes red-rimmed and oddly judgmental. “Of course she was.”
It made no sense. “Why? There’s nothing there but a cult. A volcano that belches soot into the air and fouls the currents.”
“She’s from there, though,” Dustin added unhelpfully. “I heard her saying. That was her home, wasn’t it? Maybe she’s got family there.”
“That’s not why she went back,” I interrupted. “She had no connection to that island.” She’d told me her mother left the island with her when Rada was a baby and that she’d never known who her father was. She’d never once hinted at returning.
“She never told you she intended to go back?” Alexios said softly. “That’s odd. It was one of the first things she shared with me.”
Another mule kicked me in the gut. “What?” I managed to say.
“Her mother was from Pict, young Dustin. But she was a slave. A breeder for the cult, as you say. Pict has always been the final destination on my mistress’s journey across the known lands.
Goran, she has to go there, just as she had to leave you and travel the world.
” He leaned toward me and lowered his voice.
“I always thought if you loved her as you seem to claim, you would have traveled with her.”
I bared my teeth. She’d told me about her desire to go to all the known lands, but she’d made it sound like it was for Vilkurn, all for the journey he’d sent her on.
I could tell that wasn’t what Alexios meant.
He never would’ve sent her to Pict. But I would have insisted on going with her, if I’d known she was going to try something that idiotic.
“She didn’t want me to join her.”
Dustin cleared his throat. Alexios hummed. He didn’t bother to call me a fool; his expression did that all on its own.
I tried again. “She made me promise not to follow.”
“Have you ever asked yourself why?”
My voice was raw when I could speak again. “A thousand times. But no means no.”
He was not impressed with my confession.
“Normally, I would agree. But I’m not sure there’s any promise in the world that would keep me from protecting my mistress.
I gave up my home and country for her, without a single moment of hesitation.
I would follow her from the grave if I needed to.
” He ducked his head slightly. “Of course, I knew who she was before she ever told me her mission.”
“That must mean they have imprisoned Omegas there, on Pict,” Dustin broke in before I could ask what Alexios meant by that. How could he have known her? “She was one of the trapped ones?”
Alexios nodded. “We were going there to rescue them. We had supplies for three weeks and a plan. I noticed something odd happening in the ocean. I thought we might have someone spying on us. But the feeling passed, so I thought we were safe, and alone. When I discovered how wrong I was, there wasn’t time to prepare.
The dragon came from the sky, straight overhead.
He grabbed her in claws made of ice. All she had on was her cloak. ”
“No clothing?” I demanded.
“No clothing, no weapons. Snow and slush almost filled the boat, covering me. I tried to reach for her, to grab on, but the thing was too fast.” He panted, like he was having trouble telling the story.
“I think it was hurt when it left. It flew as if its wings were broken, so I’d hoped I could sail after it.
It flew northwest, so I sailed in that direction, but an icy wind kept blowing me back. ”
“How do you kill an ice god?” I asked aloud.
To my shock, Alexios answered, holding up the dagger. “I think with one of these.”
“One of the three daggers of fate,” I murmured, remembering what Rada had told me about it. “The only one that’s ever been found.”
“The one she’s had since she was a child and took it from a priest from the cult, who wanted to drag her back to Pict.
” The pity in his eyes when he saw my surprise made me almost as sick as the next few swells that hit the boat’s side.
“You were together for a year, Goran. What did you talk about?”
“We… Well, I wrote her poetry and we spoke in… other ways,” I said, not wanting to face the fact that this man knew far more about my wife than I ever had.