Chapter 9
Chapter nine
Idon’t know if it’s the docks or me that sway as I stare out at the Indomnitus, my mind racing. The winter wind howls, carrying harrowed signs of heartbreak through the city streets before sweeping them out to sea.
Magic simmers behind my heart, and the mass of anger—of shadows—creeps between my ribs. Both reach toward the Aeternalis in a terrifying synchronicity, to join him or ruin him, I can’t be sure.
“Willie!” Tiernan calls from behind me. I turn to see him waving his sword wildly in the air as he and Sam push their way through the crowd. “Out of the way, you louts,” he shouts, the command clear even with the odd pronunciation of his mutilated tongue. “Star above, move.”
Tiernan has been my constant companion through the last year, appointing himself both my personal guard and drinking buddy without me requesting either. His humor is a steady light when I can find none of my own, and the sight of him now sends a wave of a relief through my chest.
“Thank the star you’re here. We’ve been looking for you everywhere.” His voice is breathless and his cheeks are ruddy, like he’s run all the way from the Lunaedon.
“I was in the Crocodile,” I admit with a shudder, as another mother’s scream rents the night.
“Well, I guess we should just be thankful you didn’t disappear for three weeks.”
Tiernan thwaps a gawking innkeeper with the flat of his sword before shoving past him to stand by my side. Sam’s eyes roll skyward in disapproval.
Tiernan gestures to the children bobbing atop the waves. It’s a small miracle none have sunk beneath them, perhaps an effect of the magic calling to them through their dreams.
“We’ve tried restraining them,” Tiernan says with a shake of his head. “They just start clawing through their own skin, or breaking their fingers to slip out of the ropes. Chrys tried locking a few of them in the basement of the Pixie, but they pounded on the stone until their fists bled.”
His gaze drifts to the silhouette of the Indomnitus, the good humor natural to him guttering out in a wink. “He’ll take so much more than their magic, Willa.”
I curl a hand around Tiernan’s shoulder, the only comfort I know how to offer—something to hold him in place against the current of memory.
Tiernan was stolen away to Somnya before he could walk.
The things taken from him left scars so gnarled, he was forced to grow up around them, like trunk of a tree twisting around a barbed wire fence.
“I won’t let him,” I reply. “Not again.”
Tiernan gives a tight nod.
A tendril of Sam’s magic brushes against me, its warmth easing the pressures of the whispers following me. Without them, it is easier to breathe—to think beyond their panic and mine.
“We’re at your disposal, my lady,” Sam says with a dip of his head.
The shadows writhe in my chest.
I don’t need to be the island’s hope to save it; I need to be a nightmare, something that comes far more naturally. Anger balloons inside me like a poisonous wave—black, viscous, and suffocating. It thrashes against my ribs, claws against my skin.
Mine.
This island is mine. The Aeternalis and I may have started our lives in the same manner—orphaned and alone—but he ended with an entire world bowing at his feet. He’s never crawled for what he had; never fought like hell to protect what is his, because everything was always his.
Pan doesn’t know how dangerous desperation can be.
I worry my bottom lip between my teeth, the true breadth of the situation settling on my shoulders like a boulder.
The Aeternalis has had thousands of years to hone his magic into a precise weapon, while I’m still fumbling around with mine like an inept toddler.
The amount of concentration it would take to paint something detailed enough to change another’s dreams—let alone a hundred of them—would take me hours, even with the magic of the island roiling through my veins.
I cannot beat Pan if I play his game—but I might be able to distract him from it.
It isn’t truly the children he wants, after all. It’s me.
Soon you will realize I’m the only one who truly sees you, Willa.
“Tiernan, find the sirens,” I bark. “Give them whatever they want in exchange for their help swimming the children in the sea to shore. Tell them their queen commands it.”
He blows out a breath. “That is going to cost us.”
“I don’t care. I’ll pay it.”
When Tiernan nods, I turn to Sam. “I need you to keep the rest of the children on the docks.”
“Willa…” he says hesitantly, shifting his weight from one foot to the other. “They’re already asleep, so I don’t my magic will incapacitate them.”
“I don’t care if you have to knock them over the head with a shovel, Sam. Keep them on the docks.”
Tiernan eyes me warily, pinning me with a stare that’s far too observant. I shift beneath it, hoping he cannot see beneath my facade of calm to the furiously writhing shadows beneath.
“And what, exactly, are you planning to do?” he demands.
I don’t answer, peering, instead, to the streaks of sunlight beginning to peek over the horizon. Though it is easier not to look at him, it feels like an inexplicable betrayal.
My silence serves as answer enough. “It seems like you’re the one that needs to be knocked over the head with a shovel,” he mutters, pressing the heel of his palms into his eyes.
I throw a hand on my hip, leveling him with a stone stare. “You don’t think I’m more powerful than some overgrown teenager with a god complex?”
“Willa—”
“It’s my fault, Tiernan!” To his credit, Tiernan doesn’t flinch, even as the rest of my guilt pours from me in a jumbled rush.
“I’m the reason the Aeternalis is alive again.
If I wasn’t so selfish, or so—so careless—these children would all be safe in their beds.
And I’ll be damned if I go hide in a castle and pretend it isn’t happening. ”
As soon as I speak it, the shadow in my chest dissipates and I feel more myself than I have in months.
Not the person who cowered on the fringes of society for centuries in order to survive, but the true Willa.
The Willa I’d glimpsed for those few precious moments in time when I’d been brave enough to love fiercely and be loved in return.
And despite everything, my kingdom was the catalyst for it all. Letum cracked me open and made me bleed and gave me a reason to fight. It reminded me of the beauty that exists in the pain, and it is mine.
“I’m going to fix what I’ve broken.” I take a leveling breath. “I’m going to board the ship.”
Tiernan’s eyes bulge. “And then what?” he demands. “Are you going to invite him to sit down to tea and ask him politely to leave? This is the Everlasting, Willie! If you go to him…there is no guarantee you’ll come back out.”
He spins to Sam imploringly. Sam watches me with a thoughtful gaze, his magic thick between us like swathes of down blankets. After a long moment, he says, “Death has returned to the island, Tiernan. Willa is the only one it cannot touch.”
The sentiment scrapes against my spine, and I nearly squeeze my eyes shut to keep from drowning in the memories of when death had touched me.
“There are worse things than death, Sam,” Tiernan replies fiercely. “It’s one of the first lessons you learn as a Strayed. If he gets you under his control, Willie…the kingdom will be lost.”
I give him a small smile. “When has anyone ever been able to make me do anything I don’t want to do?”
Tiernan opens his mouth as if to argue, but after a moment, he closes it tightly and nods. And I love him for it—for wanting to protect me, while knowing me well enough to understand why I cannot accept his protection.
“Remember, Willa…there is always a cost,” Sam says gravely. “Get out of there before it demands something of you that you can’t give.”
My skin prickles. Sam is referring to when I brought Niko back from the dead—when I pushed the universe to give back what it stole from me.
When his heart began to beat once more, I knew I’d given something up, even if I couldn’t name what it was.
Though Sam doesn’t know what happened to me in the Hollows, I wonder if he’s beginning to suspect the true cost of my actions.
Not the Aeternalis coming back to life, but my own horrors awakening.
“I’ll be careful.” For an absurd moment, I feel like hugging them both—like burying my head in their safety and forgetting the rest of the world exists. But I don’t know how to cross the space between us, nor how to express what their faith has meant to me the past few months.
Tiernan pulls me into a hug, the rhythm of his heartbeat steadying my own. Sam gives me an unwavering smile like this isn’t goodbye at all; like he has faith in me making it out.
Wrapped between them, I close my eyes and paint the serpentine curves of the Indomnitus. And when I open them again, I find myself atop the shining decks of the Indomnitus, a soft sea breeze tousling my hair and a pair of inhuman green eyes watching me.
***
The ship is quiet. Waves slap rhythmically against the hull, the dark water expanding toward the horizon like a spill of violet paint under the pink sky.
Streaks of sunshine cast the curves of ship in odd slashes of light and shadows, the detailed black wood glinting like polished obsidian.
I curl my toes in my shoes, and for a brief moment, the world is both hushed and electric—like stepping into the Crocodile where time moves like an erratic river, stalling in places and rushing forward in others.
The winter wind blows my hair in wild tendrils around my face, and my heart beats somewhere near my throat as memories of the last time I stood on this deck inundate me.
I would do it all over again.
Niko’s promise no longer feels like a prayer; only a cruel taunt.