Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Alantern sways near the mainmast, its soft glow the only light as I climb onto the deck of the Indomnitus.
Though the ship no longer rests in the Crocodile, there is an aura of despair settled over it just the same.
It stuffs itself into my lungs the moment my boots hit the planks, noxious and heavy, like the Indomnitus is not the vessel of possibility it once was, but a harbinger of death. A beautiful tomb.
Dread tightens my stomach as I pad through the dark toward the captain’s quarters.
I don’t take the time to discern whether it is my own, focusing instead on the familiar sound of my steps on the wood.
While I’ve never had the restless heart of Niko, this ship is the first place I felt what it meant to be home.
The sway of it beneath me, the soft clap of the waves below—things I thought forever lost—open up a nostalgic longing in me.
Warm and rich, like sugar and woodsmoke.
Though it isn’t late, the sun having only set an hour earlier, the captain’s rooms are dark.
I raise my hand to knock before thinking better of it, and pushing my way in.
The door is unlocked, and though I know the Aeternalis is still licking his wounds from being keelhauled, the fact that Niko hasn’t put up any sort of protective barrier doesn’t bode well for his state of mind.
The door swings shut behind me as I step inside, swallowing the remaining light from the deck.
The moment I cross the threshold, I’m inundated by Niko’s agony.
It is sharp and deep, like the lash of a crop opening skin.
It is bitter on my tongue, washing over my vision in shades of pure obsidian—the same abiding shade as his ribbons.
Sucking in a breath, my magic curls outward in soothing tendrils.
I sense Niko’s presence in a far corner, the enigmatic finality of his power as familiar to me as my own.
Squinting into the darkness, I reach forward blindly with my hands to keep from running headfirst into furniture as I follow the path toward his radiating misery.
“Ottoman,” the king barks out a millisecond before I trip over it, and break my neck.
“Star above, Niko,” I mutter, my shin smarting as I blink owlishly into the dark. “Would it kill you to light a candle?”
“Yes,” he sulks, “as that would ruin the dramatic mood of my wallowing.”
His words are slow and slurred. It’s clear he’s been deep in his cups for a long while.
With an irritated sigh, I fish a lighter out of the pocket of my cloak and flick it to life.
The light of the tiny flame is enough for me to fumble my way toward Niko’s desk, though not enough to prevent me from banging the exact same spot on my shin into a blasted chair.
With a harried sigh, I light the oil lamp.
Niko curses loudly, and when I turn, it’s to find he’s thrown a ribbon melodramatically over his face. “You’re searing my eyeballs, Samuel!”
I grimace, taking in the king sprawled out gracelessly on a settee in the corner.
His long limbs are splayed at odd angles, like he tripped onto the couch hours ago and never bothered to move.
He is clad in only a rumpled pair of old trousers, leaving his chest and feet bare despite the chill in the room.
His eyes are sunken and red-rimmed, the usual black eyeliner streaking down over his pale cheeks in watery smudges.
He grunts in annoyance when I set the lantern on the table beside the couch.
“If I knew you were having a pity party, I would have dressed for the occasion.” I motion to his disarray like it’s humorous, though truly, it is far from it.
Niko has always been meticulous in his appearance, even in the worst of his pain.
His present dishevelment is far more alarming than his drunkenness.
Adira had been the one to tell me he was in need of me, perhaps because of something she’d heard in Willa’s mind.
I hadn’t realized how dire the situation actually is, or I would have come sooner.
“You’ll have to forgive me for neglecting to send a formal invitation, Sammie,” he hiccups, swiping haphazardly at his mouth. “It was a spur of the moment event.”
“That’s actually why I’m here.”
“To ruminate on my disregard of the decorum of pity parties?” Niko cocks his head in confusion. The movement is so uncoordinated, he knocks it hard on the wall behind him. Then, nearly hits his head again in his endeavor to glare at the paneled wood, like it was the one to reach out and smack him.
I clear my throat. “To extend an invitation.”
“On whose behalf?” he grouses. “Because it certainly isn’t the queen’s.”
“The morphellia are set to bloom in a few hours’ time.
” I level him with a pointed look, because there’s no world in which he doesn’t already know this.
Niko has made knowing everything an infuriating cornerstone of his existence.
“Dreaming’s Eve is a festival for everyone on the island.
Even moping former kings in desperate need of a shower. ”
Though Niko says nothing, his ribbons flare around him at the mention of the festival, before falling moodily back to the cushion beside him.
“Even Marina is going, and you know how she feels about revels.”
“Marina has the ability to turn herself invisible the minute the party turns dull.” He shoots me a hateful glare. “And Dreaming’s Eve is a celebration of life, as you bloody well know.”
“So?”
“So…” he repeats in mocking tone, made less effective by the blurred edges of his inebriation. “No one wants to be reminded of death during a fete of its antithesis.”
I roll my eyes. “You are the only drunk I’ve ever met that manages to become more loquacious after an entire bottle of…” I read the label of the brown bottle in his hand, furrowing my brow. “Since when do you drink whiskey?”
Niko blinks at me sullenly. “I’m not coming, Sam. Go enjoy your woman and your drink and leave me to my misery.”
As if in demonstration of said misery, Niko’s ribbons crawl up over his legs and he shudders at the accompanying wave of pain.
His breathing grows labored, and my magic unfurls in my chest to reach for him.
I am well acquainted with the imprint of Niko’s pain: the dark of an abyss, the empty silence of isolation.
It is a cold that sinks into the marrow of bones, icing them over until they shatter at the softest touch.
For a moment, I consider soothing the sharp edges of his pain with my magic. But it is always a risky endeavor, as Niko is just as likely to be grateful for the intrusion as he is to be infuriated by it.
Deciding to take my chances, I allow my magic to pour over him in a gentle wave.
My body tightens in anticipation of his agony, and as it begins to pour through our connection, my teeth clamp together.
For a brief moment, I cannot breathe beneath the weight of it, but it passes as quickly as it began because Niko has decided on anger.
He waves off my magic wildly, flailing his bare hands as if there’s a thick cloud of mosquitoes flying about his head. “None of that!”
“Fine,” I reply, crossing my arms over my chest obstinately and yanking the tendrils of magic back to me. They curl up behind my heart, soft as cashmere despite the echoes of Niko’s pain still clanging in my chest. “We’ll just sit here and brood in the dark. But I’m not drinking that swill.”
Leaning forward, I yank the bottle from him, eliciting a yelp of outrage. His ribbons swirl frenetically into the air in protest, but I’ve already ducked behind his desk to pull a dusty bottle of rum from the cabinet. I pop the cork and take a large swig, appreciating the slight burn of the liquor.
I wipe my mouth with the back of my hand, before handing the bottle to Niko.
He stares at it with a furrowed brow. “I don’t believe mixing liquor is the solution to anything but poisoning me for the morning.”
“I believe we’re long past you feeling anywhere close to human in the morning, sir.” I raise a brow, settling back into the chair across from him. “And I didn’t think you were looking for solutions.”
He glares at me, and tips the liquor back with an indulgent smack of his lips. “There are none. I’ve tried them all, and the result is always the same…I am well and truly fucked.”
“What’s new,” I mutter, pulling the bottle away from him again. “We’ve been fucked since birth.”
It’s a familiar joke between us, but he doesn’t laugh. He only gazes at me sadly. “Not you, Sammie. You’ve always been the best of us, dragged down by virtue of your loyalty.” He hiccups again. “You should have abandoned me five worlds ago, and you wouldn’t be caught up in any of this.”
“I’d also be long dead,” I point out.
Niko shrugs listlessly, his gaze sliding from me to the lantern. He blinks at it slowly, like now that it’s caught his attention, he can’t figure out how to tear it away. “And we all know…death is the worst thing in the universe.”
It takes me a few moments of silence, and just as many sips from the bottle, to recognize the irritation pricking at the back of my neck as my own.
“By the star, Niko, are we really doing this right now?”
Now, he blinks at me instead of the lantern as if I’ve bewildered him just as greatly. “I’m not sure what you mean.”
“That’s because you’re a bastard,” I huff.
“A bastard who has been more than my captain and my king. You have been my brother. You have been my best friend. It was not the Aeternalis I followed through that orphanage window. It was you, Niko…a little runt of a boy who spoke of family like he knew what it should mean. And you always have. The greatest things in my life have come from my loyalty to you, and I won’t allow you to shame me for it, just because you cannot see past your own pain. ”
My words appear to sober him, or at the very least, steal whatever self-aggrandizing sentiment he had at the ready. His mouth opens and then closes, before his head sags into his hands.