Chapter 22
Chapter
Twenty-Two
Erinna slinked through the early morning haze as silent as a ghost. At this hour, no one was around or awake enough to wonder where she was headed. What she was doing.
She preferred it that way.
Erinna trudged up the hill, just outside of camp. Her destination up ahead.
The graveyard.
Mist rolled across the grass as the land began to warm. Worn stones bathed in violet pre-dawn light. It was serene, but Erinna only allowed a small moment of appreciation. There was work to do, and with the success of last night, a renewed determination pumped through her blood.
She pushed forward, targeting the old cottage hidden in climbing vines and brambles.
First, she needed to search the groundskeeper’s hut—tear through whatever moldering records or forgotten tools remained.
Even if she could just get a name. Names were far more powerful after death.
Her mother told her that once. Maybe with a name it would be easier to communicate with whatever reached out to her last night.
Tough weeds and vines snagged at her legs as Erinna pushed through, circling the property’s edge.
She made it to the front, pulling at winding green tendrils to free the warped and cracked door.
Moss grew from the center and softened the material.
A brass knob hung from its space. Erinna pushed at it gently and was met with groans and creaks. It would give in easily.
She thrust her shoulder into the wood, and the door crashed to the ground with a dull thud. Dust littered the air, and Erinna choked on the disturbed dust as she entered. The smell hit her first—damp moss and earth, threaded through with rot.
Dim light filtered through the caked, cracked windows. Shadows pooled in the corners, draped across the floorboards, but Erinna hardly noticed. She was used to the dark. Could see well enough in it.
The entire space was one large room. A rectangle of dust marked where a sleeping area used to be. A large fireplace dominated the back wall; a cauldron lay empty on the brick. In the far corner an old desk leaned over the remains of a chair beneath it.
Erinna picked her way to the desk, kicking up plaster and gravel as she went. The wood was rough beneath her fingertips, the grain deep and weathered. An old pen fell to the floor at her disturbance, rolling away into shadow.
She tried the single drawer. Locked and unyielding.
“Seriously.” Erinna sighed. Just her luck. The one thing that withstood the test of time was a locked drawer that likely held important and potentially useful information.
A muted whistle sounded in the distance. The rest of the camp would be rising soon. She was running out of time. The desk would have to wait.
Erinna returned to the cemetery.
It was time. For the first time, Erinna would use her Talent with purpose. Extend whatever senses she could through the space between realms. Search for whomever had guided her the night before. If something was reaching out to her, maybe it was time to reach back.
Erinna sat in the center, dew seeping slightly into her trousers from the damp earth.
In. Out.
She forced her breathing into a steady rhythm. The way Damien used to do when he was learning how to control his own power.
When the silence finally settled around her and within her, she reached for her Talent.
It resisted.
Erinna pulled harder.
A low shudder ran through her body, like some untamed beast had finally come to heel. Temporarily.
Talent hummed to life beneath her skin. Sweat beaded her brow from effort as she pushed her Talent out over the earth.
Searching.
Listening.
She was met with unnerving silence before her Talent faded. Maybe she was doing it wrong. Erinna wasn’t well-versed in Talents, and from what she could gather, an aberrant Talent was different from the rest.
Something not as tangible. Harder to study. Harder to control. All she had was instinct. There was no mentor to help her. It was foolish to think she’d be able to do this all on her own.
Erinna shook the thoughts from her head. She knew better than to give up after one attempt. She silenced her mind once more, called on her Talent, and searched again for any threads of arcanum to control. For a few long arduous moments, she sat unmoving on the damp earth.
Her hands clenched into fists in her lap, jaw locked in steely willpower.
“Answer me,” she commanded. “I know you’re there.”
Ice crept into her veins, and for one hopeful second, she could feel something stir around her. Power filled her body. She found it. A faint thread of magic that tied her to something in the Realm Beyond. She grabbed it with her Talent, giving it a soft tug.
“You came back.”
The words rattled Erinna to the core. Invisible tendrils wrapped around her throat.
No, she panicked, opening her mouth to scream, but the hold was so tight it silenced the air in her lungs. She pulled too hard, reached too deep. Caught a nightmare instead.
Erinna blinked, and the cemetery was replaced by a world of eternal midnight. Large, inky evergreens reached toward a sky full of stars. There she was. The Weeping Queen. She was nearly within arm’s reach of Erinna, bony arms reached out until—
A bosun’s whistle pierced the air. Erinna was back, standing among silent graves.
Shivering in fear and relief. She pressed a hand against her chest to calm her rapidly beating heart.
It wasn’t real. She was awake, where the Weeping Queen couldn’t reach her.
Erinna would need more tea and made a note to use more leaves in her brew come night.
She stared at her hands, the numbness receding as her Talent went back to rest. Maybe it was also the tea that was dulling her ability to reach it. Erinna slumped in on herself. It was stupid to think any of this was going to be easy.
Another screeching whistle. A reminder for the crew to take their stations. Erinna shook her head and heeded the call. She needed to be busy, to distract herself from whatever lurked within her.
Brax would be expecting her soon, and she still had a stubborn witchstone to work with. She grabbed her bag and slung it over her shoulder, making her way to the ship to begin a day’s worth of manual labor.
Erinna wiped the sweat from her brow and plopped onto the deck. Her body was getting used to the work, but that didn’t make it any less tiring. The stone rolled in front of her, hitting the tip of her boot with a mocking thud. She lost count of how many times she tried to get the stone to take.
People scurried about the ship, making sure it was as prepared as possible should they need to leave in a hurry.
That only made Erinna worry more. What would happen if they all failed?
If Haru and the academy made it to the island before she completed her project.
Before they made it into the library. Where would she go?
Her attention drifted back to the small, covered boat attached to the side of the Hellish Rebuke.
She would take it if she had to. Use force if necessary.
It wouldn’t survive Talon Bay, but she could take the northeast passage.
The safest route in and out of Fort Solitude.
It would add a few days, but at least she had a chance at making it back alive.
It was likely the route the academy would take as well.
“Maybe I can give you a hand with that,” offered a gruff voice from behind her.
Brax stood behind her, blocking the light of the sun with his hands on his hips. The grizzled man scanned her handiwork with an approving nod.
Erinna stood and patted wood shavings off her legs. “I’ll take all the help I can get.” Of all the pirates, Brax was the only one she trusted not to fuck it up completely.
She placed the stone back into the wood.
The edges of the hole morphed around the witchstone, responding to its power, holding it in place.
But there were still areas where the wood refused the stone.
For it to work properly, the stone needed to blend with the material—to willingly accept its new home.
If not, using it would be clunky at best on a vessel this size.
“It looks good.” Brax leaned in to inspect the small stone and lightly tapped it with his index finger. The compliment was sincere, but Erinna couldn’t accept it, not over her growing disappointment with each passing day that ended in failure.
She didn’t care whether Kane’s ship could even sail; it was the bruised pride that stung. That and the objective truth that if she couldn’t hold her end of the bargain, she would be forfeiting whatever information Kane could spare.
She let out a frustrated huff. “It refuses to take.”
Brax walked around the mast, forehead crinkled as he stroked his red and white peppered beard in thought.
“I haven’t worked much with witchstone before, but the setting looks decent.” He reached out and pulled off a splinter. “Still needs work, but not bad.”
Erinna tapped the stone absentmindedly. Perhaps persuading the stone with arcanum would help. It was greedy material after all.
“I suppose you don’t have a Talent you could use, do you?” Brax asked.
Goosebumps rose on the back of Erinna’s neck, and she shifted in place, suddenly uncomfortable with such a focused stare.
“No,” she clipped.
It was a stretch of the truth. She had Talent, but not one that would take well. It was an almost unanimous truth among followers of the Everdawn that an aberrant Talent could only take from a stone. Never give.
Kenneth denied that folly, but his explanation was unconvincing. “It just works a bit differently, that’s all,” he told her once and left it at that. Erinna had half a mind to wonder whether her father understood it himself. Druidism was no aberrant Talent, but it certainly wasn’t normal either.
“I may have Asher come and try to activate it,” Erinna explained. Brax nodded in approval. If anyone had a Talent that would be useful, it was Asher.
“Perhaps some enchanted silver will help?”
Erinna and Brax let out surprised gasps. At some point, Lila had snuck behind them and perched on a crate with another broken book in hand.
“Don’t sneak up on us like that.” Red crept back to Brax’s cheeks. In the short amount of time that she’d been around the crew, Erinna had come to realize that Brax hated surprises almost more than he hated incompetence.
“Do you have some?” Erinna tried to keep the desperation out of her voice. She didn’t know if it would work, but gods was she willing to try.
Lila sized her up from the corner of her eye. “Would it help?”
“It might.” Erinna didn’t want to make promises, but enchanted silver may suffice.
“I need more assurance before I hand it over.” Lila had finally moved to an upright position, placing the book gingerly on the crate next to her.
The two women stared at each other for a brief moment. Sizing up the risks and benefits for each situation.
“I can’t make any promises, but if it works, then you’d have a ship capable of handling Asher’s magic. It would save a lot of headaches come storm season.”
Lila narrowed her eyes and pursed her lips in thought. “That would be advantageous, but is it worth losing my shifter hunting knife?”
Erinna couldn’t hide her shock. The casualness with which the master gunner mentioned werewolves—shifters—had her mind reeling.
So many on Tarth considered them more myth than reality.
Just one of the many monsters that found home in the north.
But no one had seen such a beast in over a hundred years.
Lila smirked at Erinna’s incredulous look, and Brax clasped her back with a bellowing laugh.
“When they said Tarthans were sheltered, I didn’t realize it was this bad. Know anyone that’s been to the north?” The humor in Brax’s voice did not lift Erinna’s spirits.
“My mother.” The tone in her voice brought an end to the conversation and had both pirates fidgeting in place.
“I’ll consider it. Give me the night, and I’ll have an answer in the morning.” Lila picked up her book once again and slouched against the pile of ropes and sandbags.
Erinna appreciated the sudden silence and space as Brax returned to his frets over supplies, and Lila became uninterested in her dealings once again. Without need for further conversation, Erinna left the deck of the Hellish Rebuke in the company of her own thoughts and inner turmoil.