Rage of Krakens (Forbidden Bonds Collection #2)

Chapter 1

The War-Father has spoken to me about my softness before. If he catches me committing treason for a second time, he’ll have to kill me. No matter how sorry he is to destroy his favorite weapon.

My hands tremble as I creep past stacks of crates, piles of netting and rope, and rolled heavy sails. The ship tilts left, then right, rocking on the sea as chains clank and wooden walls groan.

On the floor in front of me is a splatter of blood. I breathe out a curse and break into a jog.

She’s wedged herself into the corner of the ship, between two stacks of crates. She’s facing the wall, and she’s wearing the same grime-stiff gown they all wear.

I know I'm lucky that I found her before the ship’s quartermaster realized one of the Enchanted had gone missing from her bunk. But my stomach stays firmly lodged in my throat.

The enchantments inked into her skin are supposed to keep her mindless. Blank. She shouldn’t be awake, or aware enough to hide.

For the past week, I’ve been working to free her from those spells, since they're draining her life to power this ship. But she was supposed to wake up when I was ready to smuggle her out. Not in the middle of last night, or however many hours ago she escaped the bunkroom.

“You’re awake,” I whisper. “It’s alright. I’m the one who…”

The Enchanted spins to look at me, and bares her teeth.

“...Was trying to free you,” I mumble.

She's thin, with pale beige skin and a mole beneath her lips. There’s a wild, unfocused look to her eyes.

She probably doesn't recognize me. To her I'm just a lady knight in enchanted armor, gauntlets hanging on my belt, red-brown hair braided back with dozens of valor-ribbons. Nothing more than a trained mastiff dog who'll drag her back to the crystals that have been feeding on her life.

Without our Hellion warships, we aren’t strong enough to fight against the ancient, sleepless evils in these lands: the witches, and the dragons they’ve bonded to. And without the Enchanted, the Hellions can’t fight.

“Get. Away,” the Enchanted growls, her voice guttural.

Her right hand is slick with blood. Her fingers curl around a fish scaler, one of the serrated blades we keep in the ship’s kitchen. Which means she made it up two more flights and back unseen. On a ship this busy, I can’t imagine how.

It’s only then I notice her left forearm, and realize where the blood splattered on the ground came from.

Gods be merciful.

She’s awake enough to know what the spell is doing to her, and she’s shaving off her own skin, where the enchantment is tattooed, to stop it.

My stomach heaves and I swallow the bile before it can rise into my mouth.

The work I’d been doing over the past week left small wounds, too, as I pulled the crystalline magic out of her skin, but I didn’t brutalize her.

“What have you done?” I whisper hoarsely. “Gods, your arm.”

“You’ll. Have. To kill me. I won’t. Go back,” she rasps. The rhythm of her speech is odd, her mind not wholly her own yet. The woman points the fish scaler at me in her shaking hand.

I force myself to take a deep breath.

I looked every single one of them in the face, all thirty-six as they were brought aboard. Murderers, debtors, witch-sympathisers, undesirables. I chose her. We're too far into the trip for me to pick anybody else.

“I’ll bandage your arm with cleansing salve,” I tell her, pinching my lower lip hard between two fingers as I think. “You can’t go back to the bunks, not with a wound like that.”

“I’m not. Going.”

“You’ll have to hide for weeks.” Even if I can keep a stowaway hidden that long, the wound on her arm might kill her. And there’s so much blood on the floor. What am I going to do about that?

“I will. Hide,” she rasps. Suddenly her whole expression shifts. The fish scaler clatters to the floor and her knees thud into a kneel. “I’ll hide. Please. I don't. Want. To die. On this ship.”

“I’ll line some crates here to hide behind,” I say quickly, gesturing at where she’s kneeling. “I can’t bring you food and water often, but if you stay quiet…”

“Yes,” the woman begs. “Yes. I’ll be. Quiet.”

“You can’t keep using that knife. You’ll kill yourself that way.”

I hold my hand out for the knife, but she grips it tighter in her bloody right hand, her eyes skittering away from me.

“Need it,” she mutters. “Not. Safe.”

A fish scaler won’t save her if she’s found. But if it brings her comfort, who am I to deny that?

“Don't use it on yourself again. I can get rid of your marks myself.”

She nods.

“You can’t make any noise. I'm going to get bandages, but if someone sees me it might take a while.”

She nods again. I wish I could ask the ship’s surgeon if a skinned forearm is even survivable, but I’m just going to pray to all six gods this isn’t the end of everything I’ve been working toward. If I’m caught saving her, I’m very dead. It won’t matter that the War-Father raised me himself.

The crates are heavy. I shove one over with a grunt, my feet grinding into the floor. I push until it’s between the others, forming a wall around the Enchanted.

The space she’s in now is only two feet deep and four feet wide.

And when I stack another crate on top of this one, there will be barely any light.

Little better than being buried alive. But she doesn’t protest. She just stares as I wedge it more carefully into place, making sure there are no gaps somebody could see her through.

“Teraze,” she whispers.

“What?”

“My name. I. Remembered.” Her voice sounds thin. Probably from pain.

“Just stay quiet.” I lift another crate up to hide her.

The ship’s wood creaks again.

“Thank. You,” she whispers, so soft I barely hear. My heart clenches tight. I blink rapidly.

“Caitevin?” someone calls behind me. It sounds like Harfor, my chosen squire, and a friend for even longer. I drop the crate down with a thud, hiding the Enchanted from view as my heart slams so fast it might burst.

“Yes?” I call back, turning around. The wood creaks again: that’s the stairs. I walk toward them, and a moment later Harfor reaches the base.

“What are you doing down here?” my squire asks, one eyebrow raised, confused but not accusing.

Harfor’s black hair hangs in long braids, ribboned with pops of red and gold from the fights she’s won.

She’s nearly thirty, and as good a hand with a sword as I am, but when the Exalted God-Emperor still hadn’t knighted her by twenty-six, the same age I am now, she gave up and resigned herself to a life of squiring.

If she were a man, she’d have been knighted by twenty.

“I’m thinking of setting up a space,” I babble, then kick myself inwardly. I should have just said I was stretching my legs. I nervously grip the necklace the War-Father gave me years ago. The metal pendant disc, with its protective enchantment, is cool in my hand.

“A space?” Harfor asks.

“Some cushions. A reading light.”

The look Harfor gives me strongly implies that I have, at long last, gone utterly insane.

“...Here?”

“Sure.” I step toward the stairs, one hand still clasped around the necklace’s pendant for comfort, hoping I can get Harfor to turn and walk back with me.

The Enchanted behind me is hidden well enough from view, I think, but one noise from her and it’s over.

She’s lost a lot of blood. What if she passes out and collapses?

What if she bangs her injury on one of the crates in the dark, and screams?

Harfor’s head tilts to the side.

“I thought you hated being below the waterline.”

“I’m sick of bumping into sailors every way I turn,” I mutter. “Just thought…”

“I’ll help.”

I blink at her.

“...Really?”

Harfor grins widely. The gold cap on her right incisor winks.

“Boredom has me halfway to the Death-God’s door. Should we move the crates around to clear some space?” Harfor looks almost excited as she eyes the room.

“Well…” I scratch my neck, then shrug, the movement clanking in my armor. “Let’s see if we can find some cushions first. Maybe a spare hammock. See what we’re working with.”

Harfor nods, and we head up the stairs. How do I talk her out of this?

“How long until lunch?” I ask, even though food’s the last thing on my mind.

“It’s only—” Harfor starts.

The alarm bell rings above us.

The clear sound pierces down from the top deck into every fiber of the wood. My mouth goes dry and Harfor stumbles.

“Fuck,” Harfor says. She steps aside to let me pass her. I take the stairs two at a time, surging toward the deck. The ship shudders as Rampage’s weapons power in response to the alarm.

I burst up the stairs and break onto the deck, into a whipping stormwind and brine so thick it pickles my tongue. My sailors scramble for the mounted catapults, moving to reload them even as the ship aims and shoots the first volley herself. My heart falters, then pounds in double-time.

I can’t worry about the Enchanted hidden downstairs. We’re days from the frontline, which means we’re alone on the Wild Seas. There are no other Hellion ships in firing distance. Which means we’re screwed.

Because the black dragon emerging from the storm bank in front of me is the biggest one I’ve ever seen.