Chapter 34 #2
I let out a long-held breath. They were the reason the island moved. They were the reason it could not be found.
He held my gaze. “And we were happy.”
He took a deep, shuddering breath.
“I was seventeen suns when the ships from the Nethersea found our shores.”
I could hear the Touchstone whispering, her fury boiling beneath the boards.
“You have to understand, Aro’el. I had spent the last ten years of my life hating Oversea for the slaughter of the Priestlords. Of my family. Every rune I had learned, every spell I had cast was in preparation for the day we would meet again. For ten years, I grew in magik and plotted my revenge.”
His eyes were a tempest, his jaw tight.
“And one day, an armada arrived at my shores. They were my people, my deliverance, my chance to strike back.”
Oh Forge, I didn’t like where this was going.
“What did you do?” I whispered, my voice thin and barely there.
His breath caught, a muscle twitching in his cheek.
“I taught them how to use chimeric.”
The words struck like cannon fire. Smashed through my chest, sank like iron in my gut. The war. The death. The Dawn Watch. The powder boy. All of it. Every grave, every ruin.
Oh, suns. All of it was his fault.
I wanted to strike out. To scream. To weep. But the sound lodged in my throat, along with my heart.
“Mr. Worley was right. I killed his son. I killed them all,” he said. “I was so filled with anger, with rage, with sorrow. I brought war to every man, woman, and child of the north. Not just her king. Everyone.”
The Touchstone was hissing, humming with memories and primal loss. I drew my hand away. This couldn’t be right. This couldn’t be true. He couldn’t be more to blame than those who had spilled blood.
“No,” I said softly. “You’re shouldering too much. We own the wreckage we leave behind, but we can’t carry the pain caused by others.”
The silence stretched between us, and I knew he was considering my words. He was good that way.
“Dev does not know,” he said softly, and he ran a hand across his forehead, made a fist in his dark hair. “He thinks they stole the knowledge. I could not bear to lose him, too.”
“Again, no,” I said. “Dev loves you. You are kel’yia. Brothers. He’d understand.”
I could feel him marshal his breath, the trembles that changed to steel.
“No,” he said. “He will not.”
His gaze caught mine, pain so raw and devastating within. Like the Sheets, it roiled the blue-green oceans that were his eyes. Like the Silence, it stole the breath from my lungs.
“I did not just teach them how to use chimeric, Aro’el,” he said.
“I taught them how to use the branches of the RuneTree to carry its power. I was a proud, cocky, desperate boy. Surely she could spare a slight of wood for me, her kel’yion.
Her Beloved. Surely, she would approve of my plans for revenge. ”
I shook my head, but no sound came.
“But one branch was not enough,” he said. “It would never be enough for men who hunger for more.”
My chest was locked tight. When the words finally tore loose, they came raw, ragged.
“No.”
“Yes, Aro’el. Because of me and my pride, I was forced to watch while they cut her down.” His words rushed out, unstoppable now. “It took fifty mages to hold me back, and even still I almost defeated them. They beat me to the edge of life. Beat me until I could not even crawl.”
A wail rose up in the creak of timber, the furious slapping of sheets overhead—and then nothing. The Touchstone was gone like the suns at night. The cabin was empty without her voice, but I knew with a pain this deep, the only way to protect yourself was to withdraw into your shell.
“When I woke next, they had cut her down to a stump,” he growled bitterly, his voice breaking, “and turned her into timbers, staves, and planks for their ships. They were able to sail before I could fly again. There was only one ship left broken on the shore.”
He looked away, his jaw working to keep the steel, but I didn’t try to hide the tears sliding down my cheeks. The silence that followed was unbearable, as heavy as a grave. He clenched his fists until the knuckles blanched, as though he could still feel her sap running warm beneath his palms.
“For most of my life, she was my mother,” he whispered at last, the words shattering him. “And I cannot rest until I take her home.”
His shoulders curled inward, no armor left to keep the grief from spilling out. The air thickened with the ghost of her, the sweet, resinous scent of her bark, the vast, sheltering hush of her branches. His muscles trembled like a child lost in the dark.
I laid my forehead on his arm, my chest aching as though her roots had been torn from me, too. The world suddenly felt emptier, smaller, a hollow place where something sacred had once stood.
And so we breathed and breathed some more, drowning in sorrows, lost in our grief.
Finally, he raised his head, and I could feel the steel slide back into place.
“I took that ship and filled her with RuneTree wood. It was remarkable how it formed itself to her hull, her decks, her railing. Moons, she even made her own figurehead.”
He almost smiled at that.
“She was still so strong, so filled with chimeric. She could do anything, and I vowed to never leave her decks.” He released another long breath. “We sailed to High Temple, and I made a pact with the king. I believe you know the rest.”
“You were so young,” I said.
He nodded.
“Eighteen suns,” he said. “And already old.”
Forge, too young to carry such a weight. I understood him full well.
He finally met my gaze, tears and fury both brimming behind his dark lashes. Sadness, pain, loss, rage. Oh, how I wished I could soothe that all away.
“She has forgotten much of her past life, which is a blessing. But she has kept her character, her integrity, and her fierce spirit. And I must honor that above all else. It is my first duty.”
“And her love for you,” I said. “Don’t forget she’s kept that, too.”
Another deep breath, and another, and I watched him begin to lock himself down, hide things away under rocks and steel and rune. I knew how it was done. I did it myself.
He nodded swiftly and dropped his head again, elbows on his knees, hands still clasped between them. But I could see them twist together, rune crackling along his fingers as they tightened into fists.
“She has,” he said.
I ran my hands across his weary shoulders, made circles across his back. I remember Fahr had rubbed mine when I was heaving up all over the pup, months ago. A lifetime. I’d never done it for anyone, but somehow, it just seemed right.
“So, you’ve been collecting the pieces of the other ships to keep her alive.”
He nodded.
“Collecting the chimeric to keep her alive as well.”
He nodded.
“Collected me to keep her alive.”
His gaze met mine. “Forgive me for that.”
“It’s my honor,” I said, and Forge dammit if my chest didn’t ache at the irony. “Is that really why we’re going to the Cloudgate? To bring her back?”
“There is no way back for her, Aro’el,” he said.
“She is dying, and if she dies, so does the Dreadwall. None of us is prepared for what happens when it falls. But if she stays on Lindurithain, however, she will live forever in the form of a ship. I have told her it is far better than losing her, but she does not want to be without me, and I do not wish to stay.”
I wanted to hear her voice, but she was silent as the deep.
“I never want to live that again,” he muttered. “Nor should anyone else be forced into it. No more horror, no more war. The chimeric must be kept safe from guilty kings and cruel emperors.”
He looked up.
“So, you see,” he said. “This is beyond you, beyond me, beyond Dev and Worley and the vile Court of Sand. I am mapping the fate of an entire world, and I must not slip, else all is lost. And if it is lost, then it is lost, and I have failed in the one thing in my sorry life I was tasked to do.”
Forge. How did one chart a course through these waters?
To my surprise, he lifted his palm to my cheek, caressed my runescars with his skilled fingers. I closed my eyes, warmed by his touch.
“But I still hope,” he said. “Because we have never had so much chimeric, and we have never had you.”
“I’ll do whatever you need,” I said quietly. “Whatever she needs.”
“These next days will be the most dangerous of your life,” he said. “I need you to hold fast and obey my orders to the letter. I say this not as a man but as captain now, captain of a dying ship and a mortal crew. The fate of the world is in our sails. We must not fail.”
“She can use me up and bleed me dry,” I said. “But so can you. Kier.”
And I laid my hand over his. A proper offer. Forge, what was I thinking?
“My course is not life. You know this.”
“Change your course,” I said. “You’re a Dreadmage. You can do anything.”
Fog these tears.
“Aro’el,” he said, but his eyes had found my mouth once again. Oh suns, I wanted to taste him. “Aro’el, I cannot…”
But he wanted to. I could tell. And I wanted him to. I pressed his hand against my cheek, kissed his palm. His eyes searched me, found me, asked me, yearned. He cupped my face and leaned closer, breathing me in like mulled wine in winter, and I lifted my chin, desperate for his mouth.
There was a rap on the door.