Chapter 38 The Endorathil
I usually remembered my dreams. Unfortunately, I usually remembered my nightmares, too, so when these memories of beatings and blood, impaling and surrender, were still with me when I woke, for a brief moment, I hoped that nightmare was all they were.
But my head throbbed, my ribs ached, and the room smelled of blood, tar, and piss, telling me otherwise.
I was not on the Touchstone.
I pushed myself to my hands and knees. I was alone in a brig. There was no port, the ceiling was low, and the floor was tarred to repel the piss and the blood.
I was on the Endorathil.
I waited until the pain ebbed like a low tide before I forced myself to sit, my back against a bulwark, arms across my knees.
I had no gloves, and my scars still gleamed, so at least I had some resources.
I could burn a hole in the wall, but I had no idea of where a Rhi’Ahr brig was located.
The Endorathil was a large four-master. I could crawl out of here straight into the captain’s quarters, for all I knew of their ships.
Thanavar wasn’t here. Dev wasn’t here. I was alone.
Echo?
Kill the rest.
Mother?
I wished I hadn’t seen Buck die. So fast, so brutal, for such a noble man.
And at Smoke’s hand. The horror still twisted my gut.
I wished I had stayed in the hold with my mother and Echo, but they were right.
I had mutiny in my bones. I would pay for it every minute of every day for the rest of my life, which, on this ship, wouldn’t be long.
I wished I hadn’t seen the sword come down, separating Thanavar’s hand from his wrist. The source of deep magik, the caster of spells. A mage’s hands were his livelihood. For Thanavar, they were his life. Now, he was down to one, if he was alive at all.
And Smoke. Oh, the bile that rose up my throat at the thought of him, the charming, witty, vulgar quartermaster who had sold us out for the price of a boat. I’d kill him the next time I saw him, but because of this little cell, he might live a very long time.
I wondered about Worley. Had he really been the traitor, the soul aboard? What if it was Smoke all along, cleverly capitalizing on Worley’s hatred of Rhi’Ahr and magik with birds? I couldn’t believe it, and yet Worley was dead and Smoke was captain of an enemy ship.
I rubbed my head. I couldn’t believe any of it, even though I had seen it all for myself.
And so, I sat in this dark, small, tar-stained cell forever, until the door rattled and a Rhi’Ahr pulled me to my feet.
The Endorathil was big even for a man-of-war.
Five decks, not including hold or bilge, with a crew of at least two hundred soldiers and seamen.
She was beautiful. She was clean. She was polished to gleaming.
She was art. Her masts were carved with story, and her sails sang legends in gold.
Arches, curves, bevels, and curls made even the most ordinary details exquisite, and everything looked like it could be a weapon in the right hands.
Art and war. They made it seem natural, and I envied them the skill.
I was taken through a wide companionway and a set of arched doors that made those on the Touchstone look common. My heart ached to know I’d never see her again. I prayed they didn’t just sink her outright, but if they did, that she would go swift.
I could hear Smoke’s voice from the other side of the door, and I steeled the knots in my belly.
“Just a small crew,” he was saying. “Twelve able seamen would be fine. Maybe ten. I’ll pick up a full crew in Flogger’s Bay. And I can’t bloody well make port at Corvallan or Hodgetown anytime soon, can I? Not after Marelethan and company pounded the shite out of them just for fun.”
“How will you report?”
“A friend of mine had a clutch of swifts, just like yours. We can imprint them ship to ship with a Domunus spell. Easy as a High Temple courtesan. I just need to pop over to the Touchstone and fetch ’em.”
“Your Bracebridge will be here by morning with a fleet of cruisers,” said Ilvalour. “He expects me to trade the prince, but I may do as you say and keep the boy for myself. The Impirius would be pleased if I present him such a prize.”
There was a pause.
“Keeping Bracebridge as an ally is not a bad thing,” said Smoke.
“Bracebridge is a fool. I have what I want and no longer need him.”
“No, listen. Send the prince back to High Temple with him. Then, the King of Oversea owes you a debt he can never repay.”
“I care nothing for the King of Oversea. Before I leave Lindurithain, the Endorathil and the Marelethan will sink the Touchstone together. Tonight, two ships under my command will end her reign of terror, and I will be restored to glory.”
“Well then, that’s a plan as fine as a ninny-backed bitch.” Silence. “That’s a good thing.”
I heard the shuffling of papers and the sliding of chairs, and suddenly, the door swung open. I wasn’t prepared for the twist of my gut, nor the sting of my eyes.
“How could you?” I hissed.
“Hello, Blue,” he said, and he noticed my hands crackling. “You can’t do anything with those. There’s a Sublimatus on the entire ship. Not on the Touchstone, mind, if you catch my drift.”
“You killed Buck!”
“Yes, well, if only you’d listened to the cap—”
I slapped him.
It was clever because I knew he’d allow it. Proud people usually did. You could slap someone, and they’d allow it because it would be weak to be afraid of the palm of a hand. But I was smarter than that.
So, yes, I slapped him, and when his cheek turned on impact, I slipped my finger through the hoop and tore the ring from his ear.
There’s only one way this comes out, he had said that night so long ago. And he was right. It sure wasn’t pretty.
He yelped and staggered back, clapping his hands over the side of his face. Blood seeped out between his fingers, and I held the ring out in my palm.
“You don’t deserve this,” I growled. “You’re not worthy of the Touchstone or her crew. Worley was a better man than you!”
He looked up at me, his eyes large and sad, and I didn’t care.
“If you’d just obeyed your captain’s orders,” he said, “if you’d just stayed in the hold, you would have been spared.”
“I would have died like everyone else.”
He shook his head, stepped back and back again.
“Safe seas, Honor Renn. I do hope you make it out alive.”
“Respiramaealis,” I spat. An old incantation, more curse than spell. I heard it often when I was little, before my mother became respectable and feared.
Breathe evil and die.
He shook his head again and turned away, and I hoped never to see him again as long as I lived.
“Send her in.”
The guard shoved me forward, into the cabin of Kinrath Ilvalour.
“Sit,” he said.
I didn’t sit.
“Eat,” he said, indicating a bowl of red grabberries and pickled sunfish.
I didn’t eat.
“Drink.” He poured a glass.
I didn’t drink.
“You spin chimeric. How did that happen?”
I said nothing, fixed my eyes on the trappings of the room. Maps, sextants, astrolabe, charts.
“Was it a spell? An incantation? A ritual gone wrong? Or was it Thanavar? Did he brand you with rune so you could spin for him?”
No books. Not a one. Journals, though, and I wondered if the cy fwthilu translation spell would work on them. No, not if there was a full Sublimatus on the ship.
“I have use for a chimeric spinner.”
By the wide gallery of windows in this great cabin, there was a bird cage swinging from a hook. Inside it, a swift.
“I know you can speak. The entire ship has heard your scream.”
A swift, like the ones Worley sent.
“Are you a privateer like Mr. Oaken-Lankiskjold?” he asked.
“Who?” My first word. I instantly regretted it.
“The dworgh. That is his name, yes?”
I couldn’t pronounce it if I tried, Dev had said.
I said nothing, studied the floor.
“So? Are you a privateer like him?” He leaned across his desk, fingers laced like the braids in his hair. “You look Navy. Can you be bought like Bracebridge?”
“Thanavar is my captain,” I said. “I have sworn an oath.”
“His head on a pike will change that.” He watched me, detached and curious. “How does he inspire such loyalty in people?”
My heart swelled at all the ways I could answer, all the things I could say, but I bit it all back.
This man didn’t deserve to know. Thanavar made up his own rules and invited you into the game.
Challenged you to figure it out and was waiting for you when you did.
It was terrifying and exhilarating, and not one of his crew would ever be the same after a turn on his decks.
We were all kel’yia—willing to die for each other, but most of all, willing to live.
His head on a pike would never change that.
“Your ship sinks at twilight,” he said. “You have four hours to decide if you join her.”
“I don’t need four hours.”
“That is unfortunate, then. You will spend your last hours cursing him, and he will never know.”
I didn’t want Thanavar to die. I couldn’t imagine the world without him. It would be empty, quiet, stable, dull. No sweeping tides, no glittering steel. No Forge-damned flash of white.
No, I didn’t think my heart could bear a world without him.
“Let us make an accord,” he said. “I will answer one of your questions if you answer one of mine.”
I released a breath and nodded. Where Thanavar’s eyes were an ocean of blue and green and gold, this man’s were the shallows, brown as the erthe with flecks of copper, and his hair was not gold but iridescent, with strands reflecting the warmth of the wood and the glint of the suns.
Forge, yes. What a beautiful, deadly, dangerous people.
He leaned forward, clasped his elegant fingers across the desk.
“How did you come by these chimeric scars?”
“You gave them to me,” I said. “When you sank the Dawn Watch.”
“The Dawn Watch?”
“A Kingship frigate in the southern rim.” I still had nightmares of the day she sank. “You don’t remember her, do you?”