Chapter 5
Aiden
Kiera screaming my name destroyed my calm, faster than the wave of heat and light racing toward the boat.
I shouted as the burning oil skimmed over the water. “Row faster! Get us out of range!”
Yarina and Nikella joined the bone-rattlers at the oars. The flames petered out inches from our stern. But the guards were already loading another barrel.
Fucking Four, I had nothing to fight back with except Stavrik’s bow and arrows. Useless against oily fire. No doubt Renwell had known that when he mounted gods-damned catapults to his ships.
I had expected something nefarious, but not this. My failure in Aquinon went deeper than I thought.
“Incoming!” I shouted as another burning barrel arced toward us.
Yarina grunted out a string of curses behind me.
The barrel came much closer this time, exploding just to the left of our boat. Nikella hissed as a few drops of burning oil singed her cloak, but she kept rowing.
Kiera seized the bucket Yarina had given her in jest and hauled in sea water to toss at the flames trying to eat through the boat.
“Water won’t work!” I shouted as I stamped out any drops that made it inside. “Suffocate it!”
Nikella and Roark tried to keep their oar from dipping into the burning oil while the other two worked double time.
We rounded the bend, leaving a smoke trail, and I breathed a sigh of relief. The catapults had looked short range, judging by the length of their arms. Even mounted on a swivel, they couldn’t reach us around these stony bends unless they moved the ship from dry dock.
A shout rose above me. Gods damn it, there were guards up there. Torches flickered to life along the rim of the canyon.
I nocked an arrow into place and aimed upward. “Kiera, switch with Yarina.”
I didn’t shift my gaze, but I felt them scrambling to obey. At least Kiera could follow one of my orders.
An arrow slammed into the bottom of the boat, inches from Bardo.
“Fucking Myn!” he shouted, pulling harder on the oar.
I rotated, spotting a guard peeking over the edge. I fired just as a wave rocked the boat. My arrow went wide.
Swearing, I adjusted my footing and readied another arrow. Yarina’s bow twanged as she fired. Someone shouted. A body tumbled down the cliff face and splashed into the sea.
“I count three more,” she said. “I’ll take—”
An arrow sprouted from her arm. She stared at it in shock. “Lucky bastards,” she muttered and sagged to a bench.
Rage flooded my body like the oily fire we’d just left behind. With a roar, I fired again. Another body plummeted.
A flaming arrow bit into our hull, and I yanked it out.
I fired again and again, bringing down another body, but more arrows fell around us. The sea grew rougher as we rounded the last bend. I stumbled, and my final arrow went wide.
A guard’s arrow streaked past my ear, and someone gasped.
Kiera.
I whipped around, my eyes landing first on Kiera, then on Bardo, who’d slumped over, an arrow in his neck.
Roark bellowed in agony, reaching for his friend.
I slung my bow over my empty quiver and gently pulled Bardo’s limp body from the rowing bench. After settling him in the stern, I took his place.
“Keep rowing,” I murmured to Roark as he shook with pain, glancing back at his dead friend. “Get him home.”
We pulled together in silence.
Yarina watched us from the bow, cradling her injured arm. “I’m sorry, Aiden,” she croaked.
“It’s not your fault,” I grunted.
It’s mine. Always mine.
Kiera was right. I led people right into danger. Why they kept following me into it, I didn’t know. Perhaps they shouldn’t. I’d been playing at being a leader for years now with nothing to show for it but imprisonment and death.
I’d even failed to kill the one man I’d set out to. Weylin had murdered my father, ordered Renwell to kill my mother, and stolen their kingdom.
He’d been at my mercy, my sword tip under his chin. But all I could think about was her. And how she’d hate me for it. Even though she already did for what I’d done to Brielle.
In the end, perhaps it’d been fitting that Weylin was murdered by someone he trusted.
The stab wound he’d given me throbbed in tandem with my breath. I’d probably pulled the stitches by rowing and using my bow. A dribble of warmth tracked down my side, but now wasn’t the time to check it.
“We’re taking on water, Aiden,” Nikella announced.
I glanced down at my boots and hissed a curse between my teeth. Several inches of dark water sloshed inside the boat, like wine in a drunkard’s cup.
“There’s a hole in the side,” Nikella continued. “The fire from the second barrel must have burned through the wood.”
“We won’t make it,” Roark said dully, his huge hands sliding off the oar. “Mynastra will just have to take us all.”
I glared at Mynastra’s Wings, a hulking shadow that was anchored a very long swim away.
Could Kiera even swim? I’d never asked.
Her face looked paler than usual, her mouth a grim line as she stared at the large expanse of rolling sea like it was her executioner.
I hated to lose the boat, even more so to lose Bardo, but I had to save the others.
“Start shouting,” I told them. “We’re far enough from the cliffs that the guards can’t reach us.”
While Yarina and Kiera obeyed with enthusiasm—and Roark, halfheartedly so—I turned to Nikella. “Flint and steel?”
She retrieved the two items she’d carried with her since I could remember from one of her pockets. “I suggest we rip out a few planks and keep the oars for easier swimming.”
“Agreed.”
Yarina and Kiera kept shouting at the top of their lungs while Roark and I ripped out the benches and unlocked the oars.
I nodded to Nikella, who tore off a chunk of her cloak.
“Might still be some oil in it,” she murmured as she laid it on the dry wood we’d just exposed by ripping off the bench.
“I can’t swim,” Kiera blurted out, as if she’d been holding back the confession. “Not well, anyway. And what of Yarina and her arm?”
“Don’t worry about me, princess,” Yarina said immediately. “I could swim there with no arms if I had to.”
While boasting was a beloved pastime of the Dags, I knew she was telling the truth. She’d grown up by rivers and the sea, always trying to beat her brother and sisters in contests of strength and skill. And then she’d tried to outpace me when I’d lived with them for a few years.
But Kiera . . .
She shouldn’t have come with us, but she was too gods-damned stubborn. Perhaps I never should’ve dragged her out of Aquinon.
“Keep hold of this plank, and you’ll be fine,” I said, handing her the chunk of wood.
“And Bardo?” Roark asked, staring at his friend’s body.
“His bones will join Mynastra’s sooner than intended,” I said softly. “We’ll drink to his honor on board tonight.”
Roark nodded numbly, clutching his oar.
“May the gods find his soul,” Nikella murmured, then struck her flint and steel together until the sparks caught on the oil-specked cloth. They danced over the dry wood, finding purchase like so many fireflies.
The memory of a firefly grove flickered in my mind.
“I’m yours.”
“And I . . . am all yours. For as long as you wish to keep me, little thief.”
I glanced at Kiera. Her eyes were closed in dread, her body turned toward the burgeoning flames as though soaking up what little heat she could before our cold plunge.
Gods, how I wanted you to keep me, Kiera.
I tore my gaze away and barked, “Stay in line with the burning boat so Skelly can find us easier. Go!”
Yarina dove overboard first, kicking through the dark sea while holding her piece of wood.
Roark followed, then Nikella.
Only Kiera and I remained at the prow, the fire burning steadily behind us.
Her profile was in shadow, but I’d memorized her features well.
Not just the straightness of her nose or the curve of her cheek or the smoldering amber of her eyes.
But the way her face lit up when she laughed.
The way triumph made her look fiercely beautiful.
And the way her face softened with desire when I’d made love to her in those stormy woods.
I hadn’t lied when I said I didn’t know her. I knew her expressions and her quirks, but I didn’t know her heart. Not when it had deceived me so thoroughly.
She glanced up at me as if she could feel my thoughts. A battle raged behind her eyes. A battle with no end, as she leaped into the waves.
I followed a moment later, taking up the rear of our floating line as we kicked toward the ship.
The frigid waves heaved underneath me. In moments, my gloved fingers were so numb, I could hardly tell that I was grasping my plank. My jaw ached from clenching it. Better that than continuously gulping salty water that tasted of fish.
My stab wound burned, but the cold water would staunch the blood flow.
Small mercies.
I kept my eyes on Kiera’s splashing boots. She hugged her plank like it might disappear.
I glanced back at the burning boat, the fire pitifully small amid the cavernous waves.
At least the tide was rolling out, or it would’ve thrown us back against Calimber’s cliffs.
A shout rose ahead. I shoved my soggy hair aside and spotted Skelly’s ship turning toward us. They must’ve seen our signal.
Relief seeped into my aching bones, but I kept kicking, kept watch on Kiera and the others to make sure they didn’t drift.
What felt like hours later, we bobbed up against Mynastra’s Wings.
Someone threw a rope ladder over. We clambered up, everyone else raining seawater over my head.
The next hour was a blur.
I explained what I could to Skelly. His expression went from dour to downright hopeless. After he set course for Yargoth once more, he called his crew together to commemorate Bardo. Roark disappeared into the midst of his bone-rattling brothers and sisters.
Still in a daze, I dried myself, then immediately set to work, removing the arrow from Yarina’s arm and stuffing the bloody hole with cloudbird leaves.
I also stuffed a few into my torn side. The soft, cotton-like coating soaked up the blood while the sticky leaf secreted infection-killing wax.
But it did nothing for the pain. We would have to wait for Yargoth for that.
Yarina refused to go to the infirmary—probably to avoid Maz. I wasn’t ready to face him, either. But her older sisters swarmed her with blankets, a mug of warm wine, and a plate of dry bread.
I ordered them to put a sling on her as well. Yarina immediately put up a fight, but Sigrid and Davka carried her off.
Belowdecks, I changed clothes and warmed my shivering body by the dining room fire. Nikella joined me. But she seemed in no mood to talk, and neither was I.
I glanced about until I found Kiera huddled under a pile of blankets in the corner, spooning hot broth between her bloodless lips.
For a moment, I imagined the last three days hadn’t happened. I would stride over, pick her up, and hold her in my lap while I tried to infuse any warmth I had left into her skin. I would brush my lips over hers between feeding her spoonfuls of broth, licking any wayward drops from her mouth.
But it wasn’t just the last three days I’d have to erase. She’d been lying to me from the moment she met me. I’d given her a handful of my trust, and she’d still betrayed me.
“She loves you!” Melaena’s voice clamored through my skull again.
But no one had ever loved me in that way. I was starting to think it wasn’t possible.
Kiera’s gaze shot toward me, and she scowled. Setting her bowl down, she hobbled out of the dining room.
I faced the fire again and didn’t look away for a long time.