4. The Iron Isle
THE IRON ISLE
Seraphina
Iwake to the smell of rain after a lightning storm, despite the sky above being still. I expect my lungs to ache, but I feel… fine. Normal. Good even.
Until my stomach revolts and saltwater suddenly sprays across my face, stinging my eyes. I try to wipe it away, only to be stopped by the thick ropes holding me.
We’re on a boat. No, not on—attached to. And not a boat, but a ship. A giant ship with black sails, weathered cannons and a polished deck that’s taking on more water than seems safe.
The ship lurches, and my stomach lurches with it. I struggle against the ropes, desperate to get free.
“Please, stop that,” a voice to my left hisses. Though he’s blurry, I can tell by the tone it’s a young man, not one of the demons from the alley.
We’re shoulder to shoulder, and if I can get one arm free, I can wipe the blinding water away.
I blink several times instead, and notice he’s wearing the same baggy white shirt and pin, the same heavy iron chains wrapped cruelly around pale gray feathers.
Someone scoffs. “It’s alright for her,” a blonde girl mutters to my right, nodding toward where my chained-up wings are… not.
I can’t blame her for assuming mine are simply glamoured. If only. But that’s what I need the demons to believe too, so I can’t correct her.
I try to give her an apologetic look instead; she reminds me of the humans in the village I grew up in. She’s a little taller than them, lithe like my seraphim sister, but her bones are too visible, like the villagers.
We are tied in a circle around a thick mast at the ship's center. I crane my neck around but can only see a couple of the nephilim either side of me. They all look so similar to the girl in the alley. Angel-blue eyes, so young, so thin.
Traumatized.
My stomach twists with an uncomfortable feeling.
I should have told my father to investigate the academy immediately while I had the chance.
I may have somehow survived being melted by a flame wielding demon, but now, tied to this sinking ship, I’m certain it won’t be long before they finish the job.
Every time water splashes into my face, and I try and fail to wipe it away, the claustrophobia gets worse. I try not to think about how my unconscious body got tied up here. About the demon hands that must have touched me.
Except, that’s all I can think about now.
Panic sets in and I attempt to wriggle free once more. Ouch. The journal digs into my hip bone, cutting into skin.
“Stop,” another nephilim snaps. “The rope is all that’s keeping the rest of us from going overboard.”
I stop wriggling immediately.
A wave of guilt washes over me with the next sudden dip of the ship.
Who am I to complain? The young men and women sharing the rope with me have iron chains and what must be very sensitive wings to contend with. Worse still, they had to live through whatever led us here, awake.
Don’t think about that. Focus on the good. The positives.
For the journal to be cutting my skin, the demons must not have sensed its magic, or surely they would have taken it while I was knocked out from smoke inhalation or whatever the silent demon did to me.
“How long was I out?” I whisper to the boy beside me.
He looks at me with suspicious eyes but eventually answers. “Long enough to miss the carriage ride. Not long enough to reach the island.”
“The island?”
He tries to shrug, but the rope coiling around us like a snake stops him.
“Where are they?” I don’t need to specify for him to understand exactly who they are.
He tries to shrug again, fails, and I throw my head back against the towering mast. It’s dizzyingly tall, the crow’s nest so high it disappears into the dark clouds, making it impossible to see where the mast ends and the night begins.
The hull groans as another wave slams against it.
I have to fight the desperate desire to free myself. It’s selfish of me to even try. If the rope goes slack, even a little bit, it will be because of me that we are all flung into the sea with the next giant swell.
They aren’t to know that I will be right in there with them, drowning.
An elbow digs into my side. I turn to its owner, the girl on my right. “Where’s Lorelei?” she asks, her voice so quiet it’s difficult to hear over the howling wind.
“Lorelei?” I frown, but the girl nods, hope sparking in her eyes.
The girl from the alley.
Of course, the other nephilim who’d been with her at the academy will know I’m definitely not her. That explains the boy's hesitation to give me answers. Have they told the demons?
I ask and she shakes her head. “We wanted to speak to you first.”
“She’s okay,” I assure them. “She told me what was happening at the academy, and I told her where to go to be safe.”
“Safe?” she chokes. “Nowhere is safe.”
I shake my head. “I promise the village I sent her to will take her in and treat her as one of their own. They won’t breathe a word to the academy. Trust me.”
“Trust you?” she scoffs. “Who even are you? Why are you here?”
I choose to ignore the first question. That’s a secret that will die with me. If the demons learn who my father is… I won't live long enough to find out if the Sisters are real. Much less discover if it’s their island that we are heading to.
“Someone needed to take her place, or they’d never have stopped looking for her.” I glance around to make sure the demons aren’t nearby, listening in. “I took that place.”
“Why would you do that?” the boy interjects, looking even more suspicious now.
It’s a good question. A great question. One I don’t have an answer to. Not one that won’t involve lying, and I do not lie.
How about, because you’re an idiot?
I can’t answer truthfully, not without going into the night my mother died and the years of research that followed. The seven elusive Sisters and the disasters their presence is triggering across our seven beautiful kingdoms every time they do something so awful they upset the balance.
All things that I’m sworn to only speak to my father about.
Fine.
“Because I’m an idiot.”
It’s the most truthful answer I can give them.
“Riggght,” the two nephilim flanking me say in unison, still looking at me with understandable distrust.
Time to change the subject.
“What happened in the carriage?” I ask. “Did they tell you about their deal with the academy? Why they bought you?” I clear my throat. “I mean, us.”
I want to ask if the Sisters have been mentioned, but I need to keep those cards close to my chest. If the demons are listening, they can’t know I know about the Sisters.
Even if they tell us about them, I have to feign disinterest—too keen and they will be just as suspicious of me, even more so than the nephilim sharing a mast with me now.
“No,” the girl says. “They didn’t talk to us at all in the carriage. Only between themselves.”
“About?”
“I don’t know. Some games, cadets they’ve worked with. When we got to the dock at Patientia—”
“Patientia?” I cut over her. “We set sail from Patientia? Are you sure?”
To travel all the way to another region of Virtus, it will have taken hours, if not a full day or so. I’ve done the journey on horseback several times when the assignment has required it. How long was I out?
“Yes. Certain. Jack recognized the White Cliffs,” she confirms, nodding to the boy at the other side of me.
“That’s where I live,” he clears his throat. “Lived. Before the academy.”
He mumbles the last word like he’s scared saying it out loud will somehow summon the seraphim who work there.
A laugh as deep as thunder cracks the air. “You got lucky last time, mate. Every recruit in your group had Overlord potential.”
I know the voice. It belongs to the laughing demon from the alley.
Then I see them.
Three dark silhouettes gathered around the bow, casual, like the ship isn’t about to capsize.
“Shame most of them wound up killing each other before they could reach it.”
I know that voice too, the demon who claimed to have more patience than the silent one. The lying demon, I decide to call him in my head.
The silent one remains silent, but as though he can sense me watching them, his cloaked head turns my way.
He mutters something to the other two, so quiet that even the angels would struggle to hear it.
Three pairs of eyes shoot toward the mast. I swallow.
And they’re coming our way.
The three of them are still chatting away like we aren’t one wave away from the ship going under as they walk toward us.
“Weeding out the weak is Zaheer’s favorite part,” the laughing one says, and my fists clench behind my back. He slaps the lying one on the back. “Isn’t it, mate?”
“Always,” the lying one, or as it seems, Zaheer, agrees, though it’s more of a growl, or a purr even. “Fucking brunette making us late,” he grumbles, and I bristle at the curse. “I was looking forward to sizing up the new recruits as soon as they arrive this time.”
I frown, my ears twitching as I try not to miss a single word.
“Brunette?” the laughing one questions. “You mean the redhead?”
Are they… are they talking about… me?
I hope not.
Except, my hair is that reddish-brown that looks completely different depending on the lighting or time of day.
“Brunette, redhead, whatever,” Zaheer shrugs. “The hair all feels the same when you’re grabbing a fistful of it and—”
“Less of that, Overlord Blue Balls,” the laughing one cuts him off. “It’s only been a week. And what have I told you, no horny talk when we have delicate halo-hugging ears around. It scares them, and they don’t cope well with being spooked.”
He looks up toward the mast.
“Finally!” he says, cheerful to an unsettling degree. “Sleeping beauty’s awake.” He looks at the silent demon, “Open up the gate, mate. Get me home to my girl.”
“You and that fucking mutt,” Zaheer mutters.
“Only I get to call her a fucking mutt.”
I can’t tell if he’s joking or angry at the other demon. It doesn’t matter, because suddenly my nostrils flare and my mouth fills with saliva… that smell, it’s back.
Burnt cedar, scorched metal, smoke…