Chapter Sixteen
PEDR
Pedr had never met a storm so callous in his life.
Ocean slapped the ship and hissed across the deck in sliding, bubbling sheets. The sails trembled, whipping.
Dress clinging to her thighs, Mila ascended the last rung of the rope ladder and dropped onto the deck.
Impressive feat, considering the storm bucked them left, right, up, and down.
Pedr hauled himself up, rolled over the gunwale as the ship dropped into a trough, and collapsed on the deck.
Mila scrambled out of the way, shoving rain-sodden hair out of her face.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine!” he shouted.
He didn’t have the same power on deck as he did in the water, but he had more than on the sand. While arcane ropes attached to his rowboat and hauled it up, Pedr shoved to his feet and jogged across the bow.
With a thought, he used his arcane ability to right the ship and calm the waves around them.
At best, a minimal amount of rocking slowed, but resumed within moments.
His second, third, fourth tries yielded diminishing results.
He couldn’t do it. A different power overrode him.
He knew next to nothing about the sea arcane, but he knew this wasn’t right.
“Pedr!” Mila shouted. “You have to stop. She’s going to win.”
Rain lashed at him as he gripped ropes in a pattern almost as familiar as a lullaby.
Light spiraled into the sky with a manic energy that mimicked his growing fear.
The mast and timbers groaned as the sails rolled up.
Mila staggered across the deck, headed for the side, with a determined expression. Pedr grabbed her arm.
Oh no, she didn’t.
“Go to my cabin!” he snapped. “This is too dangerous!”
Strands of rain-soaked hair streaked her face. She shook her head, terror widening her eyes. “No! I make my stand here. You have to let me bargain with her. It’s the only way we’ll make it out of this.”
“Mila—”
“You can’t fight this storm, Pedr. Stinna is the storm! It’s the only way she can appear without drawing Onskar’s attention, or without anchoring this close to the water. He ignores the sky arcane, and she’s too far from the sea for it to anchor her. Stop trying! Let her take the ship.”
He thumped a fist to his chest. He’d be a bastid before someone named Stinna frightened him.
“Let her come! I can’t die; I’m an Arcanist! I’m already dead. The arcane is the only thing tying me to life, Mila. If she tries, I’ll command the water to return me to the ship. It listens to me.”
Mila threw an arm into the air. “Do you understand, Pedr? This is her. Stinna is a Siren Queen! You will never defeat her!”
Water poured down his face as he stilled, comprehending her words. Siren Queen. The legendary arcane-wielders. The foes of ancient days, and a great source of terror in Elestra. He didn’t know what he expected her to say, but that wasn’t it.
With a sob in her voice, she called, “My aunts are the Siren Queens, Pedr. You can’t fight them. Don’t you see?” With the tempest raging, she yanked him closer, pressed her palm to his cheek and said, “I love you! I won’t let anything happen to you.”
His world ground to a halt.
She . . . what?
“You . . .”
“I love you!” she shouted, tears sparkling with the rain. “And there is only one way out of this situation. I know what to do. You have to let me do it.”
His mind spiraled around the words, I love you. I love you. I love you. No one said that to him anymore. Only Britt. Malcolm, in his way, though never with words.
While the ship rolled into a trough and sprayed water, Pedr wrapped an arm around her waist and stabilized her against him. She’d struck him almost dumb. Only the arcane taking over his body had surprised him more.
Mila’s gigantic pools of umber eyes watched every expression that crossed his face. The storm ebbed into the background. He no longer heard the waves, nor felt the belly-dropping splash of his heart into his stomach with each shattering thunderclap.
“Why?” he asked. “I don’t . . . I don’t deserve your love.”
Teary-eyed, she whispered, “Yes, you do.” He cradled her face, ravishing her with his eyes. Only two people had ever said those words to him: Britt and Father. He swiped his thumb across her cheek.
“I love you too, Mila.”
Her tears splashed free. She gripped his wrist with a sob. “Then let Stinna have the ship! It’s the only chance we have.”
Bracing himself, Pedr said, “Fine, but I won’t lose you.” He curled his fist around her dress and pulled her closer. “Do you hear me? I would die for you a thousand times if I could, but I won’t give up.”
She breathed his name, her fingers spreading into his hair, and wrapped her body around him. His arms encompassed her, his mouth devoured her. She tightened her hands around his shoulders, and he lost himself to her touch.
Mila pushed away with a cry.
“I hear her! She’s arrived. Let the ship go!”
Pedr released the arcane he held. The moment he gave the thought, the ship tilted starboard. Lightning streaked overhead. Thunder broke with a reverberating boom he felt in his clenched teeth.
Rain saturated Mila’s dress, pasted it to her shoulders, as she whirled around and tilted her head back. “This is between you and me, Stinna,” she shouted. “Take me, but leave him!”
The hair on the back of his arms stood up. A deranged cackle danced in between growling thunder and splitting electricity. Wind torrents threatened to shred his ship, sounding just like a livid hiss.
“Stinna!” Mila demanded, hands fisted. “Leave him alone!”
A whirling ball of putrid smoke descended on the bow, careening from the stormy depths. Pedr moved with arcane instinct. He snatched Mila against his chest and dropped just as the ebony ball sailed by, crashing into the mast. The wooden timbers crackled, but didn’t break.
Mila in his arms, he glanced up as a woman sprouted from the burgeoning orb.
Wild hair ballooned around a maniacal, cold grin.
Crooked teeth, bright eyes. Her dress billowed in the wind, the edges ripped and tattered.
Blood stained her forearms, flecked her pale cheeks.
She had a strange allure all together. A cold warning crawled through his gut and began to spread.
Mila clawed forward, shoving him back.
“Stinna, this is between you and me!”
Arcane crackled from Stinna in energy currents.
He smelled a foul stench, like the sulfur pots of Miamar island.
He hated her. Despised her thin wrists, the tendons like wires.
Her knobby fingers, sneering teeth, too large in the front.
A Siren Queen, in all her horrifying glory. Finally, he understood Mila’s dread.
He couldn’t help but feel a portion of it himself.
The storm abated slightly, as if Stinna brought them into the eye. Walls formed and held the lashing storm at bay, widening into a calm circle. The ship sighed and settled. Stinna thrust an arm forward, pointing at him.
“You!” she screeched. “You have taken her.” She leaned closer, scenting him. With a dramatic leap, she tossed herself backward. “You smell like her.” In less than a heartbeat, the biddy zipped to Mila’s side, grabbed her wrist, and wrenched her away.
“Take me home, Stinna!” Mila demanded.
They jolted toward the ship’s side, Stinna’s finger still pointed directly at Pedr. Mila cried out in pain, and fury roared through him.
Pedr advanced.
“Let her go!”
“Don’t tell me what to do, human!” She paused, sniffed again, and howled. “Arcanist! You’re an Arcanist!” Stinna whirled on Mila, smacked her across the face. His rage unleashed.
Pedr launched himself across the ship with unrealized strength. His hands slammed into Stinna’s shoulders, gripping them. The Siren Queen crumbled for just a moment beneath his hold before something hot slammed into the side of his face. She vanished before he could make sense of it.
Pain tripled through his jaw, followed by a crack and a roaring like fire. He spun mid air, slammed on the deck with his back, and slid across it. What would happen now? Did an Arcanist bleed?
He reached up, swiped his lip. No warm ooze. As quickly as the fire that hit him blazed, it faded. The pain whispered away. With that much force, his teeth should be littering the deck.
“Shite,” he whispered.
If that was the consequence of fighting in an Arcanist’s body, he could go all night.
Delighted to have a source for his rising ire, Pedr shoved his hands beneath him and leaped to his feet.
Pain remnants trickled away. A sliding, glaze-like sensation spread under his jaw.
Healing, perhaps? The agony ended, replaced by a distinct knitting-together.
Pedr crouched, snarling.
Mila, a hand to her face, dodged Stinna’s grasping hand. After Stinna’s shrill scream, “How could you? Ungrateful wretch!” she landed another hard blow on Mila’s cheek. Stunned, Mila crumpled.
Pedr launched himself at the horrid hag again. Stinna whirled on him at the last second, lessening the immediate impact. He managed to topple her away from Mila and drive her into the deck. In the same way the arcane responded to his sea commands, it obeyed him here, too.
He tried to drive Stinna’s spine into the gunwale wall, but Stinna dissipated into smoke. The fumes gathered into themselves, whisked over to the wheel, and reformed. Torrential rain made it difficult to see, and the rioting thunder dampened most sound, but by smell, he hurried to Mila’s side.
If her aunts were Siren Queens, her mother must be also? Which meant Mila was a siren. What did it mean . . . and how did it happen . . . and why didn’t she tell him? In hindsight, the signs had been there. She had slept and eaten and breathed a little.
Pedr forced his thoughts to the matter at hand: saving Mila.
The only bold move he had left against a siren was the sea.
He could protect Mila better there. He reached to gather Mila in his arms and jump over the side, but ebony smoke slammed into his chest. He soared back, hitting the mast. It splintered beneath the force.
As he collapsed to the deck, he willed the mast to repair itself with a thought.
The arcane crawled upward in a spray of light, sealing the timber in a whirling circle.
Stinna gathered into her horrifying form, hovering over Mila’s prostrate body. “She is not yours, you fool! You will never see her again.”
Mila stared at him from her hands and knees, her hair a mess of dark tangles on either side of her waxen face.
Tears mixed with the torrential rain. His name formed on her lips.
Before he could lunge for her, Stinna smacked into him from the side.
Pedr sailed off his ship and into the sea.
The moment his skin touched the water, he commanded it to return him to the ship.
Water sprayed up until he wheeled through the air, hit the mast again from the force of his command, and fell.
Mila was gone.