Chapter Thirty Two
EINAR
Einar had never sailed this far north. Usually, the sea appeared the same everywhere, but this place felt . . . uncomfortable. He had no reason to be afraid except a niggling in the back of his mind.
He slapped his cheek.
“Get it together, you bastid,” he muttered to himself. “It’s fine.”
He stood at the wheel, arms folded across his chest, and resisted holding the spokes as Pedr used to. Yet . . . he didn’t want to move away, either. The Rosenvatten wasn’t his ship, but . . . was it Pedr’s anymore?
Someone had to lead.
His hand returned to the wheel, and he felt better. The dark, emotional undertow alleviated when he stood here, so he remained.
“Take it easy,” Mila crooned from behind Einar. Einar glanced over his shoulder to find Pedr lurching out of the cabin, heading toward the bow. Mila kept an arm around him and met Einar’s questioning stare. “He wanted to come out and call for Himmel. He won’t be long.”
Einar surreptitiously slipped away from the wheel when Pedr staggered up the stairs, sinking onto a chair Draven summoned with a swirl of the arcane. It felt wrong to be near the wheel with Pedr so close, but Einar didn’t move far.
Pedr grunted, closed his eyes, tipped his face to the sun. The Arcanist of the Sea looked a shade away from death. Mortality lingered in Pedr’s wrinkled frown lines and haggard expression. Even his hair hung lackluster and limp. Einar looked away; he couldn’t bear it.
Pedr spoke without opening his eyes.
“You’re not very subtle, Einar.”
“Never said I was.”
“Got something to say to me?”
“Nope.”
Pedr’s pale eyes opened and latched onto him. “If you’re going to openly stare, you bastid, state what’s on your mind.”
“I’m not staring. I can barely look at your ugly face.”
“You were. I felt it.”
The last thing Einar wanted to discuss was Pedr’s weakened state. Acknowledging it in the open was a step too far. Swallowing his reticence, Einar asked, “How does it feel?”
“To die?”
“No,” he growled, rolling his eyes, “you dramatic bastid. How does it feel to have the arcane?”
Pedr huffed a laugh and closed his eyes again, sunshine sliding over his paper-white skin. Einar thought he heard Pedr breathing.
“If you asked me that a few years ago, I wouldn’t have been able to reply.
Now that I’m losing it . . .” He paused, as if the admittance hurt.
“The arcane feels like capability. Instinct. Everything is easier, even thought. It feels like me at one thousand percent.” One of Pedr’s eyes opened and latched onto him. “Why do you ask?”
Einar turned to the side.
“No reason.”
The wind shifted, sweeping out of the east. Draven tilted his head back, sniffing. Even Einar smelled something in the wind. Fresh . . . like cotton. A sea breeze. It felt like a silken caress on his face, and he enjoyed the moment of raw presence.
Himmel broke it.
I have returned with news from Jordaire.
Einar waited for Pedr to react, but he didn’t.
Pedr leaned against Drake’s post, eyes closed, lips pressed.
The drake fluttered his long wings, aiming a scrawing sound at Pedr, his tail whipping closer.
The barbed thing slipped along Pedr’s shoulder with great care, leaving no mark. No one reacted to Himmel’s voice.
Einar turned to whisper into the wind. “Are you speaking to me, Himmel?”
Yes.
“But—”
This is not Pedr’s task. You are the Captain of the Rosenvatten until we sort this out, and it is upon you that the task lies.
“He’s the?—”
Not anymore, but to make your life easier, I will speak to all of you.
After a moment’s pause, she said, I have returned from speaking to Jordaire and bring news. Can all of you hear me?
Pedr weakly drawled, “What advantageous timing, Himmel. I was just coming out to speak with you.”
“I hear you,” Mila said.
Draven nodded.
Einar motioned for Himmel to continue with a wave of his hand. Presumably, she was somewhere.
As requested, I traveled to the citadels and sent my winds to study the sky.
“Did you find your Hall?” Einar asked.
The sky arcane has located the Hall of the Sky, yes. It is not far from here, just north of the City of Citadels. It hangs over the sea. You are on track for it, though I have slightly adjusted the wind to accommodate the correct trajectory.
Mila and Einar shared a concerned gaze. It hangs over the sea could be a good thing. At least they wouldn’t have to cross into land, which helped. But it could be a terrible thing as well.
“What do you mean it hangs over the sea?” Pedr croaked.
The Hall of the Sky hovers in the sky, above the ocean.
“Of course it does,” Einar muttered.
Draven inclined his eyes higher. “That’s wonderful news, Himmel. Thank you for your work.”
Thank you, Draven. There’s more to report, and it is . . . rather surprising.
Einar braced himself, not liking the low tone.
While at the citadels, my arcane discovered long-lost memories. With Jordaire’s help, we have heard their story. The soil revealed the history of the diasvard.
Mila’s head jerked up, curls swaying, to look right at Einar. “The diasvard?” she asked.
He shrugged. As far as he knew, the diasvard shattered in the Seat of the Father King when he hurled it at the Siren Queen. What was her name? Vassi? Regretful, because it had been an exceptional dagger. Einar recalled carrying it around all too easily.
Pedr wrapped his hands around the chair armrests while Himmel continued.
It’s not worth re-telling all the details now, except for one: the true diasvard was forged many years ago out of magic, and it was created to kill the Arcanist of Souls.
The memories do not say what year this occurred.
What matters is this: an arcane being cannot wield the diasvard to kill the Arcanist of Souls. We cannot destroy each other.
Draven didn’t appear all that concerned, though his brow lightened marginally in surprise. Mila drew Einar’s attention when her fingers elevated to her mouth, covering it in astonishment. “That means I cannot?” she asked.
You cannot.
“But that makes no sense. I’m supposed to kill Onskar! I’m the one that can take his place.”
The rules are not mine to explain.
Pedr struggled to remain conscious as he leaned forward, elbows to knobby knees. He wobbled as he rasped, “Who can?”
Einar silently entertained the same query. If not an arcane being, then who would kill Onskar?
A human. Himmel added, A human seeking that which he desires.
Einar’s thoughts coalesced slowly, one at a time. He comprehended the steep meaning behind the words a human seeking that which he desires in moments, but spent another ten seconds grappling with why Mila, Pedr, and Draven’s intent stares locked on him. Einar blinked.
Wait.
Himmel couldn’t mean . . . but she did.
“You’re saying?—”
He halted.
Yes, Einar. Do you understand what I am telling you?
Oh, he understood, all right. Himmel offered Einar everything he’d ever wanted. The opportunity to kill the Arcanist of Souls, find Agnes, and fetch her from wherever she waited for him.
Heart hammering so hard it purred, he breathed, “Yes, I understand. I am the one who has to kill Onskar with the diasvard.”
Draven’s sober bearing and intense scrutiny grounded Einar.
“Can you?”
“Yes, I can,” he said quickly, with too much eagerness. He didn’t see a flicker of trust in return. Draven revealed nothing, only a stony stare. The fastidious care that Draven showed Mila made no appearance here.
Despite all of Einar’s populating questions—Where was the diasvard? Who had it?—Himmel turned the conversation, releasing Einar from Draven’s intense scrutiny.
With that in mind, my winds will take you and Mila to the Hall of the Sky. Prepare your final plans to enter.
“Thank you,” he whispered.
Pedr, his intense gaze fixed on Einar, called across the bow. “To my cabin, you bastid. I need to give you something.”
The ship swayed lightly when Einar followed Pedr to his cabin.
Mila stabilized Pedr as he lowered to the edge of his berth and sat there.
Paleness washed Pedr’s expression, his lips blanched white.
Mila cast Einar a sidelong glance and left the room.
Pedr waited for her to exit before he turned to Einar.
“Where’s the dagger I gave you?”
“The diasvard? Vassi shattered it.”
Shaking his head impatiently, he demanded, “No, there was another dagger. I shoved it into your hands before you left the Seat of the Father King. Do you remember?”
Several moments passed before Einar comprehended the question. “Oh. That dagger? I stashed it in the drawer when I returned to the Rosenvatten.”
“Yes,” Pedr snapped, eyes clenched. He leaned an elbow on his knee and propped his forehead in his hand. “Get it out.”
Einar crouched, opened a drawer, and retracted the less-than-impressive dagger.
He straightened, bringing it to Pedr, who studied it with a sickly air.
He swayed a little. Einar almost barked at him to lay down, but stopped at the last minute.
Pedr wouldn’t take it well, and he clearly had something to say.
“That’s it,” Pedr croaked. “Malcolm gave it to me before I left Kapurnick for the Westlands. It had been abandoned in Stenberg, in the archives or something? A soldat turned it over to him. Or someone else?”
Shaking his head, Pedr muttered, “I can’t remember, and it doesn’t matter.
I kept it with me because the moment I accepted it from him, it felt .
. . different. It continued to feel that way until Vassi shattered what we thought was the diasvard.
I realized then that we were wrong.” He pointed a weak finger to the weapon in Einar’s hand. “That dagger is the diasvard.”
Einar stared at the mottled metal, hideous as sealskin with sheer disbelief.
“This?”
A nod.
“It can’t be. The other one at least felt like a diasvard. It?—”
“Had arcane,” Pedr muttered. “Arcane that drew you in, made you think it was the right weapon. A trick from the Siren Queens and Onskar, so they’d know who sought it.
I can . . . I could . . . feel something prickling and uncomfortable with this dagger.
The arcane and magic don’t go well together, remember? ”
Skepticism washed through Einar, but Pedr’s explanation made some sense. He carefully asked, “How do you know?” while trying to mask his uncertainty.
“A hunch.” Pedr paused, then added, “No, an arcane hunch. The arcane is like an instinct. It doesn’t speak, but it made it clear that that dagger is what we needed. I don’t know how else to describe it. That dagger found us when we needed it and it has no arcane on it whatsoever.”
Pedr stared hard at Einar. “Almost like Himmel discovering the story of the diasvard in time for you to learn you have to wield it? For me to give it to you?”
Einar frowned.
“What are you trying to say, Pedr?”
“Don’t be a bastid,” he barked. “The arcane works like an instinct, and it rewards honest seekers. It’s almost an arcane law. My time awake is very short, so pay attention. If you touch the diasvard, you can feel there’s something else in it.”
Einar felt nothing. No draw, no temptation, no connection. It was a hunk of metal, and hideous at that.
“Magic,” Pedr muttered. “It has magic, and the arcane can’t sense magic. You’ll have to trust me. The arcane . . .” He bobbed to the side, eyes wrenched shut. “Just . . . do it, all right!”
Do what? Einar wanted to say. Pedr’s half-mad rambles made no sense. He insinuated that the arcane would . . . what?
Pedr gave up the fight and slumped onto a pillow.
Einar returned the dagger to its sheath and tucked it under his arm. Sighing, he tucked a blanket over Pedr, slid the window open for fresh air, and muttered, “Live, you bastid. This world would be a worse place without you in it,” and departed.
That evening, Einar studied the diasvard and its freckled metal. Why was it so ugly? Nothing majestic nor powerful radiated from it, like the other. Unimpressive, in a word. The first diasvard made far more sense, with its designs, diamonds, and metal filigree.
This one?
Unsightly. He couldn’t imagine what monster made this dagger and felt proud of it.
Einar wrapped his fingers more firmly around the handle and hefted it.
The weight, like a cannonball, was nearly all he could handle without dropping it.
The dagger felt uncertain, like a wary toddler unwilling to approach a stranger.
If this was the powerful diasvard of legends, it must hold magic, as Pedr insinuated.
But on inspection, nothing magical, repellant, or strange was obvious.
A disappointment on many fronts.
Still, something prevented Einar from putting it down. A draw. A curling fascination he couldn’t explain. Almost as powerful as Agnes when she beckoned him with a crooked finger. Einar’s eyes studied the dagger again and again, uncomprehending.
If it was so unimpressive, then why did he tuck it close?
And why did it haunt him?