Chapter Thirty Nine
MILA
Mila curled in a ball at Pedr’s side, staring at the wall.
His face was as pale as the ivory tusks from Cmeaddon Island.
She trailed her fingertips along the inside of his arm and thought about the gentle breeze stirring the curtains, rushing water, terra firma. Anything but Pedr’s soul draining away.
One tick of the clock at a time.
Einar toiled on the deck, too stressed to be idle.
He scrubbed with a mop, adjusted the rigging, coiled ropes, and avoided Draven.
The moment Einar stepped away from the ropes, intermittent spurts of light raced up the mast, as if the arcane wanted his return.
She listened to the controlled but intense ministrations, pondering the change in Einar—his ferocity, leadership, focused intent—because it was easier than thinking about Pedr slipping toward inaccessible oblivion.
She thought of the plan Draven gave them. Einar’s minute tweaks, Mila’s instant agreements. As promised, Draven’s plan required no arcane ability from Mila, only raw trust.
She wasn’t sure she had it in her.
Unable to think about that, either, she forced herself to look at Pedr. She must acknowledge that something in him had changed.
Studying him, she found it. His chest moved.
Fluttering, slow movements. A steady up-and-down that wasn’t a full breath, but wasn’t far off.
She pressed her palm to his sternum, finding a weak but steady percussion.
Her inert heart almost turned over as she sensed his heartbeat.
Would he regress to a human state before succumbing to oblivion? She hadn’t considered that the steady arcane removal might change him before it ripped the life from his body.
Awful.
What kind of power did an Arcanist of Souls wield, anyway? Of all beings, Onskar should have the most respect for the delicateness of life, of soul. Was the arcane subservient to Onskar, and did it enact whatever he desired? That which infused all the world was in his command and control . . .
. . . and yet she couldn’t bring herself to believe in a power so penultimate and foolish. A power at the whim of such a foul creature. There was no way to know for certain because all information about the arcane flowed from Onskar, but she hoped not.
Pedr stirred, inhaling a full and gentle breath. The reflex, so unexpected, jolted her. Mila lifted her head. His arms shifted, shoulders kneading back and forth before his eyes fluttered open. Seeing her, he calmed. Exhaustion preceded his smile.
“Mila.”
His arm wrapped her shoulders, pulling her to his side. He schooled a flash of pain.
“You’re hurting.”
“It turns out that separation from the arcane,” he said in a gravelly tone, “is not a comfortable process.”
His attempt at levity failed to comfort her. Mila drew her fingers along his lips, pressed a soft kiss to his cheek, and sighed when he turned to capture her. His voice became husky as he gently held her jaw, murmuring, “The things I want to do to you, Mila.”
A blush heated her cheeks, drawing a low, chugging chuckle. He released her, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“Pedr?”
“Mmm?”
“I . . .”
Her words faltered. I miss you didn’t say it enough. I’m terrified understated it a ridiculous amount. I don’t want to live without you fell short.
“I love you,” she whispered.
A stillness swept him. His expression cleared, the muscles relaxing. “Shite, Mila. What I feel for you isn’t covered by the word.”
“I know.”
Before he could break the fragile, peaceful spell wrapping her heart, she blurted out, “We broke the mountain that led to the Hall of the Sky.”
He grimaced. “I heard.”
“We’re ready. To go to the Hall of the Sea, I mean,” she hurried to add, realizing her excitement and stress made a profound mess of the conversation. “I discovered information we needed and I’m confident that, with Draven’s plan, we can bargain for your soul.”
His hand wrapped hers, the fingers squeezing tight.
“You can do this, Mila.” He pressed a kiss to her knuckles. “I know so.” The tip of his finger trailed up her arm, wrapping them in a companionable silence. He cocked his head to the side and murmured, “The Hall of the Sea.” No question lingered, only a kindling of curiosity.
“Do you know about the Hall?”
He closed his eyes, opened them a few moments later.
“No.”
“You’ve never been?”
“No.”
Of course not. How could he? He’d been trapped on the Rosenvatten for the last fifteen years. She tempered her rising concern with a soft, “Okay.”
“Do you need me to help you find it?”
“Well . . . yes. We’re hoping you can sense it when we find the current that keeps it safe under the waves.”
He tightened his hold. “My awareness of the arcane is slipping, Mila. I . . . I don’t have that much connection to it. I’m not sure I can feel for the place, either. Maybe, if we were closer, but here . . .”
He trailed off and she accepted the silence for what it is: an unsteady acknowledgement. Mila held back her tears. If he couldn’t find the Hall of the Sea, how would they?
And if they couldn’t find it, what next?
She squeezed his fingers.
“It’s fine, Pedr.”
“Get me closer and I’ll try.”
A dozen details she wanted to share flooded her mouth. I found the vessel for Himmel’s soul, which means I know where to find yours. The fourth day is about to dawn, and we have to travel for at least one, or two more. I think something is happening to Einar. But she withheld them.
“Thank you,” she said instead. “I’m going to speak with Einar. Can you rest until we?—”
He was already asleep.
On her way out of Pedr’s cabin, Mila kicked a barrel. Pain lanced through her toes, up her ankle, and around her hip in a hot streak. Shrieking in her throat, she hopped on her other foot, holding the tender toes with a cry suppressed by clenched teeth.
Idjit!
That had been stupid.
Terror dominated her thoughts, making her impetuous.
She didn’t care, because Pedr worsened and she had no way to stop it.
No work, no task, no duty, no emotion unlocked the arcane in her.
Her temper heated with every fruitless frustration.
The arcane never worked, and it never would.
Only one part of her seemed alive, and she refused to acknowledge it.
No.
Absolutely not.
She couldn’t consider those horrifying shades of herself. The siren. Her inner shrew. Yet . . . she couldn’t stop the thoughts. The distant, terrifying, unreachable section of her soul flooded her mind with reminders. Her inner fire was an arcane being she’d rather didn’t exist.
Thinking about her darker side would lead to nothing tolerable. Certainly, she’d tried to tell herself she wasn’t like her aunts. No matter how different, no matter how other, the truth would never change.
Deep inside Mila’s heart crevasses, a siren existed.
A thrashing, livid siren who wanted nothing more than unfettered escape. No controls. No restraints. Only violent freedom. All sirens harbored the same lust for brutality and control.
Mila had seen firsthand what her aunts were capable of, and who they became, when contact with their inner siren came forward. The results yielded outright destruction and savage recrimination in the name of love for her.
She would never need to access that side intentionally. No siren had to be a siren. Her one immature transition to the siren state, brought about by hormonal growth and Stinna’s horrendous insistence, had rendered a pathetic version in comparison to her family.
The brief transition to siren hadn’t called forth her arcane abilities, either, the way Mother hoped. Trulla once tried to force her to transform, but Mila stubbornly refused.
Mila set her wounded foot on the deck, leaned on the heel to avoid pressure on her aching toes, and limped away from the barrel. Tears smarted in her eyes. She let them dribble down her cheek, swishing them away with the backs of her arms.
Stupid barrel.
Stupid Amalia.
Stupid Onskar.
Gripping the gunwale, she leaned over the side and let the frustration vent into a long, long breath that prevented her from smelling her own cowardice or Pedr’s dwindling soul. The dark expanse awaited him.
Eternity.
Without Pedr.
As horrible as her captivity had been, she’s always known Pedr would find her or she’d find him. Somehow, they would figure it out. They had, only to have the promised life wrenched away.
Mila allowed herself the unlikely fantasy of clawing Onskar’s eyes out. She would access the arcane, throw herself at Onskar with death in her wings, and avenge Pedr the way Pedr avenged her.
Laughing bitterly, she closed her eyes. A fantasy, that was all. She had no idea what Onskar looked like, the arcane wouldn’t unexpectedly bloom to life inside her, and she’d never survive the attack. She might as well be human.
Mila straightened with a suppressed sob. She rolled her lips and turned her back to the bow where Einar stood by the wheel. Every now and then, he touched a rope and light zipped up the mast.
As she hid her tears, a towering figure caught her eye: Draven. He stood ahead of her, within arms reach, peering at her with daunting kindness and understanding. Her sob broke in a little peep of sound. She sucked in a juddering breath, opened her mouth to explain, and stopped.
She couldn’t.
The right words didn’t exist.
Draven opened his arms in a welcoming embrace, and she lost her battle. Mila stepped into the comfort proffered by her sire, and wept against his shoulder. He gave Einar his back to muffle the sound. He was so tall, she doubted Einar could see the top of her head over Draven’s shoulder.
She vented all the building terror that Pedr’s loss inspired. Draven didn’t move, didn’t speak, but waited until she pulled away, sniffling.
Eyes downcast, she mumbled a sheepish, “S-sorry.”
“Not at all. It is a rare luxury I have long desired to offer: the comfort of a father’s embrace.”
His words struck her. Not for their strangeness, but their deep sincerity. Long desired to offer amounted to hundreds of years. She didn’t doubt his veracity. Something in Draven inspired deepest belief.
Putting a soft hand under her chin, he elevated her gaze. “I think the topic of your misery hardly needs inquiry, but I would like to ask all the same: what is bothering you, dear Mila?”
“Pedr.”
“As suspected.”
She shook her head, voice as wobbly as before. “To return and lose him? The cruelty of it. For him. For me.” She flung a hand toward the sea. “The world will be lesser without Pedr in it. Elestra will suffer, at least a little. The arcane had a true and deep connection with him, I could tell.”
“Could you?”
Pressing a fist to her sternum, she breathed, “Yes. Couldn’t you?”
“Yes, but that seems a foregone conclusion. An obvious one, at any rate, being a Wyvern King. I am surprised that you could sense it.”
Mila gripped the flailing emotional strings in her chest, brought them into a fist, and stuffed them into a careful, coiled ball in the corner of her mind.
Later. She’d address all this ridiculous self pity later, if there was time.
For now, she had to focus on Pedr. There was relief in the opportunity to concentrate on something else.
Squaring her shoulders, she breathed deep the smell of confidence rolling off of Draven.
“Thank you. I feel much better.”
Draven shifted his weight, appearing thoughtful. “You were very quiet when Einar and I finished the plan for our arrival at the Hall of the Sea,” he observed, referring to the last several hours before her hissy fit.
“Oh?”
“Particularly when I asked you to lean on your na?veté.”
She sighed.
In semantics, Draven’s plan was an excellent one. In reality? She wasn’t so sure. Even Einar appeared willing, but skeptical. A perfect summation of her own thoughts.
Searching for the right word, she said, “It seems . . . illogical . . . to fight the most powerful arcane being with such a thing as na?veté.”
“Have you never considered na?veté a strength?”
“Definitely not.”
“Not many have. It’s a rather underestimated trait, if you ask me.
Exploited properly, it holds more than a little potential, and provides a chance for us to win by sheer cleverness.
Onskar is many things, but he is not creative.
” Draven elevated a finger with a low smile. “We will use it against him.”
Mila set a hand on her heart, nose scrunching in deeper thought. Her fingers curled into a petite fist.
“Na?veté is not your only strength, dear Mila. Your good cheer and adaptability are profound strengths. Your deep love of Pedr, for another.”
“None of those are skills.”
Draven’s eyes gleamed as he lifted a finger to his lips and tapped it three times with deepening thoughts. “Ah, but aren’t they?”
She had no reply.
“Consider this, my dear. Historically, very few children are born to arcane beings. All of them have been extraordinarily different in temperament, personality, and talent, so Onskar won’t know what to expect from you except for one thing: competition.
If Onskar desires to survive as the Seat of the Arcane, he would be wise to learn what he can and obliterate you after. ”
Draven set a hand on her shoulder, squeezed. His voice was a bit like a song, almost a melody.
“In all our discussions, there is one topic we have not touched on: acceptance.
Consider this, Mila: your aunts loved you out of fear of losing you, which is a powerful form of love.
But more powerful is the love that will step out of the way and let the person go.
That is what your mother and aunts could not do on their own.
“Now, you stand at the same crossroads with Pedr. Do what you can to save him, but then let him go. Trust him to find his way back to you, for there are many ways to save a soul. I would wager we know precious few of them.”