Chapter 20 Make a Dramatic Exit #2
Kaz snarled a word that made my ears ring, and water rose from the harbor in a massive spout. It doused the burning sails, but not before embers rained down on us. The remaining water flooded the deck, instantly soaking everyone and everything.
“Nyx!” I reached for our bond, flooding it with command. Land. Now.
She folded her wings and dropped like a stone, hitting the deck hard enough to almost shake us off our feet. Her silver eyes fixed on mine, defiant and furious.
“We discussed this!” I stopped. Took a breath. Kaz was still putting out spot fires, swearing creatively in three languages. “You were supposed to stay with Vex.”
Nyx lashed her tail, fixed her stare on the main mast, and opened her mouth.
“Don’t you dare!” I commanded.
“She’s bluffing,” Kaz said, finally getting the last flame under control. His coat was singed, his hair drenched.
Nyx breathed a small jet of fire at the mast, which started smoking.
“Shit.” He raised a hand to douse that, too.
“Like dealing with a wild child, really,” Sebastian offered, then winced.
I forced myself to relax my posture and stopped in front of Nyx, meeting her eyes. She looked at me and I saw the hurt, the fear that I was leaving her behind.
My throat tightened. “Oh, sweet girl. I wasn’t abandoning you.”
She puffed out a smoky breath.
“If you stay, you’ll have to behave. No burning things. No eating people. No shadow-walking into private rooms.”
Nyx uncurled slightly, her tail swishing with tentative hope.
“And you listen to me. Actually listen, not pretend to listen while plotting mayhem.”
She perked up immediately, nearly knocking Griffin overboard with an enthusiastic tail wag.
It was the best I’d get. I looked at Kaz, who was examining the damaged sails with the expression of someone calculating exactly how many people he’d need to kill to feel better.
“We can’t leave her,” I told him. “She’ll follow anyway and probably burn half the coast doing it.”
“The Syndicate—”
“Will have to deal with it.” I brushed soot off my cloak. “Besides, showing up with a dragon sends a message.”
“What message? That we can’t control our pets?”
“That we’re too powerful to need to.”
He considered this. “I hate when you make sense.”
“I know.” I reached up to wipe a smudge of ash from his cheek.
Kazimir approached Nyx, who lowered her head to his level in what could almost be described as contrition. But her eyes glittered with mischief.
“Listen carefully,” he said, his voice low and dangerous.
“You will not breathe fire on my ship again. You will not disrupt my crew. You will obey Arabella without question. And when we reach the God Spire, you will remain hidden unless we call for you. Break any of these rules, and I will personally ensure you spend the rest of your very long life eating nothing but the blandest fish in the deepest, darkest cave I can find. Are. We. Clear?”
Nyx blinked her silver eyes slowly, then deliberately exhaled a small puff of smoke directly into Kazimir’s face.
He didn’t even flinch. “I’ll take that as a yes.”
I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
Behind us, Sebastian had found a bucket to be sick in—we weren’t even flying yet—while Griffin rattled off calculations about weight distribution and magical resonance. Nyx preened, smug as any cat who’d gotten the cream.
Or dragon who’d gotten her way through arson.
“Excuse me, Lord Blackrose?” Griffin asked. “Should I reinforce the hull’s protective matrix to account for dragon-adjacent thermal fluctuations?”
Kazimir closed his eyes, looking like he was praying for patience. “Yes, Griffin. Do that. Do it quietly. Do it without exploding anything.”
“Of course! I’ll just need some silver wire, a focusing crystal, and—oh, is that a perpetual motion engine? How fascinating!” He was already wandering toward the stern, where several important-looking mechanical components were housed.
“Thorne,” Kazimir said without opening his eyes.
“On it.” The security chief was already following Griffin, one hand hovering near the enchanter’s collar like he was ready to physically restrain him from touching anything vital.
The ship lurched beneath our feet as the anchor chains retracted with a thunderous clank. Nyx, still looking entirely too pleased with herself, settled at the bow like some bizarre figurehead, wings tucked against her sides.
“Prepare for ascension!” Captain Brecca called again. She hadn’t batted an eye at the dragon staying on board. Apparently, serving the Dark Lord meant adapting to chaos.
The crystals embedded in the deck flared to life, pulsing with blue-white power that spread through intricate rune patterns carved into the wood. The ship trembled, and I instinctively grabbed the railing as we began to rise.
“The harmonics are incredible,” Griffin whispered. His gangly form was sprawled on the deck, ear pressed to the wood, long fingers splayed as if trying to absorb the magic through his skin. “It’s like the ship is singing. The resonance frequency must be calibrated to the fifth harmonic of—”
“Griffin,” Kazimir snapped.
The enchanter scrambled to his feet, adjusting his glasses which had gone askew. “I’m merely observing. The way the crystals channel ambient magical energy through the—”
“Quietly,” Kaz said.
Griffin nodded enthusiastically, then immediately began muttering calculations under his breath, his amber eyes wide with delight as he scurried to the nearest crystal to examine it more closely.
The Sky Serpent rose higher, and my stomach dropped as the harbor shrank beneath us.
The ships looked like children’s toys, the people mere specks.
The city of Azroth’s Claw was a gleaming crescent around the natural harbor.
From this height, I could see the fortifications that ringed the outer edges.
“It’s beautiful,” I said, leaning into Kaz as we watched the city fall away.
Sebastian staggered to the railing beside us, his face a concerning shade of green. “The ground… so far.” He swallowed hard, clutching the wood like it was the only thing keeping him from floating away.
“You’re not even rhyming anymore,” I observed. “Progress.”
He shot me a miserable look. “The terror has temporarily overwhelmed the curse.” A small, purple flower bloomed from the wooden railing where his fingers gripped it. “Though apparently not my magic.”
The ship leveled out as we cleared the coastal cliffs, the sea stretching endlessly before us.
“We’ll maintain this height until nightfall,” Kazimir explained. His hair whipped around his face in the high-altitude winds. “Then descend to just above the waves. It’s safer to travel low when crossing at night.”
“Safer from what?” I asked.
He shrugged. “Sky pirates. Sudden thunderstorms. Creatures that hunt in the upper atmosphere.”
“There are creatures that hunt this high up?” Sebastian squeaked, somehow going even paler.
“Only the ones with a taste for noble flesh,” Kaz deadpanned.
Sebastian made a strangled noise and slid down to sit on the deck, a small patch of moss instantly sprouting beneath him for a cushion.
I elbowed Kaz in the ribs. “Stop terrorizing him.”
“He’ll be fine,” he murmured, but there was amusement in his eyes.
The wind picked up as we gained speed, the ship cutting through clouds like a knife.
Salt spray still somehow reached us, mingling with the cold air to create a bracing chill.
Below, the coastline receded. The landscape transformed into the treacherous beauty of the Shattered Sea—named for the hundreds of tiny islands scattered across the shallow waters and its violent history.
Their hidden reefs and unpredictable currents made the passage deadly for any vessel that didn’t know the routes.
Kazimir had told me the fragmented geography had made it a difficult place for anyone who tried to live within it or conquer it, with centuries of raids and bloodshed.
Griffin had convinced one of the crew members to explain the propulsion system to him and was now taking frantic notes, his spindly form quivering with excitement.
“I’ve never seen him this happy,” I remarked.
“Wait until he realizes I won’t let him dismantle anything,” Kaz replied drily.
Nyx let out a contented rumble from her perch, her silver eyes half-closed in pleasure as the wind rushed over her scales.
I leaned against the railing and felt a strange sense of freedom. “For what it’s worth,” I said, “this is already the best honeymoon ever.”
He wrapped an arm around me and kissed my temple. “I aim to please.”
Sebastian groaned from somewhere behind us. “Flying. Dying. Someone please stop me from crying.”
“I could knock him unconscious,” Thorne offered.
“Please,” Sebastian whimpered, and Kaz said, “Do it.”
“Wait—” I started, but was too late to suggest a less painful option like giving Sebastian a tonic.
As Thorne’s fist met Sebastian’s temple with a meaty thud, I decided this was definitely the strangest honeymoon in the history of honeymoons. Which, knowing us, meant it was perfect.