Chapter Fourteen
Revelations
???
Avaldale, Vrethian.
Kyra.
Naal Westerra was waiting for Kyra on the docks of Avaldale’s port. The colours of the setting sun cast her body into a silhouette. An ethereal being from her silver-haired head to her leather covered toes.
The strangest thing was that her wings had entirely disappeared.
The Air Warden wrapped up her conversation with the disgruntled looking sailor to her side as she saw her approach. ‘There you are,’ she said. ‘I was just explaining to Captain Damar that an extra cabin will be required for our journey back north.’
‘Who are you?’ the Captain said rudely, the Lorish accent thick on his tongue. He was a short, red-bearded, middle-aged man whose face was permeated with a frown.
Kyra opened her mouth, but Naal cut her off. ‘A distant relative of mine, Captain. I am taking her back to Phaenon where she can live more peacefully. Now, where do we stand on those cabins?’
The captain eyed Kyra up and down. Not in a lusting way, but irritated. ‘It’ll be twice as much for the two of you. We ain’t a ferry service, miss.’
‘As you wish,’ Naal said with a nod. ‘You have my thanks.’
He turned and beckoned them to follow him up the gangway to his ship, the Thilene. The sails were black and worn, the wooden floorboards chipped and old, but the vessel had a sense of home to it, even if its Captain was about as welcoming as Kyra’s grandmother.
Captain Damar turned away, then abruptly looked at Kyra with distrust. ‘Don’t touch anything that ain’t yours.’
‘You mean this crap?’ Kyra asked, eyeing the broken, worthless junk scattered on the deck around them. ‘Trust me, I won’t.’
Damar glowered at her, just as someone snorted behind them. Kyra whipped around to see a man casually leaning against the mast, taller and younger than Damar, perhaps mid-twenties. A wonky, mischievous little smile played on his lips.
Whether he was laughing with her or at her, she didn’t care. She ignored him.
‘Kawai!’ Damar barked. ‘Are you going to gawk or are you going to set sail?’
‘Are you giving me the choice?’ the younger man said, his voice jesting as he strode past her, arm brushing hers on the way by.
The arrogance of men. Kyra resisted the urge to stick her foot out and trip him to the floor for that comment.
‘Don’t test me, boy,’ Damar warned. ‘You’re to give up your cabin for these two. Tell Boony he’s out too. You’re both in with the crew til we get to the ice-lands.’
Kawai began pulling sails down and untying ropes that Kyra could not even begin to understand. ‘What about your cabin, Damar?’ he asked. ‘Can’t I come in with you?’
‘I’d rather throw myself to the mer,’ Damar said gruffly. ‘Now shut up and get us out of this shit-smelling town.’
‘Ay, Captain.’ Laughing heartily, Kawai threw Kyra a brazen wink and continued to set them up for a voyage she wasn’t altogether sure she was ready for.
Leaning over the wooden rail, Kyra watched Vrethian become smaller and smaller as the ship pulled out of the port and into the open water.
All of Avaldale could be seen from this viewpoint; the Citadel, the tallest point of the city and towering over any neighbouring buildings; the Arc to the south of the city, its ancient arched opening just visible through the town centre; the spaced out manor houses of the Upper States, belonging to Avaldale’s most affluent citizens.
One in particular caught her eye, the furthest one from the shore on the top of the hill, a place that had once been so full of joy and family, now an empty shell of silent bitterness.
Apart from the greyscale of the capital, Vrethian was so…
green. The rolling hills that would eventually stretch into the Sarlal Plains was an expanse of immense greenery, visible even in the darkening day.
She’d never had the chance to notice that.
Had never even had the opportunity to explore her own country, instead she’d been stifled night after night in the death pits at the Arc.
She suddenly yearned to be on that carriage with Rosary on the way to Taru, with nothing to worry about but where they would find their first taste of Sarlalian wine in their newfound freedom. She hoped Rosary was already on her way.
That dream had so nearly been hers. She mourned it already.
Naal joined her in her gazing, the wind ruffling her silver hair. ‘Will you miss it?’
‘No,’ she replied honestly. ‘I’m glad to see the back of it. I just… this isn’t how I imagined I would be leaving.’
Naal nodded with understanding, then said off-handedly, ‘Rosary is a good friend. One of a kind, I might say.’
Throat restricting, Kyra muttered, ‘She is.’
‘She would not tell me where you went.’
Kyra glanced at Naal. She was prying, cleverly and without demand for an answer, but prying all the same. She instinctively closed her right hand into a fist, hiding the fading scar. ‘I wanted to say goodbye to my brother,’ she said.
Not entirely a lie. Even if Lilion had not granted her that wish.
‘I see,’ Naal said, and Kyra had the feeling she didn’t believe her. ‘Kyraena-’
‘Kyra,’ she corrected her dully.
‘Of course,’ Naal said with a slight bow of her head for her mistake.
‘Kyra, you do not strike me as unintelligent. I do not think I need to tell you to act with caution from here on out, but I will say it anyway, in case you need to hear. Being a Warden means you will be targeted. There has been poison spreading throughout Droria since the Great Earthling war, poison that has many forgetting and even loathing the Four Mothers. For the time being, it’s best not to let slip who you truly are.
There are spies in every corner of this world.
Be wary with your trust. It has the potential to be your best or worst weapon. ’
Kyra peered up at where Naal’s wings ought to have been. ‘Is that why your wings have miraculously disappeared?’
Naal gave a small smile. ‘Yes, but not for my safety. For yours. I have been around for a long time. I am, for obvious reasons, known to most in this world. If I can conceal even just a little of my identity, I might better protect yours.’
Kyra gritted her teeth at that. She’d never needed protecting before.
The thought reminded her of Rosary. I don’t need protecting. Hadn’t she said just that, furiously berating Kyra for giving into Oslan in the pits, to save her life?
‘Rosary told everyone who I was at the Citadel,’ Kyra said quietly. ‘She screamed it, hoping that would be enough to sway them to spare me. Do you think they believed her?’
Naal was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Considering they believe you were saved by the divines, it’s a possibility. But they are also earthlings. Even when something stares them blatantly in the face, they somehow still convince themselves it’s not real.’
Kyra snorted.
‘From now on, at least, it is wise for us both to remain discreet.’ Naal stifled a yawn with the back of her hand. ‘Being on the water makes me drowsy. I think I’ll lay down. I advise that you do the same. You’ve had a long day.’
‘Long couple of weeks more like.’
Naal didn’t smile at that. ‘Kyra, I must ask you something. The men you killed… was it self-defence?’
Their masked faces swam before Kyra’s eyes. She could hear their bones snapping as they fell into the abyss she’d made. Could still see the terror on Cristian’s face as she’d decapitated him. ‘I’d just found out they were the ones who killed my parents.’
‘I see.’ Pity shone from Naal’s silver eyes. ‘I knew your mother. She was a truly beautiful soul.’
Kyra looked away. ‘Then you know the men deserved it.’
Naal placed a light hand on her arm. ‘Vengeance is not the way of the Warden. We kill only when there is no other choice.’
The hand ought to have been comforting. She was sure that was Naal’s intention, and yet it made her irrationally angry. She bit out, ‘I didn’t know I was a Warden then. And I don’t regret it now. I won’t repent for serving justice.’
What she’d done to Cristian… for her parents, that had been justified.
Naal lifted the hand away. ‘You have much to learn,’ she answered in a quiet voice more to herself than Kyra, and with that she turned away in search of the promised cabin.
Kyra looked out over the water once more. It wasn’t a long journey over the Valcier Gap to Nythanor, perhaps a few days at least. The journey up the mountain was sure to be much, much longer.
It wasn’t the journey ahead or what would come after that clouded Kyra’s mind in that moment. It was withholding the truth from Naal about her imminent search for the Eye of the Fifth that bothered her.
Should she have confided in the Air Warden? Shared the burden of the task ahead? Having known her for a mere few hours, and especially after hearing her warning about lying low, she was sure Naal would not have approved in the slightest of the blood-bargain she’d made with Lilion.
No, this was her task. And hers alone.
???
Naal.
Kyraena had not been at sea before, that much was clear.
Her stomach was volatile from the rolling waves, and she spent most of her time leaning over the side of the ship, breathing deep in an attempt to combat the nausea.
Naal had not bothered asking Captain Damar for an anti-sickness potion for she knew she would be laughed at for even suggesting it.
The raiders spent the majority of their lives on these waters, their stomachs completely adjusted to the constant swirling of the waves beneath.
If Kyra noticed any of them sniggering at her weak stomach, she did not show it.
Or, and this was most probably the explanation, she was simply too nauseated to bite back at them.