Chapter 12 #4
We came to a room just below the deck, where a table had been mounted.
Commander Stonelay, as well as several other high-ranking officers, attended.
Renn took a moment to formally introduce me to all of them, and I wondered what they must have thought of me, about this rescue mission, and about my relationship with Renn, if they understood it at all.
If they’d approve, or if they’d loathe it.
Were it not a time of war, surely it would be the latter.
I shared everything I could possibly think of, from the partial layout I’d pieced together of the palace, to things Nicosia and Whitestone had said to me, to the king’s marriage with Eden, leaving out any additional, personal details on the matter.
I told them how we’d escaped. I described the crafter barracks and, while I related a crafter had aided us, I did not give her description, for I had promised.
I detailed the canal and the cities, answering questions about potential food supply as best I could.
Many things about the workings of the soldiers and military they already knew, but none stopped me when I explained them.
We talked past sundown, with Commander Stonelay asking me to write down anything else that might come to mind. I agreed, and as soon as I left the room, the exhaustion of the day hit me like a falling tree. I stumbled, my half-heart pulsing too quickly. I needed to feed magic into it soon.
Renn subtly took my elbow and bid farewell to his officers before leading me to the main deck, where his cabin lay. “Are you all right?” he asked over the wind. Worry wound from him to me. “More food? Anything, Nym. Just ask.”
I gripped his bicep as we walked. “Just rest. I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. It was the first time in so long that tomorrow held any sort of hope for me. It felt as though a dove perched on my sternum and unfurled its wings.
We paused at the door. “Will it always be this way?” He dipped his head low, close to my ear. “Will I always feel what you’re feeling?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never really been in this position before.”
He offered me a boyish smile, so sweet I felt it down to my toes. “I don’t mind. It . . . it gave me hope, all these months. Knowing that you were still alive, that I still had some piece of you with me, even if I didn’t understand it.”
“It won’t always be rosy.”
“It hardly has been,” he countered. Sighed. “We should land tomorrow. I want you to take this room, Nym. I’ll sleep with the men below deck.”
That gave me pause. Images of Sten’s mother’s house, of that afternoon, flooded my mind. Curled up beside Renn on that cot, my hand pressed to his chest—the last semblance of peace I’d had before Nicosia captured me.
“I don’t . . .” He tousled his hair. “I don’t want them being untoward with you. The sailors. They can be . . . crude.”
Ah. “I suppose even you can’t escape that.”
He pressed a soft, chaste kiss to my forehead. “Do you need anything, Nym?”
Only you, I thought, scared at how true it felt.
A fluttering panic started in my gut, and I tamped it down, desperate to keep it from bleeding through the link.
I thought of sunshine and aspen forests and Terrence instead.
I could not allow myself to become a lunatic because my life was .
. . hard. “No, just rest. I’ll see you in the morning. ”
He looked at me a little longer, the night masking half his expression. I felt his unsurety. He waited while I entered the cabin, the brazier still warm, before bidding me good night.
I fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.
Nicosia grabbed a fistful of my hair and hauled my head back, hard enough for my neck to pop, and tapped my mother’s short, four-inch blade against the underside of my chin, the edge making paper-thin cuts to the tender flesh. “Tell me where you got your power, Nym.”
Tears clogged my eyes. “You already took it from me.”
He smiled a serpent’s grin. “Then tell me what you did. Tell me how you remade him.”
I squeezed my eyes shut, yet somehow I could see everything. Exactly how we stood, exactly how he loomed over me like a predator, exactly how the afternoon sun cast a shadow over the Egroran.
My weak heart thrummed too quickly, making the ceiling spin. Don’t tell him, don’t tell him, don’t—
He flung me chest-first into the tree, fusing me to it with a soulbinding, and stabbed the knife into the arch of my right shoulder blade.
I cried out, pain and the shock of the nerve racing between my crown and heels.
I tried to dowse, tried to stop it, but my lumis wouldn’t come. My magic had abandoned me.
Nicosia twisted the knife as his hot breath wafted over my ear.
“There’s a special seal that lives on our northern coast. When it needs a female to cooperate, it sinks its teeth into her neck, uncaring for her cries, for the blood.
Usually to have its way with her. Sometimes, she survives long enough to give birth. ”
The knife dug in to its hilt; my fingernails clawed the ancient tree, the bark unyielding. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think—
“Should we try it, Nym?” he whispered. “Then maybe you’ll scream the words I’ve been so patiently waiting to hear.”
I did scream. Mindless, feral screams, clawing at the Egroran, clawing at the soulbinding that pinned me there even as the pain in my shoulder consumed me. Out, out, I had to get out. I had to get out—
“Nym!”
The tree and Nicosia snapped into darkness all at once. The smell of coal, of wood, of the sea rushed into my nose. Splinters from the wall had opened the skin beneath my fingernails. Heart too fast. I was breathing, but it wasn’t enough, not enough—
Twenty candles came to life. Strong hands gripped my upper arms, forcing me upright. It took me a moment to recognize his face. Maybe because of the light. Maybe because of the tears.
Renn. Renn. He was here. I wasn’t in Rodsfell. I was on a Canseren ship, sailing home. Home. Safe.
The light emanated from Renn’s skin, illuminating the small cabin. His worry became suffocating as it absorbed my ebbing panic.
He touched the side of my face, hand warm where my skin had chilled. The door was ajar, like he’d rushed in. He wore only his undershirt and breeches.
“Are you with me?” he whispered.
I swallowed against a dry throat. Nodded. “I . . . I was there . . .”
Worry creased his brow and the invisible tie between us. He wiped away one errant tear with his knuckle, a second with his lips.
Guilt bloomed like a summer rose inside him, its petals brushing me, its thorned vines reaching, wrapping.
I forced a deep breath into my lungs. “I-I’m sorry. I haven’t . . .” But I’m back, now. I shouldn’t have nightmares—
The guilt formed new buds. “Every time you apologize, it’s like you’re stabbing me with a knife.”
I tensed. Knife in my back, twisting, digging—
“Nym.” He lowered his hand from my face but still gripped me, supported me. “Do you want . . . to tell me? What it was?”
I shook my head. “No.” The last thing I wanted was to relive it. I rubbed my eyes. “No. I’m fine . . . I just need some water, and I’ll go back to sleep.”
I wondered if he sensed the lie through our bond.
He stepped away, taking his warmth and light with him, and the space between us crushed me, the coolness and the darkness, and for a moment I wasn’t sailing for Derren Castle but for Sesta, soulbound to the mastiff in the hold of that ship, starving, aching—
Renn pressed a cup of water into my palm. “Drink.”
I did. Too quickly. I coughed.
He left again. I clenched my teeth. It’s fine. You’re fine. You’re a grown woman, and it’s over. Ursa—
But Ursa wasn’t here anymore.
Renn returned and pushed the door shut. Locked it. His glow dimmed to nearly nothing, perceptible only because of the dark of night. He took the cup from my hand, set it on the floor, and then lifted the blanket, one knee on the mattress. Paused. “Is this all right?”
I nodded, overeager, but I didn’t care. I scooted back against the wall, making space for him, my nerves calming the instant his leg pressed against mine.
I didn’t even wait for him to settle before I fell into him, my head on his chest. His arms came around me, holding too tight.
His shimmer winked out, leaving the room dark save for the light of the moon through the slats of a tiny porthole.
Silent, save for the churning sea and a muffled cough from him.
The rose of his guilt slowly withdrew its vines. I listened to the pulsing of his heart. Our heart. Tethered myself to it.
“I’m so sorry.” He breathed the words.
I hugged his torso, inhaling his scent. “No more apologies from either of us.”
A full minute passed before he relented. “All right.”
For the rest of the night, he kept the nightmares at bay.