Chapter Ten #2
His maegic jolts through me again, an even stronger pulse than before, as we begin to channel anew. His mind settles over mine, steady and strong and so very, very different from my ever-spiraling self-doubt. I am a puppet under his control as he guides our joined hands into the air.
We do not need words. I know his intentions as clearly as if they were my own, see his plans forming in my own mind without any need for vocalization.
Tendrils of air shoot from each of my fingertips and ribbon up into the sky.
They are not piercing, but soft. At first, I fear they will be ineffectual against such a gargantuan creature.
But as they wrap themselves around the monster’s body, snaking up its remaining legs, snaring it by fang and stinger, I realize what Soren is attempting to illustrate.
There is a beautiful strength in this quiet power, an astonishing advantage to my slow-motion assault. The beast cannot fight. It cannot even flinch as I render it totally immobile in a set of invisible shackles.
“You know what comes next?”
Soren’s deep voice rumbles through my head, plainly as if he’s spoken aloud. I flinch within his arms, unable to conceal my shock at the sudden invasion. It is one thing to see his thoughts as images; it is another to hear them in psychic conversation. I had not known such a thing was possible.
I swallow hard. I cannot speak—neither in my head, nor aloud—so I merely nod.
“Good.”
Soren’s torso twists toward the bow, and I turn with him. Our lofted hands steer the immobilized arachnida through the air until it is poised directly over the toppled foremast, which protrudes up through a mess of torn rigging.
“Now,” he whispers in my head.
His voice, which has always reminded me of falling water on the bed of a river, sounds different this way. Smoother, somehow. More intimate. A timbre reserved for secrets. I can feel his heart pumping, hear his pulse racing.
Or is that my own frantic pulse, pounding in my veins?
“Let’s finish this.”
At his command, I bring down our joined hands in one fluid motion, impaling the arachnida on the splintered base of the mast. The thick shaft pierces cleanly through its abdomen.
A death blow. Black fluid explodes across the entire bow, dissolving everything it lands on in seconds.
A smattering of holes appears across the foredeck as the hissing and bubbling subsides.
The creature convulses violently, and then, with one final haunting shriek, falls utterly still as its life force flees.
Leaning back against Soren, I expel a long, tremulous breath. “Please, for the love of the gods, tell me it’s dead.”
His chest rumbles with a laugh that echoes in the farthest reaches of my mind. “It’s dead. You can relax.”
Easier said than done. Energy churns through my veins along with Soren’s maegic. Deep currents wash through me, rhythmic as the tides. We are still channeling, though there is no real need for it anymore. Our hands are still joined tightly. Neither of us moves. I don’t even think I blink.
It is Soren, finally, who severs the connection.
He extracts his hands from mine and steps away at the same moment his mental guards slam back into place.
I do the same, summoning internal shields around my thoughts.
Yet the strangest sensation grips me when I find myself alone in my own head once more.
Not the solace I expected, but a hollow disquiet.
I take a series of uneven breaths, waiting for the discomfort to subside.
“I confess, that was a more eventful morning than I’d planned for your first in Hylios,” Soren says wryly.
How odd to hear him speak aloud again.
I dig my fingernails into my palms in an attempt to focus and force a flippant tone. “You mean you don’t subject all your guests to the most vile monsters Anwyvn has to offer?”
“Only the ones I like.” His voice loses a bit of its humor. “No doubt you’ll be running back to Caeldera even faster now that I’ve traumatized you.”
I jolt.
Caeldera.
Right.
Only a few hours ago, returning there was my primary objective. In the madness of the past few moments, I had forgotten my determination to leave. Soren’s offhand remark is a harsh reminder of reality.
I have to get back.
I have responsibilities.
I gather the courage to glance over at him. He is watching me carefully, his eyes locked on my face.
“Why are you looking at me like that?”
His answer is almost inaudible. “How, exactly, am I looking at you?”
Like you’re still inside my head, perusing all my private thoughts.
I grit my teeth and jerk my gaze from his, back to the bow.
The ship is lilting slightly forward as we take on water below.
I have no doubt the black ichor has burned a path straight through the hull.
I wonder how much time we have before we sink.
Long enough to retrieve the bodies cocooned in the crew quarters?
Maybe if we get some sailors from the docks to help…
Movement in my peripherals draws my attention to the port rail.
All thoughts of body recovery falter as the breath catches in my throat.
Something is crawling through a jagged hole in the deck.
It is small—no larger than my fist, with a light brown exoskeleton, spindly legs, and finger-length fangs—but it is not alone.
Everywhere my eyes move, I see more legs creeping up from the flooding hold.
“Soren…”
“I see them.” He sounds grim as he steps up beside me. Our shoulders press together as we take in the sight of dozens—no, there must be hundreds—of arachnidae scurrying onto the upper deck. “Gods damn it,” he mutters. “The fucking thing reproduced.”
I’m already reaching for his hand, bracing myself for another fight, when a battle cry splits the sky.
My head snaps up in time to see them drop out of the thick clouds above the sea gate.
Five winged horses, flying in tight formation.
My heart stumbles inside my chest as the impossible becomes possible.
Paexyri steeds.
The stuff of legend. Livings myths, every one of them.
For though I had never before laid eyes on such magnificent beasts, though I had not even been sure they truly existed outside the pages of children’s books, I know without question that these can only be the fabled faery mounts that ferried riders across Anwyvn before the Cull.
Their feathered wingspans stretch wide, gliding effortlessly through the air as they swoop toward the harbor.
The five flying stallions in the V-shaped order are each a different color.
At the rear, a dapple gray flanks a gingery roan.
At the middle, a chestnut bay speeds opposite a piebald black.
And at the very front, a mount of pure white dominates the pack.
Each carries a rider on its back clad in navy blue flight leathers.
Soren’s colors.
Not enemies, then.
The riders duck low over air-whipped manes as they descend rapidly toward us, but sit up in their saddles once they are within firing range.
With the upper half of their faces fully obscured by goggles, their identities are a mystery; their intentions are not.
A volley of immolating arrows rain down on the foredeck as they shoot sleek silver bows with effortless coordination, instantly igniting the swarming spiders.
I backpedal away from the quick-spreading flames. The webs that cloak the deck go up like a wine-soaked torch. In seconds, the whole ship will be engulfed.
Soren’s hand finds mine. “Time to go.”
We run for midship, fire at our backs roaring as it rips through wood and canvas.
The hissing shrieks of the burning arachnidae grow to an earsplitting pitch as the creatures are consumed.
When we reach the starboard rail, I see a crowd has gathered at the docks below.
Sailors and soldiers, all staring wide-eyed at the inferno as well as the Paexyri steeds, who continue to circle the ship.
Each pump of their impressive wings serves as a bellows, fanning the flames.
“Cut us loose!” Soren calls.
The sailors below instantly spring into action, untying the coiled bowlines from their bollards and tossing them into the water.
The moment we are free, maegic thickens the air.
I glance over at Soren in question, but he is occupied—his eyes are on the harbor, surveying everything in our immediate vicinity.
“You might want to hold the rail.”
“What?” I’m thrown off by his casual suggestion. “Why?”
His answer comes in the form of a violent lurch.
I grab the rail by the tips of my fingers before I go down on my ass.
The wave Soren has summoned lifts us straight up into the air, several feet above the surface.
The listing ship groans like a dying man as he maneuvers us across the harbor, strained by the excess water in its holds as well as the fire consuming its bow.
It is a jerking, uneven sort of slog. I cling to the wooden railing as the vessel seesaws from side to side.
Soren guides us to the center of the harbor, well away from the other ships and the docks where so many onlookers are gathered.
Intent on his task, he does not seem at all bothered by the spreading blaze.
The fire has consumed the entire bow and central mast. Flames jump from ratline to ratline, turning canvas sails to cinders, reducing thick rope rigging to ash.
The crow’s nest is no more than a memory.
And as the Paexyri continue to circle, their wingbeats only heighten the fire’s fury.
“Soren—”
“A little busy here, skylark.”