Chapter 42 #2
A man of wiry muscle with short-cropped black hair, clad in a wolf’s mask, stood like a statue beside her. The Wolf, she’d called him. He was the childhood friend she swore to help break free from his life as an executioner. The man she followed here.
The boar yanked my head back further, cutting off my view of Stasia.
I could resist, trip him again, perhaps even fight and kill him if I focused, but none of it would make this sea voyage any easier, and the boar was already steering me toward the same ship Stasia was on.
Fighting would only put a target on my back for the executioners accompanying us.
At least for those who derived pleasure from their perverse power.
Stasia claimed the executioner she loved was different, and Drak had said his mother never wanted to be an executioner, so they couldn’t all enjoy this brutality.
Maybe I had just gotten unlucky with the boar-faced man, and those on the same ship as mine might be like Ingrid and Finan.
It was a tenuous hope to cling to as he kicked at my heels to make me move faster.
Waves rolled over my boots, soaking the hem of my skirt.
The deeper we waded into the sea, the more piercing the cold became.
I held my breath as another wave splashed over me, soaking my trousers and making them cling to my frozen legs.
They quickly went numb, but with the executioner’s prodding, I kept moving, boarding the ship already wet and miserable.
Since it was Stasia’s ship, I didn’t resist when a masked man pulled me aboard.
Once my boots hit solid wood, the boar let go and trudged back up the shore.
Free at last, I stretched my neck and pushed through the other travelers.
Stasia was on me before I could take two steps.
Her bony arms wrapped around my neck as she pulled me into a tight embrace.
I buried my face in her warm, honey-blond hair, enjoying the softness of wheat and the warmth of sunlight.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” I heard myself say. “I’m so glad you’re okay. I’m so sorry… for everything.”
She immediately yanked back, leveling me with as serious a gaze as her persistently joyful face could make. “Sorry?”
“For Silver. It’s my fault you were taken captive.” My voice dropped, matching the chill of the sea and the tremor rushing through me.
“It’s Silver’s fault I was taken captive. Not yours.”
A sudden well of tears stung my eyes. “And then Kayn abandoned you and my mother—”
She scoffed but kept her voice hushed and our conversation private from the surrounding ears.
“I’ve been dying to tell you not to trust that bastard.
All he talked about was making you work harder and faster at hunting.
Like you weren’t a woman, but a…a…I don’t know.
” Her hands flew about. “A weapon, or something! I’m sorry, but I hate him. ”
Tears streamed over the edges of my eyelids as a laugh stirred from deep inside me. “You don’t have to be sorry. I know. I…” I blinked the tears away. “He was using me.”
“I knew it. I told Finan—”
“Finan.” I cut her off. “The Wolf. How did you find him?” My gaze hovered over the man standing at the back of the ship.
Executioners grabbed our shoulders and forced us to sit.
The open ship let the ocean wind whip our hair and sting our eyes, but the sides of the vessel afforded some shelter from the worst of it.
I huddled closer to Stasia, careful to stay away from the edge of the hardwood where the waves would eventually splash over and soak us.
Turning to me, she finally answered. “I stayed with your mother as long as I could. Lux, I’m sorry, I lost track of her when we arrived at the shore, and Finan, he wouldn’t let me go search for her.”
“He denied you?”
She looked away. “I know you don’t understand, but he’s not a bad person. I know he’s not.”
I nodded, trusting her. Stasia’s first instinct with Kayn had been dislike and distrust. If I had listened to her, maybe I wouldn’t have trusted him either.
I never would have thought of him as someone who truly cared for me, and never—a shudder rippled through me—would I have slept with him.
If Stasia knew Finan wasn’t cruel, who was I to argue?
The gods had blinded me for so long that I was too muddled to tell right from wrong and good from bad.
Too desperate to trust anybody at the time that Kayn found me, and yet too afraid to trust the man who’d actually told me the truth.
My heart pinched as Drak’s words echoed in my mind. I love you. And that’s enough for me.
I clutched the journal closer and stared at Stasia.
“I believe you,” I said finally. “You’re going to have to believe me too.
” I offered a watery smile and grasped her fingers with my free hand, partly for warmth, partly because I needed her to understand.
I needed her to see, to hear, to help me make sense of Brynhild’s account and pinpoint where this fragment could be.
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I’m Myrah, the witch who created vampires.”
Her eyes widened, but it was not at me or my confession. She stared past me, at the last witches boarding the ship. I craned my neck to follow her gaze, and my heart skipped a beat.
My mother.
She was frail and looking sicker again, but she was conscious, alive, and on the same ship as me.
I floated to my feet, my eyes never leaving her face.
Sensing my gaze, she looked up at me with faded eyes.
I wanted nothing more than to fall into her slight arms and cry.
If anyone could help me interpret Brynhild’s account and the attempt to restore a soul, it was my mother.
The child-like hope blossoming in my chest spread to a small smile on my face.
She mirrored it until I glimpsed the moments to come.
Her smile fading away as they pushed her away from me and to the opposite end.
The executioners forcing her to sit at the front of the ship and guide the way as an experienced seer.
The fox-faced woman nearly breaking my mother’s fragile forearm as she yanked her to her appointed seat.
My smile was swept away by a gust of wind that cut across my cold cheeks and dry lips, but the hope remained, warm and light within me.
It grew stronger when the executioners declared our destination.
West Anglor.
Drak and I had visited this kingdom long ago for our first battle, me a shield-maiden and him a warrior. Finding a shard at sea might be impossible, but perhaps I could find one in West Anglor. Even if I couldn’t have all of him, I could still carry a piece of him with me.