Page 7

7

G RAYLIN CLUTCHED THE pommel of his sheathed sword, a blade that had been in his family for eighteen generations. It was called Heartsthorn, and it bore sharp silvery thorns across its guard, which dug into his palm as his hand clenched the top of the weapon.

He stared down at Jace, who knelt groggily on the planks of the wheelhouse. The young man fingered the knot at the back of his head, wincing at the tenderness—or maybe it was from guilt.

Nyx had explained all that happened below. By now, everyone had gathered in the wheelhouse, trying to assess what this all meant.

Darant leaned next to the maesterwheel and absently filled a pipe. Shiya and Rhaif stood near the door with their arms crossed. Krysh had come with a healer’s bag and had helped revive Jace. After a brief examination, the alchymist had deemed the young man to be unharmed.

Graylin wondered if that last should be corrected. His fingers tightened on his sword. Considering what had happened, Jace posed a danger—not just to Nyx, but to their cause.

Maybe it would be better to dispatch this threat now.

Nyx glared across at Graylin, as if sensing his intention. She knelt protectively at Jace’s side. She waved to Fenn, then to Daal and Tamryn, who both stood off to the side.

“No matter the danger,” she said, “Jace did save us all.”

Graylin had to concede this point, but only begrudgingly.

Jace grimaced, his face pale. “I truly don’t know what happened. I have no recollection beyond the moment when Nyx confronted the kezmek. I took a step forward, trying to go to her aid—then I was gone. The next thing I remember was my head exploding with fire and my body falling toward the floor.”

Graylin turned to Nyx. “And you… why didn’t you tell us that you had sensed something strange about Jace, back when the turubya had ignited and he had nearly died?”

Nyx shook her head. “It was a fleeting moment in all the chaos. After that, Jace appeared totally normal. I thought little of it afterward.”

Graylin noted her eyes narrow on what was clearly a lie.

Krysh must have suspected as much. “Bashaliia also seemed to be wary of your friend.”

Nyx simply looked at her knees.

Darant spoke up, puffing as he lit his pipe. “Something clearly lurks in the boy. Something that can sap away bridling. Maybe it’s a boon, maybe a curse. But in all my travels, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Krysh glanced over from where he had been putting his healer’s bag back in order. “Your travels have never been into the Wastes, to an ancient ta’wyn stronghold. The strange alchymies of the turubya are beyond all our understanding.”

Darant raised a brow. “Maybe not to all of us.”

Several gazes swung toward Shiya.

Graylin pointed to the bronze woman. “Have you experienced anything like this? Do you have any knowledge of it?”

Shiya stirred slowly, as if warming from within. “Much of my memory is lost to me,” she reminded them. “Even if that were not true, the conflux of energies held within the turubya is beyond most comprehension, except perhaps for the Kryst of the ta’wyn. ”

Graylin frowned. “But we have no access to a Kryst.”

He knew the ta’wyn were divided into three castes, each with its own tasks and abilities. Lowest were the Roots, the worker drones with malleable bodies. Then came the powerful Axises, like Shiya, who were granted potent gifts of bridle-song. But above all were the Krysts, the true leaders and overseers, creations of cunning intelligence and wisdom. The latter had long vanished from the world.

Fenn turned to the bronze woman. “But, Shiya, you were able to activate the turubya in the Wastes. Surely you must know something.”

Her azure gaze fell upon the navigator. “I was only a key. No more. It takes a source rich in synmeld —what you call bridle-song—one like me, to trigger the turubya. It drains all in that moment, burns it away.”

Graylin remembered Shiya collapsing out of the crystal cocoon after activating the great world-engine. She had nearly expired in that moment.

Nyx’s brow furrowed. “I felt something similar… with Jace. A void that sought to strip everything from me, possibly my life with it.”

Jace closed his eyes, clearly wounded by her words.

Nyx missed it, still focused on Shiya. “You said the turubya drained you and burned that energy away.”

The ta’wyn bowed her head in acknowledgment.

Nyx turned to Daal. “At first, I thought what had happened below was like with the two of us. Where your power would flow into me, stoking my reserves as a font for me to be cast forth.”

“I’m your flashburn… you’re my forge,” he muttered, his voice forlorn, maybe with an undercurrent of wounded anger.

Nyx faced the others, seemingly as oblivious to Daal’s distress as she had been to Jace’s pain. “But down below, helpless before the enormity of the void, my bridle-song was not stored away. It immediately burned up, consumed on the spot. It felt as if my song ceased to exist as soon as it rushed into that emptiness.”

Graylin noted a pinching of Shiya’s eyes and challenged the woman. “Does this have any meaning to you?”

Shiya remained quiet for a spell, then spoke softly. “A faint memory. It’s barely there.”

“Of what?” Nyx asked.

“I mentioned synmeld —a talent the ancients imbued into their creations, both the ta’wyn and creatures of flesh and blood, like the world’s great bats.”

“And the Oshkapeers, ” Daal reminded them. “The tentacled Dreamers of the Deep.”

Shiya nodded. “But there was something related to that gift. Related but opposite, created in tandem with synmeld. Twin in power, but the antithesis of the other. It was called dysmeld. I know little more, only that the two must be kept apart.”

“Why?” Graylin asked.

“Once joined, they consume each other, destroy one another. Possibly explosively so.”

Jace’s face went even more pale. “Are you saying something like that might be inside me?”

“I do not know. It is beyond my comprehension. Only a Kryst might know more.”

“Like Eligor,” Graylin said.

“Before he was destroyed,” Darant said.

“Not completely,” Nyx reminded them.

Silence settled over the chamber. They all knew that the Iflelen had secured the decapitated head of Eligor, the leader of the Revn-kree hordes. For untold ages, the cabal had been performing arcane experiments upon it. It was that relic that their allies in the Western Crown needed to secure. Tykhan believed the bronze bust held the secret to discovering a lost key to controlling the two turubya —which was critical. Even after the two ancient devices were activated and seated deep into the Urth’s crust, they could only be controlled with this hidden key.

Krysh finally spoke up. “This pairing of synmeld and dysmeld makes a certain sense. The gods, the natural world, all require a balance of extremes, a symmetry of opposites. Winter and summer. Night and day. Fire and ice. Even predators require prey.” He nodded to Shiya. “Perhaps dysmeld and synmeld are a similar pairing of extremes. Maybe it’s dysmeld that powers the turubya, but it requires synmeld to be consumed as a means of jolting it to life.”

Shiya remained silent, unable to offer any further counsel.

Jace twisted toward the alchymist. “But if you’re right, how is it in me?”

Rather than Krysh, Rhaif offered a possibility. “We know synmeld —or bridle-song—could be cast into bronze or flesh.” He motioned to Shiya, then to Nyx. He then placed his palm over his own heart. “And that it can be passed inadvertently. My mother’s people, the Kethra’kai of Cloudreach, are steeped in this gift. They believe it came from the great bats, that the talent seeped into their tribes, somehow flowing into them during their long worship and interaction with the neighboring colonies.”

Graylin understood Rhaif’s line of conjecture. “You’re thinking the same might be true for dysmeld. That Jace’s exposure to the blast of energy from the turubya somehow imbued him with this gift—flowing from bronze to flesh.”

“But is it a gift?” Darant added, casting out a pall of smoke. “Or a curse?”

Rhaif shrugged. “Does it matter? The lad clearly has no control of it. Like a new bridle-singer coming into their power.”

“Yet, he has no one to guide him, to instruct him,” Graylin noted. “Which could prove a danger to us all.”

“That may be true,” Darant said. “But there’s a greater and more immediate threat. One that we know as little about.”

Graylin frowned, then noted the pirate scowling at his ship’s navigator.

Fenn closed his eyes, fingering the bandage over his sliced palm.

“Someone sent an assassin aboard my ship.” Darant straightened from where he leaned by the maesterwheel. “And I mean to find out who.”

N YX AGREED WITH Darant. She was also happy to see those accusatory gazes sweep from Jace to Fenn. She knew the navigator was stout enough to weather such a storm. Jace—her friend for ages—was more fragile, terrified and unmoored by all that had transpired.

She reached over and placed a hand on Jace’s thigh.

He shivered, then his hand found hers, covering it fully. He glanced to her, his voice tremulous. “I’m sorry…”

“No. I shouldn’t have stayed silent. You shouldn’t have been forced to discover this in such a dangerous moment.”

He swallowed. Terror shone in his eyes. “But what am I?”

She turned her hand, joining their palms, then fingers. “We’ll find out together.”

He nodded and let out a long breath. Still, his fear never faded.

Without any way to help further, she turned her attention as Darant confronted Fenn.

“I took you into my crew three years ago,” the pirate said. “As with most aboard, I’ve never questioned or judged one’s past. Only that you swear allegiance and loyalty to me and mine.”

Fenn nodded. “I cannot express what it meant to find my place here. Hopefully, I’ve earned it, too.”

“Aye, you have. But now your past threatens us, so it is time to bare what you’ve kept hidden.”

Nyx stood up. “You said you believed it was your uncle who sent the assassin.”

“Not a belief, but a fact.” Fenn stared around at the others. “My father served King Acker of Bhestya as his high minister, one of his most trusted advisers. Then three years ago, my father was accused of treason, of plotting the king’s death with a cabal of others in the court.”

Fenn’s face darkened with an anger likely long suppressed. “He was hanged, as was my mother.”

Nyx winced, knowing the particular agony of such a loss.

“My brother—older by a year—was also dragged to court. He had been serving as a cadet in the kingdom’s sea brigade. They wanted him to denounce our father. He refused and was beheaded.”

“And you?” Darant asked. “Were you put to the same question?”

“No.” Guilt etched Fenn’s voice. “During all the tumult, with the king’s men yanking the accused from their beds, my sister arrived in the dead of night to my school. She came with her maid, both cloaked. She warned me to flee, gave me a heavy purse to do so. She told a tale of my uncle’s betrayal of my father, an accusation made in secret. While the plot was real, my father had nothing to do with such foul treachery. But forged letters and seals suggested otherwise.”

Graylin looked skeptical. “How can you be sure what your sister claimed was true?”

“Is she still alive?” Nyx interjected.

“As far as I know, Freya still breathes. She is married to my uncle’s cousin, who loves her dearly, more so after she gave him a son. He would not let any harm come to her.”

Graylin pressed him. “This ploy by your uncle… how did she learn of it?”

“The two houses—my uncle’s and his cousin’s—have servants with familial ties going back generations, split between their estates.”

Darant nodded, wafting out a spiral of smoke. “No one knows better what truly goes on within a household than those with their backs bent in chores or in servility.”

“Freya is loved by more than just the man sharing her bed,” Fenn said in a pained voice. “She has a heart for all, a trait once shared by my father. Someone must’ve taken pity upon her and carried a stolen skrycrow missive to her, from one house to the other. The letter laid out and exposed my uncle’s treachery. He intended to destroy my father and climb his gallows to rise to greater glory—which he did. He now serves as high minister, taking my father’s place.”

“Couldn’t your sister have taken that stolen letter to the king?” Nyx asked. “And shown proof of your uncle’s treachery?”

All eyes turned Nyx’s way, their gazes pitying.

“If it were only that easy,” Fenn mumbled.

Darant explained, “It would not be believed, especially when delivered by the accused’s daughter. Any such attempt would likely only get her killed, and maybe the rest of her family.”

“Freya is no fool. Her heart might be huge, but it does not blind her.”

Nyx frowned. “What about the servant who dispatched the letter as a warning? Could they not add support?”

“Even if they dared risk it,” Graylin explained, “there is no weight behind the breaths of such lowbred.”

Fenn nodded. “The generosity of this warning to my sister was only meant to expose the truth, to let a daughter keep her pride in her father—and perhaps to let a son escape in the night.”

“Which you did,” Darant said.

“By the narrowest of margins. I barely had time to stuff a bag. Still, I nearly ran afoul of a trio of assassins, one bearing a crated kezmek. Maybe the same one that attacked us below.”

Graylin looked dour. “If so, if your uncle has discovered you’re aboard the Fyredragon, this will not be his only attempt.”

“But why does your uncle continue to pursue you?” Nyx asked. “It’s been three years. Already seated as high minister, what does he gain by your death?”

“My flight from Bhestya was taken as further proof of my father’s duplicity. While I escaped, as I said, my brother did not. My sister did not have a way of warning him, not when he was aboard a ship at sea.” Fenn’s lips drew to bloodless lines. “Yet, by fleeing, I pointed the executioner’s ax at my brother’s head. Geryd would never denounce our father.”

Darant clapped a hand onto Fenn’s shoulder. “Do not take that burden upon yourself. Your sister risked much to get you running. And I wager your brother would gladly have given his head to let you live.”

“Also, by surviving,” Graylin added, glancing toward Nyx, “one day you may be able to right a grievous wrong.”

“Your uncle must fear the same,” Rhaif said. “That’s why he continues this hunt. But take some comfort in knowing this.”

Fenn scowled. “Comfort? How?”

Rhaif’s eyes glinted. “Because your uncle has been harboring a deep-seated fear—of a son’s vengeance, maybe even of exposure. It’s likely formed a knot in his gut, one that’s grown more embittered over these three years.”

Darant barked a smoke-filled laugh. “No doubt that’s true.”

Fenn, his face still dark, looked little swayed. “Regardless, my uncle will not stop. Not until one of us is dead.”

“Yet, that’s not the greatest threat he poses.” Graylin turned to the bow windows, searching the stormy skies to the south. “King Acker entertains emissaries from both the Klashe and Hálendii. While he teeters at the moment, if his high minister learns that this ship—one harboring Fenn—is the same one being hunted by Hálendiian forces, then that bastard will surely tilt that scale against us.”

Darant straightened. “Then we must be gone before that happens.”

Jace stirred, glancing over to Krysh. “The map we secured. We need Fenn to study it.”

Graylin waved this away. “That can wait. We must cast off immediately. We’ll make for the necropolises that border the Barrens. We can use that map to chart a course from there.”

Nyx let out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding. She followed Graylin’s gaze out the windows, but she stared to the west, to the dangers that lay ahead. Back in the Wastes, they had defeated the Spider—a lowly Root of the ta’wyn, one driven nearly insane. But the Spider had also given them a warning about what they would face out in the Barrens. A powerful Axis—the same caste as Shiya—guarded the second turubya, along with a small Revn-kree army.

Nyx felt no terror at this daunting challenge, only relief. The long journey, the waiting, had weighed upon her, kept her sleepless many nights. While much still remained unknown, one certainty had firmed.

Even if it takes all our lives, we must not fail.

Still, she knew the burden of the world did not solely rest on her shoulders. She turned her gaze to the east. Another carried the same responsibility—and was hopefully as resolute in his duty. She didn’t know who faced the greater challenge. But she took some solace in one burden that was not her own.

At least I don’t have to kill my own brother.