Page 83

83

D AAL STOOD AT the bow of the Fyredragon as the ship regained its wings. With a thunderous roar from its forges, flames shot across the black glass, setting fire to a few cracked planks that had shattered off the keel. The ship slowly lifted from the uncompromising sea. As it rose, the crooked deck rolled even again.

To keep his feet, Daal grabbed the bow rail.

“Don’t have your sea legs yet, do you?” Rhaif asked, balancing a pipe in hand. “It seems our dragon still has some fight in her. Even after the pounding she took.”

Daal glanced back to the battle-scarred wreckage. “I understand we have you to thank for that.”

“Don’t thank me yet. Not with where we’re headed.”

A handful of the crew still labored across the decks. The fires had been put out, though several patches still sifted with smoke. Bodies had been taken below, but their stains remained. A full quarter of the crew had been killed and many more injured. Daal’s team had not been spared. They had suffered a hard loss: Barrat and his raash’ke mount, Frysh. The pair still lay somewhere out on the glass, slowly baking atop its burning surface.

Still, the dead would have to wait.

Overhead, half of the ship’s gasbag hung empty and loose, blackened by fire. The other half struggled with the weight of the rising ship. Still, the Fyredragon had gained enough lift to set off across the black sea, aiming for the mountain to the north. The ship skimmed low, leaving its patch of smoke. As it did, the sun blazed brighter, driving Daal deeper under the shade of the balloon.

Rhaif followed with his pipe.

Daal lifted his farscope and searched the broken cliffs of the Dragon. He watched for any glint of bronze or the waft of black wings.

“Spot anything?” Rhaif asked.

“No. Nothing is moving out there.”

Shortly after Daal had reached the ship, Nyx had sailed forth from her own battle. Upon arriving at the Fyredragon, she had driven Bashaliia into the hold, but only after dispatching the last of the mankrae to the mountain. She had bridled those survivors to one final duty. To search the mountain for any ta’wyn remaining inside, to sweep through and scour its halls.

“Maybe Nyx was right,” Rhaif said. “Maybe the Dragon is empty.”

“We can only hope so.”

According to Nyx’s account of her battle, she believed a majority of the bronze army had been sent to the coast. Near the end, she reported, there was a surge of reinforcements who arrived with infernal weaponry. Since then, the crew turned all its scopes upon the Dragon. So far, no other ta’wyn had appeared.

Maybe she’s right.

Daal kept searching. Nyx had bridled a final imprint into the last of the wraiths. She had ordered them to keep searching the Dragon with their sharp senses and keening cries. Only when it was deemed clear would the bats show themselves again.

So far, none had.

Either the mankrae had been slaughtered or their search still continued. It was impossible to judge. Especially as there was no telling how deep or extensive the ta’wyn warren delved under the mountain or how long it might take the wraiths to search it.

While they waited, it was decided not to hang back but to push forward.

As the ship swept north, Daal eventually lowered his scope, no longer needing it. The Dragon grew to fill the world, climbing higher and higher.

The Fyredragon swept into its shadow. Rhaif sighed as the heat fell away from the ship. Daal felt no comfort, not in this gloom, especially with what stood guard atop the glass.

Around them, scores of sleds had stalled to a stop, still tethered to p?rde who clearly had been harshly enslaved by some arcane bridling. The beasts hung in their traces with heads drooping, even with the weight of their curled horns sawed off. Ropes of slather hung from their lips. None of them reacted to the passage of the Fyredragon, not even to the flaming roar of its forges.

But the animals were not the only ones to suffer this affliction. Men and women stood on the shade-cooled glass or sat in wagons. Like the p?rde, they stared dead-eyed and crack-lipped. Some were naked; others had scraps of clothing hanging from limbs. Again, not a one reacted to the ship sweeping past. It was as if they had all drowned in this black sea and only their corpses remained.

Rhaif shuddered. “Enough of this. I’m heading below.”

Daal planned on keeping his post, but a savage roar burst under him, cutting through the planks and echoing out the holes in the hull.

Rhaif glanced back. “Someone is not happy to be home. Though I can’t blame him considering the state of his accommodations.”

Daal grimaced and turned from the mountain. He followed the thief toward the doors below. With the Dragon so close, and already under watch by others, he knew who needed him, especially before they set off for the mountain.

Even if she does not like it.

As they headed down, Daal abandoned Rhaif at the wheelhouse. A glimpse inside showed Graylin and Darant talking animatedly with Shiya. Back in the Frozen Wastes, it had taken one of her caste—an Axis—to activate the turubya. They were clearly plotting to do the same here.

Daal ignored them and headed farther down. As he descended the steps, he ran into Tamryn heading up. Dark circles shadowed her eyes. Her face looked far gaunter. Still, her hard gaze fixed on him—then her hand.

She had clearly risen from the lower hold to find him.

She shoved him against the wall, leaning close as if to kiss him. But it was not affection she sought.

“Those cries must stop,” she hissed. “It’s riling the raash’ke into a frenzy. After what they’ve been through—what we lost—” Her voice caught and was only freed when her fingers dug harder into Daal’s arm. “They need rest.”

“I was going—”

She shoved him away and stamped back down, headed for the lower hold. “Do something about it!”

Daal followed her, but he separated when he reached the upper hold, where the sailrafts were stanchioned. It now served as a prison.

As he grabbed the latch, another piercing scream erupted. The noise rattled the door. He felt it in his bones and teeth, too. He recognized the underlying frisson of bridle-song, dark and furious, rife with madness.

He girded himself and pushed inside.

An angry shout greeted him. “I told everyone to stay away!”

He ignored the command, pushing through. “It’s me, Nyx.”

He entered slowly, moving one step at a time. The upper hold was smaller than the one below. Sailrafts lined the back, their bows pointed toward the open stern door. One lay on its side, where it had been knocked over when Nyx had struggled to get the prisoner inside. A crewman had broken his arm during the tumult.

Once into the hold, it had taken all of Nyx’s control, along with a good font of her remaining bridle-song, to keep Bashaliia enthralled long enough to secure leg irons and wrap his wings with leather ropes.

Even then, they had nearly lost the battle.

Afterward, Nyx had sent everyone out in an attempt to calm that raging heart on her own. No one argued. No one else dared to draw near Bashaliia in his current raving state.

Daal had to risk it, to try to urge Nyx away from Bashaliia. With the Dragon so close, they would soon be departing. Graylin had asked him to make this attempt, knowing Daal had the best chance to get Nyx to listen. Maybe Jace, too, but with his strange affliction, Graylin feared adding another volatile element to this boiling pot.

So it’s up to me.

“Keep well away,” Nyx warned.

As Daal crossed the hold with cautious steps, he gaped at the state of Bashaliia. While he was no longer screeching, the Myr bat’s head hung low with menace. His eyes, normally warm and gentle, flashed with a malignancy that iced through Daal. The bat’s tall ears lay flat against his skull. Lips curled from sharp fangs slathered with venom. A leg tugged at one of the irons. Blood pooled under the claws, where his thrashing had torn skin.

Nyx knelt before Bashaliia. She glowed with bridle-song, casting out strands that sought to soothe the beast. Even with Daal’s limited sight, he saw the futility of this effort. Past Nyx, a raging pyre still burned inside Bashaliia, so fierce it was difficult to stare at for long.

Daal drew to a stop, well out of reach if the beast should attack. “Nyx, we’ve reached the mountain. Fenn and Krysh are watching for any return of the mankrae. But when they do, we must be prepared to act.”

She did not react, her gaze still on Bashaliia. “He’s somewhere in there. I know it.”

Her words carried through her song, which continued to hum out of her throat and heart.

Daal took another step forward. He gazed again into the emerald inferno seething at the core of her brother. With narrowed eyes and a wary wince, he searched for any sign of Bashaliia’s warm gold, but he failed to spot even a glimmer.

Still, he remained quiet, refusing to strip this faith from her.

Nyx continued, “I had thought the defeat of Khagar’s ancient enemy might stanch his fury, to let some of the anger go, so Bashaliia could break free. But he continues to rage as fiercely as ever.”

Daal knew Nyx must have grasped on to his hope back at the caves. It had likely given her the strength to venture into the wyldstrom and cast Bashaliia atop the emerald pyre in the grotto.

A hope that he could be recovered.

“What have I done?” Nyx moaned, her heart breaking.

Daal took another step forward, drawn to comfort that agony.

She turned to him, exposing her pain, her eyes glassy with tears. “He never deserved this.” A sob escaped her. “I never deserved him.”

He shifted closer, lowering to a knee. He stretched out an arm to draw her to him, away from the raging torment behind her. She leaned to take his hand, but she could not reach it.

Another could.

Without warning, Bashaliia lunged to the extent of his irons, stripping skin from bone to gain additional reach. A muzzle snapped for the meat of Daal’s arm.

With a gasp Nyx shoved up, knocking Bashaliia’s muzzle away. Bridle-song burst forth in a blazing shield, sending him farther back.

But the Myr bat had proven faster.

One fang had sliced a deep line down Daal’s forearm.

The venom cut deeper.

It numbed his arm, turning pain into ice. His hand clenched in a convulsive wrench, which pumped the poison through his veins. He managed one breath, then his chest clamped and his heart seized. He felt his body sink into frigid water, which froze around him. His muscles fought the cold, spasming hard, until they went rigid, too. His heart struggled with each pound, which felt like the strikes of an ice pick against stone. But the fist of muscle proved too weak against the might of the poison.

He felt his heart strike once more.

Then go silent.

Taking the world with it.