Page 4

CHAPTER 4

Elva woke from a nightmare, gasping in relief when she realised it was just her sheets tangled around her legs and not the limbs of the dead.

Since leaving Vincentia her sleep had been interrupted with terrifying dreams of Neve’s Ending.

She pushed herself upright, unable to handle the guilt that clawed at her, pulsing my fault, my fault, my fault in time with her heartbeat.

The Clochains had chosen to sail to Cailoch rather than cross the border, which would have meant traversing a treacherous mountain pass that went directly through their two armies’ encampments on the Arden Mountains.

While she was glad they didn’t have to pass through the site of Neve’s death, the rocking of the ship made her stomach twist with nausea.

She stood and quickly threw on her training clothes, needing to move her body before the tension racing through her veins made her explode.

She emerged from the belly of the ship to light blue skies, the sun a golden orb.

The open space immediately calmed her nerves, and she stepped onto the main deck already feeling lighter.

The ship was enormous, and shiny black cannons were spaced out at intervals facing the ocean.

It was the prize jewel in Clochain’s naval fleet, freshly oiled and glossy in the morning light.

It was strange to be seeing the enemy’s primary line of defence from the inside.

Vettona’s spies had reported an increase in Clochain ship numbers, and rumblings of a seaboard attack were growing.

It was only the fact that Vettona was protected by shallow coral reefs that had forced Clochain to wage the border war on the Arden Mountain pass.

Elva didn’t know if the Clochain fleet would be able to travel the distance around the southern tip, past Reathas, the Isle of the Gods, to then make it through the compass-defying area near the Ruins of Breon to launch a seaboard attack on the east side of Vettona.

Her mother’s intention was clear: de-escalate the tension before Clochain could solidify this force.

But if that had been their plan, she couldn’t imagine why they had agreed to the marriage treaty.

A skeleton crew manned the ship in the early morning, and the few sailors awake gave her a wide berth, derision splashed over their features as they took in her short sleeves and loose pants.

Grunts caught her attention, and she noticed two soldiers sparring near the bow, sweat soaking their shirts, their shouts whipped away by the cold breeze.

She appraised their stances; the men were big, both used to being the aggressor, and she noted their static footwork and heavy centre of gravity.

She wished Remi was here so they could discuss the differences in training styles, but the thought sent a pang of sadness through her chest.

If the last few days had taught her anything, she’d learned it was far too easy to lose herself in the masochism of missing home.

A pink-faced soldier saw her watching, and blessed himself in the shape of a diamond, a symbol of deference to the Seacht.

She ignored his stare and slunk farther down the side of the ship until she found a place where the shouts of the soldiers were faint, and she was somewhat hidden from view.

Women weren’t allowed to join the Clochain army, but she didn’t see why that should stop her from stretching.

Having been a warrior for nearly a decade and a trainee even longer, she couldn’t remember going for so long without moving her body.

Movement was the only way she knew how to calm herself.

She raised her hands and began shifting through the Vettonian fighting flow, a series of slow, precise positions which warmed her muscles and tested her balance.

Every time she completed a flow set, she began again, a little faster, until she was slick with perspiration and her breath came in steady puffs.

She lost herself in the motion, enjoying the repetition, the meditation that came with movement.

Her body dipped and arced, the power in her limbs propelling her forwards until the boat dropped on a wave and mist erupted around her, making her belly flip in surprise.

She paused her lunge and laughed, enjoying the cool relief the seawater brought.

‘Fucking shameless.’

Elva rose cautiously.

The pink-faced soldier stood in front of her, a swathe of blond hair framing his ruddy complexion.

He carried a barrel, arms straining over the wood, and his expression was pinched as he assessed her.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, grabbing a towel to wipe the sweat from her brow, mind racing ahead through a series of scenarios to guess how this interaction might resolve.

He continued walking towards her, a smirk twisting his lips.

‘You heard what I said. You Ellarch sympathisers make me sick.’ He spat, a gob of oozy wet hitting the deck right next to her foot.

Blood roared in her ears and a vision of ramming her forehead into the man’s face flashed through her mind, yet her intuition, the thing she called her knowing, pulsed, telling her to step aside.

She could barely make sense of it herself, but in battle she always seemed to know what her opponent’s next move would be a split second before it happened, and she was able to stay a step ahead of them.

It was what made her a good captain, and in this moment her knowing was telling her to back down.

She took a deep breath, steeling her nerves.

If she’d been any younger she wouldn’t have listened to the feeling, it was only years of training with the warriors that had instilled this type of discipline, and the fact that her instincts were almost always right, as if divined from the God of Foresight himself.

Elva leaned away, avoiding contact as the man proceeded down the deck without a backwards glance.

Disgust curled her lips.

She’d been expecting some form of close-mindedness in Clochain, but experiencing the man’s ire firsthand was different – like there was a trail of slime over her skin where the soldier’s eyes had travelled.

She wiped her face again, anger curdling her stomach, and threw herself back into the flow set, wrestling with her mind to try and stop catastrophising.

But a spark had caught her thoughts, and there was no dousing the flame: being called an Ellarch sympathiser was as good as a death sentence in Clochain.

It was true Vettona was less rigid in their worship of the Seacht than her new home.

Unlike the Clochain capital city of Cailoch, Vincentia still had the temples that were once used to worship the Ellarch; they had just been converted to worship one of the seven gods within the Seacht.

Vincentia was an old city, much older than Cailoch, and these temples were relics of their history.

That didn’t matter to the fanatics.

Vettona had sided with the Ellarch during the Great War, Clochain with the Seacht.

It had been the start of centuries’ worth of fighting; fighting which hadn’t ended when the gods won.

To this day the Vettonian Warriors were a crucial line of defence along the Clochain border.

So far they had kept their advance at bay, but unlike Clochain, Vettona didn’t have mandatory conscription.

Her homeland’s troops were tiring, and rumours of Clochain’s growing navy had her mother on edge.

Which is why, in every regard that mattered, Elva was in this position to begin with.

The ship’s corridors were lined in rich panels of dark wood which all looked the same.

She’d been exploring the vessel whenever she could, trying to paint a mental map should she ever need it, but she was doing an exceedingly bad job.

She made her way down a spiral staircase with hand-carved railings, sure she’d passed the very same one earlier that morning, but found she was lost.

She retraced her steps, turning left instead of right, down another dimly lit corridor that felt too small and another spiral staircase – but she couldn’t find the way back to her room.

She turned, seeing a light coming from an open door and recognition flared.

She could have sworn she’d closed it, but she made towards the firelights and poked her head inside, surprise flooding through her when she realised, a moment too late, that this was absolutely not her room.

It was twice the size of her own.

A huge, four-poster bed sat against the back wall, facing a porthole which looked out onto the Edgeless Ocean, and a desk sat underneath, its surface scattered with various books and maps.

A man sat at the desk, his attention taken with one of the notebooks in front of him, wholly unaware of her presence.

A violent urge to disrupt him took over her before she could think – a petty form of payback for his abrupt departure from the party.

‘Husband,’ Elva said to Fynton, crossing her arms as she leaned against the doorjamb.

She’d only seen him in passing since boarding the vessel, and her heart thumped in an irregular pattern when his head snapped up.

‘I am not your husband,’ he said after a moment.

Closing the notebook, Fynton carefully placed it on the map in the middle of the desk and turned to her.

‘Not yet,’ Elva said, a small smile toying at the corner of her lips.

She looked around the room again.

It was devoid of any personality, except rich .

‘What do you want?’

Elva tore her gaze from the room, realising she hadn’t thought this far ahead, but unable to deny that she was curious to know more about him.

‘Is it not enough to seek my future husband’s company?

’ she asked, pushing herself off the door to enter the room.

The bed was made perfectly, the velvet duvet so straight and unwrinkled it looked like no one had ever slept in it.

She sat, a small amount of petty pleasure arising when she saw it wrinkle.

When she didn’t say anything, he sighed and gestured to the door.

‘As much as I love your pleasantries, Elva, I have things to attend to.’

‘Do you?’ she replied, meeting his gaze.

In the sunlight his eyes were chestnut brown, no hint of the luminous flecks she’d seen on the night of their Vettonian celebration.

She wondered if she’d imagined it, if perhaps she’d also imagined the painful tug that had pulled her towards him during the chaos of the evening.

Why did he leave, then?

And why is he being such a dismissive bastard now?

His jaw flexed under her scrutiny and the furrow between his brows deepened.

He cleared his throat and Elva blinked, realising too late she’d been staring.

‘What do you want, Elva?’

‘Your soldiers are assholes,’ she said, voicing the first thing that came into her head.

‘They’re not my soldiers.

’

‘Whose are they?’

He rubbed his face, eyes glancing to hers before he looked back at his desk.

‘My father’s.

I’m captain of a small unit stationed near Mount Ard.

’

‘Why aren’t your men here?

’ she asked, trying to piece the command line together.

Her warriors would be here if the roles were reversed; it was only a stipulation of the treaty that meant she was here alone.

His frown deepened, but he said nothing.

She scrunched her fist into the duvet to stop herself from interrogating him.

‘What did they say?’ His voice was soft, and she glanced at him in surprise.

She hadn’t actually thought he’d care.

She waved her hand in dismissal, trying to shake the feeling of embarrassment that crept into her stomach.

The soldier’s remark had haunted her thoughts for days, but that didn’t explain why she had told Fynton.

She’d never needed to run to a man for assistance before, and having him suddenly start caring made her feel exposed in a way she wasn’t used to.

She stood, not bothering to smooth the bedding that had crumpled under her weight.

She’d never been in a situation so out of her control before.

Battles might be chaotic, but there was an order underneath the madness she understood.

As captain it had been her job to read those signs and act when necessary.

She’d had agency, yet here she was adrift.

She shook her head and stared at him.

His shirt sleeves were pushed to his elbows, exposing roped forearms resting on his knees.

Her gaze lingered there for more time than she cared to admit, before an unknown urge forced her to meet his gaze instead.

‘You know, this can be whatever we want it to be.’

She didn’t know why she’d said that.

Everything pointed to him being a man rooted in traditional Clochain values.

But she wanted to know for sure.

Needed to know what, exactly, her future entailed.

Fynton’s shoulders tensed at her words, but he didn’t move from his desk.

‘What makes you say that?’

‘Free will? The fact that we’re both adults in the same situation?

Pick whatever makes sense to you and roll with it.

’

‘You make it sound simple.’

She tilted her head.

‘It is. Just because we didn’t choose this doesn’t mean we can’t turn the situation to our advantage.

’

When he didn’t respond, she shrugged and slipped out the door, unable to avoid feeling like she might have said too much.