Page 49

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

I stand at the ship’s rail and watch as the land gets closer and closer. Just uphill from the tiny cove we’ve chosen to disembark at, Leicht is waiting—I can see him clearly. Even more clear is the rocky spur extending into the cove. With the tide this low, it’s almost like a natural dock, and the only way we can get the horses off the ship without finding an actual dock. In the past—and probably not so past—smugglers used to use this spur as a convenient way to bring goods into Rebithia without paying tariffs. My father used to rant about it a lot, so of course Tia and I had to investigate.

Of course, the downside of the tide being this low is that there’s a serious risk of us running aground. Not being a sailor myself and never having been a smuggler, I wasn’t able to tell the captain or helmsman much about the conditions here. So as we inch closer and closer to the spur, it feels as though everyone aboard is holding their breath.

Finally, when it’s so close that I might almost be able to jump the distance, one of the sailors shouts something, and the captain calls for the anchor to be dropped.

“Ready?” Jaimin asks quietly from beside me, and I let out a slow breath.

“Not really, but since when has that mattered?”

He makes a sound that wants to be a laugh but isn’t quite, and we make our way toward where crew members are fitting the long boards meant for boarding other ships at sea into place to form ramps. They’ll be a little steep, and we’ll need to be very careful with the horses, but the captain assures me they’ll hold.

It’s been a week since my sojourn to Harfarin, and after Coryn’s terrifying revelation, I decided to use some of my god powers to move things along. Some of the sailors are deeply suspicious of the convenient wind that sprang up to push us up the coast, but everyone knows that even the best air mage can’t hold a strong wind for days on end without showing strain, so eventually they stopped looking sideways at me. Instead, they’re now saying that the gods must surely be on our side, which made Peiris laugh out loud.

Leicht spoke with the other dragons, and I with Master, and the patrols around the continent intensified their efforts, searching for any clues that the zombies scattered across Vaderyn might be massing together. It only took a few days for word to come back: Yes, that’s what appears to be happening. The only zombies that aren’t moving toward the City of Knowledge are the ones with my uncle and some small groups that seem poised to strike at mid-sized cities—likely as distractions.

At least now we have a better idea of what’s planned—the mage behind all this wants to take control of the academies, and presumably from there exert that control over the rest of Vaderyn. It’s unclear how they plan to neutralize the dragons or even the mages, but I don’t plan to let them get close enough to the city to find out. The combined councils went into an utter panic at the news, not at all helped by the reactions of the ruling monarchs—the King of Gall has apparently barricaded himself in his private apartments and is telling his generals to execute everybody and not let the zombie mages get him—so Master and I decided it was the right time to reveal “the truth” to the councils.

Of course, that “truth” was invented by Arimen, but it seemed to make them a lot happier anyway.

“They don’t need to know you’re Wasianth,” he declared when he heard about my dilemma. “That would be a mistake—people are greedy, and they’d try to use you. Just tell them that when we were at his temple at Caimae, you had a vision or found a sacred engraving or something that said Wasianth would act through the bearer of the stone at the time of greatest need. Only with fancy words. That way, they know it’s Wasianth who’s gonna fix everything, but they think he’s only using you like a puppet.”

So that’s what we did. It has more holes in it than an archer’s target, but nobody seems to be looking at those. It helps that the dragons finally stepped in and disclosed the secret that Leicht kept hinting at: their prophecy of a rider-mage, the only one to ever exist, who will step forward at the darkest hour and save the world.

Dragons. Always so dramatic. But that solves our other problem—anyone who tries to interfere with the bond between me and Leicht will be in direct violation of the treaty with the dragons. As far as they’re concerned, he and I are destined to be bonded.

Oh, and nobody’s worried about there being mass executions in Gall. The king there has basically been a figurehead for the past twenty years. Everyone knows his advisors and generals run things, and that’s why the kingdom hasn’t fallen to pieces.

It takes a lot less time than I expected for us to get the horses down the ramp, and then we’re standing on the uneven rocks, trying to keep our balance as waves wash over our feet. On the captain’s advice, we took our boots off to protect them from the salt water, and my feet are now freezing. We pick our way carefully through the cold water and sharp rocks to the beach. Spring has definitely reached this part of the world—finally—but I know from growing up just a few miles from here that the water will be frigid for months yet. The horses are not happy, though part of that might be that they’ve been saddled again after weeks without and forced to walk down a shaky plank.

When we finally reach the dry sand, I take my time putting my boots back on, letting the others get a little ahead of me, and murmur to Sweetie, “Well, looks like this is it. Are you ready for a fight?”

“Nobody will reach you if I can help it,” she says, her voice clear as a bell in my head. I suck in a breath. I expected this, but… I’ve been avoiding being alone with her because I didn’t want to deal with it.

I’ve accessed his memories.

I’ve played with his powers.

But this… this, more than anything, confirms that I am Wasianth.

“Of course you are,” she scoffs, stepping sideways to knock me off-balance. “I wouldn’t let just any idiot ride me.”

Apparently, Wasianth had an affinity for smart-mouthed friends of all species.

“Which explains why he chose to be incarnated as you.”

This conversation is going nowhere.

“One thing,” I can’t resist asking. “Were you really trying to matchmake between me and Jaimin?”

Her big brown eyes roll. “You were moving too slow. That man is exceptional, and somebody else was going to snap him up. One of the Lenlese soldiers tried, but I stepped on his foot and knocked him over.”

One of the Lenlese soldiers was flirting with Jaimin? I thought they all liked me! The betrayal! “Thanks for having my back, even when I was too stupid to know I needed it.”

She nickers and rubs her nose against my arm, and we catch up to the others, who are using Leicht as a windbreak. Coryn is petting him and murmuring some nonsense about what a good dragon he is.

“Now what?” Peiris asks, competently stroking their new horse, who seems very fond of them already.

I point west, away from the beach. “There’s a road a few hundred yards inland that will take us north to the fishing village that belongs to the estate. From there, there’s another road that will take us right through the home farm to the manor house. If we keep our heads down and Leicht stays high, there’s a chance nobody will notice us.”

“Is the village likely to be full of zombies?” Arimen worries at his lip with his teeth, but I shake my head.

“I call it a village out of habit, but it’s actually a decent-sized market town that gets a lot of traffic from passing boats, including naval ones. Someone would have noticed if the population had all been infected and reported it to the queen.” I hope. “But the turnoff is before we’d need to enter the village, anyway.”

We mount our horses, Leicht launches into the air, and what I really hope will be the last part of this quest begins.

The road is right where I remember it being—thankfully—and reasonably busy, though not as much as it should be for this time of year. Nobody will notice one more small group of travelers among the many strung out along the road. We’re even able to canter, so it takes no time at all to reach the place outside the village where a smaller road branches off. It’s surrounded by dense woods for the first few hundred yards, an attempt by one of my ancestors to discourage villagers from roaming around on the estate proper. In reality, it gave them somewhere new to hunt for small game.

For a moment, I hesitate. Maybe we should keep following the road, see if we can judge the situation in the vi?—

“Really?” Sweetie asks. “This close and you want to run away?”

Gritting my teeth, I turn toward the farm road. “It’s this way. Keep alert, and be ready—I’ll let you know if the dragons pass along any warnings.” There are three of them up there, including Leicht, watching everything.

“I’ll take the lead,” Coryn announces in the commanding voice he uses in these situations. “Peiris, can you bring up the rear?”

Peiris puts a hand on their sword and inclines their head. “Of course.”

“Arimen, what’s your job?”

“Stay close to Jaimin, follow orders, and yell if I need help,” he recites. His freckles stand out against the paleness of his face, and I wish I had somewhere safe to leave him.

“Okay, let’s go.”

Even though I’m basically a god now and don’t need Coryn to protect me anymore, I let him lead. He needs this—all he’s ever wanted to do is take care of people. I won’t let him get hurt.

I won’t let any of them get hurt, not if I have to raze the world to the ground.

On cue, I hear two sighs in my head. Seriously? It’s not enough that I have to be scolded by both Leicht and Sweetie—now they’re giving me nonverbal attitude as well?

Coryn sets the pace at a brisk walk. We don’t know what we’re looking for. I assume my uncle and his pet priests are in the manor house, but it’s possible they’ve set up their headquarters elsewhere and the house will be a trap. The thought hurts, but I push my feelings aside and?—

A crowd of silent, expressionless people melt out of the trees to surround us.