Page 33 of Heir of Broken Souls (HOBF #3)

Chapter 33

Delilah

T he rope burns my skin as I assist lowering the topgallant sail. Ignoring the sting of my palms, I drop the rope, allowing Knox to secure it before rushing on to the next sail.

“Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” I ask, calling out to him over the high winds that seem to have come from nowhere.

“Yes, my father spent months at sea as a child. He passed down everything he learned.” Knox pauses, tipping his head back to peer at the sails. “I just have to hope it’s enough.”

He shakes himself out of whatever place his mind has taken him to, and continues shortening the sails.

Harlow comes up beside us, her knees slightly bent to counteract the swaying of the ship. It’s only grown more tumultuous every hour.

“How am I meant to secure the items? There are hundreds of things that can go flying.”

Knox shrugs. “I don’t know, get creative.”

Harlow barely contains her eye roll, following us as we move to the next sail. “How, exactly? There’s hardly anything on this ship.”

“I thought you just said there are hundreds of things.”

Groaning, she spins, hurrying away down the stairs to the lower cabins. Lenox follows shortly after, hauling items below that could go flying. He passes the wheel on his way and the shadowed hands gripping it, trying to keep the ship on course. Notably, Axel and Elysia are absent. I haven’t seen them since we rushed from their cabin to prepare the ship.

Warmth suddenly flows over me.

If the sun had risen I would have thought its rays were basking my skin. But the moon certainly isn’t responsible for it.

Then, it tugs. Something is beckoning me.

“Do you feel that?” I ask Knox.

He stops, frowning. “No.”

He probes down the bond to feel what I feel, then secures the rope in his hands before striding toward the railing.

I trail after him, gripping his forearm to steady myself as a large gust of wind nearly knocks me backwards. It brings tears to my eyes, but I squint to see the entire pod bobbing beside the ship.

Their red glowing eyes are pinned on us.

“She wants to talk,” Knox drawls. “Alone.”

* * *

With a flourish of his shadow magic, Knox opens a small window on the lowest level of the ship. It’s just big enough for both of us to pop our torsos out, and come face-to-face with the mermaids only a few feet below.

I’m surprised water hasn’t leaked into the cabin, considering how much it’s been leaning. I make a mental note to secure all the lower-level windows.

“I see our visions aren’t needed,” Naia begins coldly.

“Your visions are always needed,” Knox says dutifully.

“Elysia just beat you to it,” I blurt.

“Yes, I can see that, child.”

A small spark of hatred ignites within my chest. The mermaids always love to remind me of my place in their eyes. Help or not, friend or foe, they are superior in their minds.

With those powers, they might be.

I flash her a sickly-sweet smile. “Of course you do. You see everything.”

And never tell anyone, for whatever reason.

I know Naia is cutting me slack, taking my verbal jabs with stride, but I suspect her patience is beginning to wear thin. But I find myself struggling to care for the repercussions after everything.

Knox clears his throat, drawing Naia’s attention. “Is there more that you saw?”

Naia dips her chin. “This is no ordinary storm.”

“What exactly did you see?” I ask, too quickly.

“Oh,” she muses, a brow arching. “Now you wish to know of my vision?”

“Don’t play coy, Naia. This is no time for games.”

“Certainly not, considering this is man-made.”

Knox frowns. “Man-made? Are you telling me the storm coming for us is?—”

“Not one of nature’s doing?” Amelia purrs. “Well, it certainly isn’t a gift from Mother Gaia.”

A muscle in Knox’s jaw flexes. “That’s impossible. Dark magic can’t manipulate the elements, only pure elemental power can.”

“I never said anything about dark magic,” Naia answers coyly.

Knox and I turn to each other in sync, the confusion on my face mirrored in his own. “Is he possessing the Fae he’s captured to perform?—”

Naia’s cold voice cuts me off, filling in the blanks we so greatly missed. “This one is not being forced to do anything. Her choices are all her own.”

Her.

I flinch, as if I was struck by a physical force, but it was just a word.

A word that changes everything.

Knox bristles, his entire body tightening as he fists his hands at his sides. His voice lowers to a dangerous growl. “Who?”

“You know who.”

I shake my head in bewilderment. “S-she’s an earth Fae. She doesn’t possess the amount of water power needed?—”

“She’s transitioning. That child is becoming as corrupt as the one you call Peter. She’s beginning to possess an ungodly amount of power.”

“No, no.” A million thoughts whirl behind Knox’s eyes. “She can’t possess both powers, and she’s already committed to the dark magic.”

Naia’s eyes grow cold, making my heart turn to stone. “The tyrant, it seems, used his time well with the creatures he captured. Hazel is just one of many Fae he has been enacting experiments on.”

This changes everything .

We won’t just be fighting dark power. We’ll be going against our own. I blanch, bile rising in my throat. “The only way she can have both powers is?—”

“If she takes the life of a Fae.”

Spinning, I find Axel standing in the doorway, his neck flush and seething at the truth that was just dropped at our feet.

Any creature who possesses pure magic can be turned to the dark side by performing dark magic rituals and curses. However, to truly transition, to become something you are not, to be fueled by dark power entirely, you must take a life. And every life you take thereafter will strengthen the dark magic as the once pure creature feeds off the life force they stole.

“She’s killed more innocents,” Axel spits.

Not a question, but Naia answers it all the same.

“Yes, it appears so.” Naia cocks her head. “We still can’t see past his barriers but her, on the other hand… Let’s just say that what happened in the library did not sway her.”

For some ungodly reason that I don’t want to look closer at, I feel betrayed.

My heart feels like it’s breaking all over again. Despite me knowing all this time what she’s capable of—for gods’ sake she’s the reason Ace is dead—I didn’t realize I was holding onto a flicker of hope.

A small thread.

A small chance that it wasn’t Hazel’s choice, that she was perhaps being manipulated. But it’s ripped from my grasp, yanked away as quickly as Ace’s life was.

It was always her own doing. I’m just the idiot who hoped beyond reason that everything was warped in some way.

“We’re all fools.”

I don’t realize I spat the words out loud until Knox gently turns to me. “Delilah?”

“We are fools!” I shout as I angrily swipe away a traitorous tear. She doesn’t deserve them. “We have all been cowards. Walking around day after day ignoring the betrayal we should have been avenging. We have done nothing but sit and stew on our grief and look where it has gotten us!”

I couldn’t stop the words if I wanted to. They pour from me without abandon. The floodgates open once again, but this time releasing guilt instead of grief.

“We allowed our grief to swallow us blindly in its folds. We have been walking around like sleepwalkers. The moment Ace died we should have gone after her, to make her pay for what she did?—”

“I had people searching,” Knox tries to reason. “Axel was driving himself insane?—”

“Hey!” Axel protests.

“We tried, Angel,” Knox says softly.

“Not hard enough,” I say through gritted teeth. “Now she’s coming after us again.”

Naia doesn’t sugarcoat a thing. “She’s certainly trying to. The storm she’s sending our way is incomprehensible.”

Axel vibrates with rage. “After all she’s taken, she thinks she can get away with taking more?”

As if it’s wafting off him in waves, I feel his hatred slam into me over and over until my own spark begins to burn. Except this is no flicker or small flame.

It’s an inferno.

“Can we go after her?” Knox asks, reading the tension in the room.

“She appears to be working from afar. She’s already set the storm in motion.”

Amelia cuts a glance in my direction. “We can’t outrun it or escape it to go after her.”

Knox’s hand lands gently on my back. “Surviving will be our revenge.”

“No,” I spit. “Death will be.”

Axel steps farther into the room. “I’m with Delilah on this. We need to go after her.”

“All in due time, but we need to prioritize the prophecy. She’s had ample opportunity to come after us—weeks in fact. So that begs the question, why now?”

“Oh, it seems the princeling has grown a brain,” Amelia taunts.

“King,” Knox snaps. Ignoring the retort of his intelligence, he keeps his gaze pinned on me. “We’re getting close to answers they don’t want us to know. It’s the only reason she’d try to come after us now.”

“Fine. Answers first.” I turn on my heels, shoving out the door. “Then I want them all to burn.”

* * *

My teeth are clamped so tightly I’m surprised I haven’t broken a tooth. The fury that’s engulfing me must be entirely evident because as I round the top deck to the griffins, they rise.

Aurora is the first to move, those cunning golden eyes locking on me as I feel her probing my emotions along the bond. She cocks her head as if to ask what’s wrong.

That’s when I pause, and turn to Zephlyn.

The moment I do, he’s striding forward, the hackles on the back of his neck standing on end. A wall shutters over his eyes—steeling himself for pain.

“It’s her,” I declare, keeping my gaze on the griffin that will feel the most pain from this news. “The storm isn’t a natural phenomenon. It’s created, orchestrated by her to kill us before we arrive at our location.”

Zephlyn stares down at me and I wait for the anger, the fury that is pulsing through my veins to fill his own, but what happens instead shocks me. It utterly freezes me to the spot.

Silver lines his eyes, making the blue shine as bright as the ocean as they roll down his furry face. The sight of those tears steals the breath from me.

“Oh, Zephlyn.”

Tears spring into my eyes too, shocking me further as I thought I wasn’t capable of crying anymore after sobbing in Knox’s arms earlier this evening. But the pain engulfs my heart as Zephlyn’s shoulders shudder and small whines tumble from him.

Aurora mirrors his whines, brushing her head along his, trying to comfort her mate but he doesn’t look away from me, as if he’s stuck in a trance. The news I shared sends the griffin tumbling into despair.

We’ve been so worried about losing Zephlyn that I never stopped to think about the immense pain the griffin would be in if he stayed. And now I see just how broken his soul is from Ace’s loss.

As the cries rise, the sound reaching a new height, Aurora turns pleading eyes to me, as if begging for my help.

But all I can do is stumble forward on wobbly legs, wrap my arms around Zephlyn’s thick neck, and cry into his coat, allowing our grief to shine together.