Page 105

Chapter 13

Marius

T ahlia fell back and Marius reached out to grab her arm, Titus bracing her back with his palms too. Marius could almost read her thoughts. Fara. Kraken. Unseelie.

Titus was the first to break the silence. “How does that work? Have you witnessed the offering?” he asked Marius.

“This is a thing? Offering people to sea monsters?” Tahlia’s voice cracked and she wiped sweat off her forehead and neck. “How can that be a tradition?”

“The northern folk used to perform the offering every full moon. Yes, I have witnessed it. Though it isn’t often practiced anymore, they resorted to it during a recent year of continuous storms, asking the kraken to rise and frighten the sea into submission. It worked. The full moon kraken isn’t like all the others. It holds powerful magic. No one knows when it was born into this world or if it was touched by magic through someone else. It’s all a mystery. As for the ritual, I watched them bring a female they chose forward…”

“But she was human, right?” Titus asked. “This is a human tradition. He’s Unseelie.”

Marius took a deep breath. “Aye, but maybe he is determined to do his version of it.”

“Why?” Tahlia’s voice cracked. “Wh, what does he want the kraken to do?”

“He’ll offer her up on a dinghy, tied and painted in runes. The creature will rise and claim her and at the same moment those performing the rite will shout their request to the full moon. I don’t know what the stranger will ask.”

“He isn’t even supposed to be here. The king sealed the drumstones.”

“There is likely a portal somewhere up here, as we mentioned.”

“Don’t you as we mentioned me! This is Fara! We have to go. Now!”

Marius grabbed Tahlia and breaking all the rules, pulled her to him and held her. “My love. My lady, please. We all want the same thing here.”

She pressed her forehead into his chest and her shoulder shook violently as she fought a sob, not allowing herself to make too much noise and give them away. Her small but strong fists knotted in the edges of his sleeveless tunic that showed at the sides of his leather vest.

Titus pressed his lips together and watched with kind eyes. He glanced toward the others and Maiwenn looked up. Her gaze flicked to Marius, then she nodded like she knew to keep everyone busy for a moment. She turned and approached the center of the riders and dragons and began motioning for everyone to come closer to her. She would be telling them something that seemed important, keeping their attention off Tahlia and him. She was always so good at that sort of thing.

A bay owl’s call had Titus and Marius turning toward the western edge of the small island. Ewan and Enora swam up to the smooth pebbles of the beach and walked out of the sea.

“We will see what they have to say,” he said quietly to Tahlia, allowing himself just one more moment of comforting her.

She sniffed and broke away, her face flushed, but her gaze steady and serious. “All right.”

Titus reached them first. “What did you hear? What did you see?”

Marius and Tahlia were just steps behind him.

Enora squeezed the water from the end of her braid. “The crew is celebrating a coming event of some sort. They say songs will be sung about the new high captain’s revenge.”

Ewan dried his feet on a patch of moss, then began putting his socks and boots back on. His tunic, belt, bow, sword, and leathers were there too, alongside Enora’s gear and clothing.

“They say their high captain is a demon,” Ewan said.

“Correct.” Tahlia’s tone was dark and dangerous. It was unusual to see her so serious and full of rage, but Marius didn’t blame her one bit. He felt the same.

Enora turned her back to them and shucked her linen top off. She tied her leather vest on as she talked. “The captain claims he lost his father here in the north. He wants to pay back those who ended his life too soon. Nothing was said about who exactly killed him. I assume he means the humans along the coastline somewhere.”

Titus frowned, bent to retrieve Enora’s weapons belt, then handed it over to her.

“Has to be,” Ewan said. “No one else is up here. Only the villagers, the traders, and the pirates.”

Titus looked to Marius. “Could he be going after other pirates?”

Crossing his arms, Marius fought the fatigue that always crept into a knight’s body after a battle. “Makes more sense that a pirate would kill an Unseelie they found than the traders doing so. The traders would have sold him for money if they were able to subdue him. The villagers would have simply avoided him at all cost. This father must not have been nearly as magically capable as his son to be killed by humans.”

Ewan murmured something about superstitions that Marius didn’t care to worry about. Yes, the northern folk were superstitious; the Fae and the humans here alike would hear about the full moon ritual, no doubt, and they might come to watch. It could be dangerous, but the order had to focus on this problem right in front of them. They had to retrieve Fara before tomorrow night when the moon rose to its peak.

A clarity came over Marius as it usually did after talking out problems. He gathered the order together and announced a plan to fire on the ship that held Fara and the Unseelie. To torch the end opposite the high captain’s quarters and see if they can provide enough of a distraction that Fara can get to a place where Ragewing could pluck her from the pirates’ vessel.

“What if we end up killing her ourselves?” Tahlia asked, her face ashen in the moonlight.

“If we don’t try, she’ll be dead anyway.”

Tahlia’s eyes shuttered and she took a shaky breath. Then she opened her eyes again and regarded everyone one at a time.

“All right. I’m in.”

The courage in her voice and her features made Marius feel like she could never fail at anything. He wished that feeling was fact, but sadly, he knew well that battles with pirates and hostages rarely ended without significant injuries or death.