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Nox

I wake to a fierce pounding in my head that normally suggests I had an exceedingly good time the night before. Unfortunately, that’s not the case right now. Not when I can taste blood on my tongue and feel like I’ve been chewed on by a dragon. Magical burnout is such a bitch.

“Good. You’re awake.”

I open one bleary eye to find Bastian perched on the bunk across from me. I’m not in my cabin, but I recognize this one as on the ship. Of course it is. Where else would I be? I heft myself up and have to close my eyes again to fight against the way the room spins. I’ll have to take it easy today, but I should be feeling better by the time lunch rolls around. None of that explains why he’s sitting here, watching me sleep. “What are you doing here?”

“Siobhan needed food and didn’t want you to be alone.” The words are right, but he’s practically vibrating with excitement. “You know the library in the same building as the Council chambers? The one where they keep all the dangerous and illicit texts?”

“Why the fuck would I know about that?” I press my fingers to my throbbing temples. “Why are you asking me about that right now?”

“Nox, focus .” Bastian’s voice rings with sincerity. Of course it does. He’s perfectly sincere at all times, even when he’s breaking your heart. In the gentlest way possible, of course, as if that doesn’t make the situation a thousand times worse. “The library. There’s a giant horn in a case. Do you know what it does?”

The way he’s asking me, he obviously has some kind of idea, but I can’t think . “When I lived in Lyari, I avoided the buildings where the Council reigns supreme. People like me weren’t welcome in the area. I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“Oh.”

I open my eyes to find him visibly deflating, his excitement draining away. I hate that I want to draw back my sharp words, to find a way to soften them. I take great pains to shield the worst of myself from people. Partly because captains who rule by fear are only captains until someone comes along who’s brave enough to slit their throat. Partly because it’s just…easier.

But Bastian knew me before I learned those lessons. So of course he draws out the ugly bits I’d rather keep hidden. I sigh. “Why are you so excited about a horn?”

“Horns and hunts.” He doesn’t quite vibrate in enthusiasm, but it’s a near thing. “You asked us how to call the Wild Hunt. We don’t have a Wild Hunt in our histories, but plenty of realms do—and in a lot of them, the C?n Annwn are involved.”

“Yes, I’m aware.” I barely have a memory of waking up to slur out the question Bowen posed to me last night. “But what you seem to be suggesting is that we sail to Lyari, break into the library, bypass the nasty magical traps that are no doubt around that horn, and…blow it? Just to see?”

He wilts a little more. “When you put it like that, it doesn’t sound like a particularly good idea.”

My headache makes me want to snap at him, but damn it, that’s not entirely fair. I rub my temples harder. Orchid is going to berate me for pushing myself too far, but if I let him lecture me until he runs out of steam, he might brew me one of his potions to combat the headache so I can think . “ Why do you think it’s a good idea?”

“Siobhan isn’t wrong,” he says soberly. “A war will have great cost. I still think the cost is worth it for freedom, but if there’s another way, we need to try it. No matter what she believes—what you believe—of me, I don’t want any unnecessary loss of life. If there’s a way to direct the Wild Hunt, we could potentially have the originals on our side. That’s the kind of thing that turns the tide of a war.”

At this point, I can’t shy away from any potential options. “It’s something to look into, I suppose.” We don’t have much in the way of better plans right now, but if we’re trying to stay one step ahead of Morrigan and the rest of the C?n Annwn’s fleet, sailing right into the heart of them will get us all killed.

“Nox.”

The seriousness in his tone makes me look up despite my determination not to. Gods, he’s even more beautiful now than he was when we were barely more than kids. Suffering and hardship leave a mark on people, and usually it’s an unfortunate one, but there’s something about the new lines branching off from his eyes that speak of a maturity he didn’t have when I was foolish enough to love him. He’s grown up.

We both have.

That should mean the spark that flared to life between us as teenagers, meeting in secret and dreaming of a life spent together, is gone. We’re not the same people we were fourteen years ago. I don’t even recognize that naive child any longer, for all that I was forced to grow up fast to stay alive. The truth is that trauma is no substitute for actual life lived. Some lessons can only be taught through decades.

Obviously I haven’t learned my lesson when it comes to this man, though. Not if I still feel the tug under my ribs whenever I look at him. “What?”

Once he’s sure he has my full attention, he quietly says, “You know that every time you burn out magically, you risk it being the last. And even if it’s not, you risk permanently diminishing your magical reserves.”

Guilt lashes me, so fierce that it steals my breath. I worried him, which means I worried everyone . “I’m aware.” It’s still worth the cost. My crew are fucking exhausted, and there doesn’t promise to be relief on the horizon. We made a clean getaway from Morrigan, but it took too long for me to remember the desk. At any moment, we could be running for our lives again. Better that I be laid out, risking my deep reserves, than one of them experience the same thing.

“Your crew needs you. We need you.” He leans forward suddenly, not near enough to touch, not by a long shot, but close enough that it would take little effort to mirror his movements, to bring our faces close, to…

I shake my head—and then immediately regret the motion when my headache blooms in response. “I. Am. Aware.” I shove to my feet, only wobbling a little. “I don’t need a lecture from you, Bastian. I’ll talk to the crew and apologize for worrying them, but I don’t answer to you. Not anymore.”

“Nox.”

I stop in the process of turning to the door and look down at him. “What?” It’s absolutely absurd that he can still hurt me with just a look in his deep brown eyes. I’m not the ignorant little fool I was when I followed him around with hearts in my eyes, dreaming of a future together. I’ve suffered in the time since, have sacrificed so much in order to do even a little good, have learned so many more important lessons at more ruthless hands than his.

For a horrible moment, I think he’s going to apologize again, that we’re going to go round and round and round and never escape the cycle of hurt and anger. Instead, he surprises me by saying, “You’re not alone. You weren’t even before Siobhan and I came aboard. You don’t have to be the one to shoulder it all. I know you care about your people and want to protect them, but hurting yourself hurts them.”

His words steal mine away. I can do nothing but stare at him until the door opens behind me. I feel Siobhan there, and a part of me hates that I can tell the difference between her and the others in my crew even without looking.

She shuts the door firmly. “You started without me.”

“We were just wrapping up.” Bastian sounds just as tired as I feel, and why not? He doesn’t look like he got much sleep last night, and he certainly wasn’t well rested while under Morrigan’s tender care.

I turn to Siobhan, but looking at her isn’t any easier than looking at Bastian. She’s so close that I can feel the warmth radiating from her strong body, that I have to crane my head back to meet her honey gaze, that my mind skips right to other activities we could be doing with a little less space between us.

It’s a testament to my shakiness that I’m thinking about kissing instead of the dozens of other more pressing issues. I take a careful step back. “I got my lecture, thank you very much. I’ll be a good captain in the future and not scare you poor folks.”

Her lips thin with displeasure. “Don’t patronize me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, darling.” I have no real defense against these two, so I lean hard on the mask that protects me—or at least has historically. The rakish captain, humor and flirtation as a wall no one can climb to get to the real me. I’m just…not so certain it will do the trick now.

Sure enough, Siobhan doesn’t move from where she blocks my exit. “We have perhaps a day’s lead on Morrigan, and that won’t hold indefinitely. Eventually even your crew will tire.”

I thought as much earlier, but I can’t help bristling at the implication that I would ever put my crew in unnecessary danger. “I’m aware. Which is why I already spoke with Poet about how to structure the shifts to keep everyone safe. You let me worry about my crew.” I jerk a thumb over my shoulder. “Or are you ready to chase a wild hare like Bastian here, and want me to sail to Lyari to blow a damn horn?”

“A horn?” Siobhan frowns, her gaze flicking over my shoulder to Bastian. “What are they talking about?”

“I was speaking with Evelyn earlier when I grabbed food, and something she said got me thinking. Horns and drums and the like are used on mundane hunts.” As he speaks, he becomes more animated, excitement written all over his gorgeous face. “There’s a horn in the library in the Council’s building. It might be a way to summon the originals.”

“It’s a long shot,” I cut in. “You’re operating on a lot of assumptions. It might just be magically protected to preserve it because some ancient asshole liked it a lot. There’s no reason to connect it to the C?n Annwn.”

“Except it’s in the Council’s building, and the Council controls the C?n Annwn.”

I open my mouth to keep arguing, but he has a point there , at least.

Siobhan frowns harder, seeming to ignore us. “I don’t know anything about a horn or the Wild Hunt, but my parents used to tell us a bedtime story about our history and how the ancestors would come if we called, but we’d only get one chance to ask a boon. You think there’s some truth to that? That the horn might be the way we summon them?”

“I think…” He glances at me and sighs. “Nox is right. We don’t have enough information. Certainly not enough to set course to Lyari right now.” He half lifts his hands and then lets them fall back to his thighs. “But I thought it might be worth looking into.”

I expect Siobhan to close that door firmly in his face, but she just crosses her arms over her chest and her gaze goes to somewhere far beyond this cabin. It’s eerie, as if she can really see something that is lost to both me and Bastian. I glance at him, but he’s watching her closely, as if this isn’t new or unexpected.

Finally, she exhales slowly and gives herself a shake. “Dia might know. She’s lived a particularly long life, and she’s connected with Threshold on a level not even I can match. She has a particular interest in the originals and the old gods that most people have forgotten.”

I glance between them. “Dia? As in the former navigator of the Crimson Hag ?” She was a member of my crew for a very short time, but I dropped her on First Sister weeks ago.

“The very one.” Siobhan is still frowning. “I’m not entirely certain where she is now. She’s not one to linger in a place for long, not with her vow compelling her to join another crew.”

I hold up my hands. “Hold on a moment. Dia is a member of the rebellion?”

“Not in the way you mean.” Siobhan huffs out a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Dia’s loyalty was always to Ezra, and then by extension to Bowen. When the crew voted Bowen out, she left as well. But she’s no friend to the C?n Annwn. She told me to come find her when I was ready to actually do something.”

“Why didn’t she stay with Bowen?” Bastian asks.

Siobhan shrugs. “Who can say? That woman moves to the rhythm of her own tide. But if anyone has an answer to that riddle, it’s her.”

“We don’t even know if that riddle has an answer that can help us.” I almost hate to pull their enthusiasm up short, but it has to be said. “We’re operating under some rather large assumptions. We don’t know if the originals even exist, if the Wild Hunt is actually connected to them, and we certainly don’t know if they’d be sympathetic to our cause if they do exist and it can be summoned. It’s far more likely that even if we could find a way to summon them, we’d just be bringing a destructive force into Threshold with no way to stop them.”

That sobers them both. Bastian nods. “So, we go to Dia and ask. If she knows the answer to those questions, then we’ll create a new plan. If she doesn’t? Then we’ll create a new plan.”

“That’s not what—”

“Nox,” Siobhan says quietly. “We’re going to be hunted to the ends of Threshold and beyond. Even if we could gather all the members of the rebellion, it will be a slaughter if we attempt to meet the C?n Annwn in battle. We have to find a different way.”

I don’t tell them we should run. It was never really an option, and even if it was, neither of these fools would take it. I suppose I’m a fool, too, because I’m going down with my crew, one way or another. “First Sister is on the other side of the realm. Our chances of making it there without encountering the C?n Annwn are nonexistent.”

Siobhan and Bastian are so different, but their expressions are identical. Stubborn, hopeful, bent on this course of action. I’m captain of this ship, which means the final decision should be mine, but that’s a naive thought. The truth is that a good captain weighs the needs of their crew against all their hard-earned knowledge.

I don’t want to admit that Siobhan’s right, but she is. We can’t beat the C?n Annwn in a straight battle. They have the numbers, the firepower, and everything else in their favor. Without some kind of trickery, we don’t stand a chance.

Even with my crew on steady rotation running themselves into the ground, it will take well over a week to reach First Sister. Morrigan may not have as many air- and water-users on her ship, but she’s got all the power of the Council behind her. She’ll catch up with us sooner or later, and I’d wager everything I own that it will be sooner than I’d like.

I sigh. “So be it. To First Sister we go.”