Page 47

T HE NEXT MORNING, THEY TRAVELED TO PORT OURAN BY WATER.

The Bloodmoon riverboat was a handsome scarlet vessel with two tiered decks, dozens of cabins, and a paddlewheel of solid ascenite.

It was almost twice as large as the trader boats that meandered up and down the Corven, and a row of three Bloodmoon banderoles—pale gold with a crimson crescent moon—snapped in the breeze.

A small crew of Wielders powered the riverboat, and once the Bloodmoons and the fallowwolf had embarked, they set sail.

Segal grunted his goodbyes and disappeared into a back cabin to sleep off a hangover—he hadn’t taken his good friend Vogolan’s departure very well—while Levan, Saffron, and an unfamiliar mage took to the uppermost deck, far away from the listening ears in the wheelhouse.

The sky over Atherin was a moody smudged gray, but the city still looked beautiful as it passed: cherryblossom and market stalls, purple domes and towering pillars, marble columns and gold obelisks and wooden shutters of ocean blue and emerald green.

The two banks of the river—Sun Bank and Moon Bank—were lined with pavement cafés and art galleries and street orchestras, and the famous Seven Bridges of Atherin arched over the water.

Saffron savored the wind in her hair, the crystalline scent of the water, the clarion bells of passing vessels.

She felt freer than she had in weeks. Months.

She hadn’t spent much time on the water—hell, she’d never even seen the ocean—but the feel of it soothed her almost immediately, like a beloved blanket, a mother’s embrace.

Perhaps she’d been a pirate in a past life.

Levan stood at the bow of the riverboat, elbows leaning on a white railing, the corded muscles of his broad back rippling through his cloak.

Rasso snoozed beneath a crimson awning. Saffron sat near the fallowwolf on a cushioned bench, and the unfamiliar mage took a seat beside her.

He had wrinkled brown skin, a long gray beard down to his waist, and half-moon spectacles rimmed with gold—more like a Royal Scholar than a Bloodmoon.

“You must be Saffron Silvercloak.” His words were lightly accented with the lyrical lull of the Eqoran desert.

“ Q’taem, ” she affirmed, drawing on what little Eqoran she’d picked up from Nissa. She gave him a wry smile. “But Silvercloak isn’t my family name, believe it or not.”

He laughed more raucously than the situation demanded. “ Taqin. ” True. He extended a weathered hand, and Saffron shook it. The skin on his palm was dry and wrinkled. “Miret Tomazin. A pleasure.”

There was a kindly energy to Miret, but Saffron knew from her endless study of case files that it was often the quietest, most unassuming people who were the deadliest.

“I haven’t seen you around before,” she said casually, kicking her boots up on the bench opposite. “Not even at Lyrian’s little conclave. After Vogolan’s disappearance.” She was careful not to say death.

Miret removed his glasses and polished the lenses on the hem of his cloak.

“Alas, no. I keep to myself in the library, reading every tome cover to cover. So that if anyone comes in search of knowledge, I know exactly where to direct them.” A playful smile.

“When one is blessed with such flawless intelligence, one must put it to good use, but it’s a time-consuming endeavor.

And I daresay I’m not getting any younger.

Lyrian knows I’d hardly have the superfluous energy to immolate poor Vogolan. ”

Saffron frowned. “So why are you on a riverboat in search of a necromancer?”

Miret replaced his glasses on his crooked nose, a twinkle in his brown eyes. “Curiosity, my dear child.”

But from the way he glanced at Levan’s back—with something oddly paternal in his eyes—Saffron sensed there was something more.

She thought of the countless books in Levan’s room, his panoramic memory of everything he’d read, and suspected he’d probably spent a good amount of time in the library with Miret Tomazin.

With a father like Lyrian, it would be little wonder if the two had developed a bond.

They sailed down a narrow stretch of river, the water flanked on either side by tall, towering trees that kissed in the center. Havendoves nested in the branches, cooing wistfully, and it reminded Saffron of Lunes; her home village was packed to the rafters with the melancholic birds.

“Do you know why Levan’s so intent on finding a necromancer?” she asked Miret, not truly expecting an answer.

He smiled wryly. “That is not for me to divulge.”

So he did know. “Are the two of you close?”

“Ever since his mother passed. The death had a profound effect on his sensibilities, and he developed … compulsions, of sorts. A rigorously ordered way of doing things, every action packed with rituals and mutterings. At one time he was obsessed with writing down every sentence ever spoken to him, as though recording the words would make them real, somehow. The only thing to break through it all was the Lost Dragonborn series.”

Saffron had the acutely shameful feeling that Miret should not be telling her this.

It was too private, too personal, and yet he recited the information with an academic distance.

It was exactly the kind of intel she was here to collect, the kind of intel that would bring the Silvercloaks’ case file on the Bloodmoons to life, and yet it felt oddly uncomfortable to stare right into the traumatized heart of Levan Celadon.

Still, the revelation struck Saffron deeply, resonantly.

The thought of young Levan, riddled with grief-fueled compulsions, caused a curious clenching sensation in her chest. Her young mind had also splin tered from the loss of her parents—leaving her mute for the better part of six years—and the same book had brought them back from the edge.

Levan’s pain was her pain. The same texture, the same shape.

The same emotional wound, carved as children, scarring into adulthood.

The same cleft in their hearts that would never smooth.

Almost without thinking—a rarity for Saffron—she rose to her feet.

The boat glided over a harsh current, and she canted sideways before regaining her composure.

She strode over to Levan, resting her forearms on the railing beside him.

His hands were clasped together, broad and firm but somehow elegant.

A few scarred nicks on the knuckles, wounds he could easily have healed clean and yet had chosen not to.

They were not the hands of a killer, and yet they were .

His forefinger tapped out a repetitive rhythm on the railing. A remnant of the compulsions? She thought of his alphabetized teabags and neatly labeled plants, the way he followed a regimented daily schedule without a minute of deviation, and wondered.

“Why are we chasing a necromancer, Levan?” Her words were gentle but firm.

A faded-green trader boat passed them on the water, giving them an unnecessarily wide berth. Levan said nothing, as expected.

“Harrow said you lost someone you were romantically involved with,” she added, hoping to draw out some semblance of emotion from him, because emotion created cracks, and cracks could be broken wide.

“Don’t,” he warned, gaze fixed straight ahead.

“You want to revive them? The partner you lost?”

“Don’t.”

The word was a knife tip, but that was good. Bladed words were usually emotional ones.

Saff swallowed. “Sometimes I think there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to bring my parents back to me.”

A pulsing silence. Then, “Even torture and kill?”

“I’ve already tortured and killed without the promise of a family reunion.” She couldn’t keep the bitterness from her voice. “What does that say about me?”

A sigh. “What did Miret tell you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I saw you talking. Heard the word necromancer. ”

“He told me nothing,” Saff said carefully. “Said it wasn’t his place.”

“Good.”

“He obviously cares about you.”

Levan stiffened. “Yes.”

“It’s alright to admit you care about him too.”

“No, it’s not. You should never admit who means something to you. Look at your uncles, your old friends. They’re being used against you.” A sharp exhale. “Shut yourself off, Silver. It’s safer.”

“If your lost love is already gone, they can no longer be used against you. So what’s the harm in telling me about them?”

A subtle test. If he was planning to bring them back, this logic didn’t track.

He didn’t reply, but nor did he actively chastise her for asking. Progress.

She rested a hand on his forearm, and he flinched as though he’d been struck. But when she didn’t pull away, he relaxed into it. For some reason, she was surprised how warm his body felt beneath his cloak sleeve. What had she expected? That he was literally cold-blooded?

Time to drive the chisel all the way in. “I just want to understand you better. To remind myself that my captor is human.”

The moment ruptured like a membrane. He wrenched his arm away, storm clouds drawing in behind his eyes. “I’m not your captor. You asked to be branded. You insisted you were useful to us.”

“To save my skin,” Saff retorted hotly, meeting his anger with her own—it was always simmering beneath the surface, waiting to be spent. “You’d have killed me otherwise.”

“You’re right.” Something flared behind his blue eyes, usually so devoid of feeling. “I suppose I’m not human, after all.”

He stormed away, toward the inner cabins, leaving Rasso staring languidly behind him. The fallowwolf didn’t follow, but instead sighed, rolled onto his back, and fell asleep once more. Nearby, Miret’s arms were folded across his chest, his mouth hanging open slightly in slumber.