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CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

GABE

Guide us in our love and in our rage.

H e knew from their first voyage how long it should take to sail from Caldien to Auverraine, but that didn’t stop Gabe from cursing the time.

Flames sang in his fists, and he wondered more than once if he could make everyone work faster by setting something on fire.

He’d decided against it, thus far, but the thought presented itself every time he saw someone pause.

“Calm down.” Val bumped his shoulder. “They’re going as fast as they can.”

“I am calm.” His voice was even.

“Like every hell.” But Val didn’t have it in her to admonish him too much. They both stood at the prow of Finn’s ship, underneath the snapping emerald banner of Caldien, staring out at the horizon as if they could will it closer.

The navy was already mobilized and waiting for Finn.

After gathering their meager belongings from the boardinghouse—Finn left a sizable pile of gold coins on the table for Mrs. Cavendish, since Eoin wasn’t in a position to pay her anymore—the pirate had led them through the still-calm city and down to the harbor.

People crawled over every ship on the docks, hoisting anchors and affixing Caldienan flags to the masts.

Ships stretched out to the mouth of the harbor, casting shadows on the water as far as Gabe could see.

“Seems you were counting on us,” Malcolm had said, squinting out at the assembled fleet.

“Men of a certain ilk recognize each other,” Finn replied. “I knew you two had common sense.”

“Common sense, and little choice,” Gabe grumbled.

“That too.” Finn had turned a scathing glance on Gabe. “Chin up, monk. You’re getting everything you want.”

Now, watching the current flow around them and waiting with his heart in his mouth for Auverraine to interrupt the endless line of sea and sky, Gabe knew Finn wasn’t right. He wouldn’t have everything he wanted until Bastian and Lore were safe.

Movement at his side. Michal, staring out at the open water, but in a manner that said it was only to avoid looking at Gabe. “So you and Lore.”

He stiffened. He knew of Michal and Lore’s history; jealousy was an emotion that came easily to him, but in this case, he didn’t really feel it. Whatever Michal and Lore had was fleeting, a weed that never bothered putting down deep roots.

“You want to talk about this now ?” Gabe rumbled.

“Not like we can make this boat go any faster by glowering,” Michal said. “Though not for lack of trying on your part.”

Gabe shifted, crossed his arms. “What about me and Lore?”

Michal sighed. “It’s none of my business.

Believe me, Malcolm has told me that over and over.

But she’s my friend. I care for her.” Finally, he turned from the ocean to pin Gabe with his gaze.

“And I want to know that you and Bastian are going to be kind to her. She deserves that, at least. Deserves some rest.”

To hear the three of them lumped together so easily took Gabe aback.

It was the same conclusion he’d come to—that he couldn’t choose between them, and couldn’t ask Lore to do it, either—but to hear it plain, not judged or questioned, made him soften in ways that felt dangerous when one was on one’s way to battle.

And it was a glimmer of hope he hadn’t known he needed, to hear the three of them surviving mentioned like fact. Like there was no other way this could go.

“I promise, Michal,” Gabe said.

The other man nodded. “Good.” He wandered away, off to find Malcolm.

Gabe stared at the current and thought about rest. Thought about how he could give it to Lore. Thought about the endless, exhausting pull of power.

“The captain wants you.”

A sailor he didn’t know stood behind him, hands clasped behind his back. “If you’ll follow me.”

It wasn’t a request. Gabe turned from his contemplation of the water and followed the sailor to a door at the stern.

A war room, a large table lined with heavy chairs, the Caldienan flag hanging from the wall. But no one was in here but Finn.

The erstwhile pirate held a cigarette despite the close quarters, aiming his thin streams of smoke toward the tiny porthole.

None of them quite made it, hanging around the room instead.

“Sorry,” he said, and sounded like he actually meant it, waving a hand to dispel the miasma. “It’s what I do when I’m nervous.”

Gabe crossed his arms as the sailor left, shutting the door behind him. “You’re admitting to nerves?”

“You’d have to be an idiot not to be nervous on the eve of war.

And I am neither an idiot nor fond of pretending to be one.

” Finn took one more drag before stubbing out his cigarette on the edge of the table, leaving a smear of ash.

“I want to discuss what’s going to happen when we arrive in Auverraine.

Ideally, we would have done this before we ever stepped foot on a ship, but I believe I speak for both of us when I say time is of the essence. ”

“Get to Auverraine. March on the Citadel. Malcolm and I will go speak with Apollius.” It wasn’t much of a plan, but Gabe had to believe that Bastian was still somewhere in there.

He had to believe he would fight his way out, and then they could find a way to the Mount with the piece and put everything to rest.

Is that what you want to do? Hestraon asked.

Finn looked at him like he’d been kicked in the head. “It’s slightly more involved than that .”

“What, then?” Gabe arched a brow. “I light the Citadel on fire, like you said before? Malcolm grows a tree through the middle of the North Sanctuary? I don’t think either of those things will help us much.”

“Neither will trying to convince the God of Everything to play nice.”

Gabe ground his teeth.

“You can bet your ass that any attempt at diplomacy is going to go south,” Finn said. He stood, matching Gabe’s height. “We both know that’s not how this is going to work.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me on how it will, then?”

“With your fire-god problem—and, hopefully, the element of surprise, given that you and the King were something like friends at one point—it will hopefully work fairly easily.” Finn gave him a shrewd look. “It’s probably best if you go in alone, actually.”

“Go in alone to do what?” But he knew.

“Kill Bastian Arceneaux,” Finn replied.

Fire feathering at the corners of his vision, crackling in his fingertips. Not anger this time, though. Closer to despair. “I can’t.”

“Sure you can.” For all that he sounded flippant, there was sympathy in Finn’s gaze. “I know you two have a history, Remaut. You and him and that girl who wove death. But he isn’t that man anymore. He’s the skin of a god. And that god is going to use him to do terrible things.”

“You think I don’t know that?” Gabe snarled. “You think that isn’t all I’ve thought of for months?”

“Then surely you’ve come to the same conclusion.” The sympathy was still there in Finn’s face, but so was unflinching resolve. “There’s no way to save him, Gabe.”

He wanted to scoff at that. He couldn’t.

“We’re out of time.” The kindness in the pirate’s voice was worse than irritation would have been. “We have to make moves now. He surely knows we’re on the way. So here’s what we do: You sneak off once we get there, act like you’ve defected—”

The fire was not a conscious choice. Gabe did not recall the moment he slipped into channeling-space, did not mark the seconds he spent weaving red-orange threads around his fingers.

But when he opened his hands, a tongue of flame licking from their inked counterpart on each palm, the terrified look on Finn’s face was exactly what he wanted.

“I will not kill Bastian,” he said, in a voice that roared like a house fire.

The pirate’s terror lasted only a moment before he squared his shoulders, tipped up his chin. “You won’t have a choice, if you want the support of this army.”

“I’m stronger than your army.” Not a boast, just simple fact.

Finn’s eyes shot daggers. “Without the army, you don’t have a ship.”

But a ship wasn’t necessary.

Gabe closed his hands. The fires in them didn’t wink out, not like before. Instead they wreathed his fists, shining gloves of flame. Then he turned and left the cabin, making his own plans, apologizing to Lore in his head.

Knowing that once he came back from this, it wouldn’t be solely as himself.

Malcolm was back up on the deck, talking quietly with Mari. He turned when he saw Gabe approach, eyes going wide at the fire around his hands. “Gabe, what are you—”

“We’re going.” Gabe’s voice sounded alien to his own ears, popping like wet wood in a furnace. “Now.”

“Gabriel.” Malcolm eyed the flames with trepidation, but the hand he laid on his shoulder was gentle. “We’ll get there soon.”

“No.” His mind was blazing, the burning storm of Hestraon urging him forward. The god wasn’t strong enough to take over, but Gabe could sense that He wanted to. That he was flirting with fire, about to throw himself into the inferno. “We’re taking the other way.”

By the railing, Mari’s wide eyes tracked between Malcolm and Gabe, her mouth working around words that she discarded before giving them sound. “Now, let’s be calm about this.”

But the time for calm was over. The time for cowardice was gone.

“I have to try,” Gabe said, staring beseechingly at Malcolm.

He could see his reflection in his friend’s gaze.

See how the white of that one eye he had left was now a blazing, bloody red.

“Malcolm, I have to try to save him, and this is the only way.”

And then he was gone.

He felt it like he felt a stretch in the morning, elongating all his muscles from where they’d cramped in uneasy sleep.

He felt it like a yawn after a day of exhaustion.

One moment, Gabe was corporeal on the deck of a Caldienan warship, and the next he was air, diffused into every particle of heat in the atmosphere that could ever become fire.

He lingered, just for a moment. Long enough for Mari to let loose a startled cry, long enough for Malcolm to curse and pound a fist on the rail. “ Dammit , Gabe!”

But then Malcolm was gone, too. Using his power to dive deep, through the ship’s hull, through the miles of water beneath, finding the deep roots of sea-dwelling plants winding beneath the sand and following along.

Gabe became fire, knowing Malcolm would follow deep within earth, and the fire took him all the way to the shores of Auverraine.

All the way to Bastian.