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CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

BASTIAN

War is where true leaders prove themselves.

—From a letter written by Emperor Ouran to his son before the death of the Duke of Balgia

A lie didn’t ask before speeding up their ship, and it nearly sent Bastian pitching over the edge. The railing dug into his gut, the prow almost lifting from the water as Alie spun threads of wind, puffing up the sails near to bursting.

A fist in his shirt, Gabe hauling him backward. They landed in a tangle on the deck, just in time for Bastian to see Lilia grab Mari’s arm and pull her away from the rail, too.

“Thanks.” Mari’s voice was unsteady, from either the sudden speed or the sight of the restless sea-dead or both. She stood, brushing herself off, giving Val her hand to pull her up from the deck. “I’m Mari. I don’t think we were introduced.”

“I know who you are,” Lilia said quietly.

Next to Bastian, Gabe moved to stand, his jaw clenched and the white of his eye in flame colors, fixed on Lore’s birth mother.

Bastian put a warning hand on his shoulder.

He had no warm feelings for Lilia, either, but he didn’t want to interrupt her right now.

Better to keep watch, to make sure Lore’s true mothers were safe with the one who’d wanted their daughter sacrificed.

For a moment, Mari looked confused. Then the confusion cleared, her brown eyes going armored. “You.”

Val, standing steady as a rock despite their racing over the waves, edged between Lilia and Mari. “I hope you have a very, very good reason for being here,” she said, low and dangerous. “And it better not involve any mention of how my daughter should be dead.”

Lilia’s eyes flickered closed, then open again. “No,” she said, quiet but vehement. “I want to help. I am only here to help.”

“You understand why we have a hard time believing that.” Mari put a hand on her wife’s arm, maneuvered her back so she had a clear line of sight to the former Night Priestess.

“After the way you showed up when she was fourteen. Barely a year free of you, and you already regretted the one moment of kindness you’d shown her. ”

Gabe gave him a puzzled look. Bastian returned it, just as confused.

As far as he knew, Lore had never had any contact with her birth mother since escaping the catacombs at thirteen, not until the eclipse ritual.

Anton had been watching her the whole time, letting her live as he made his plans right under August’s nose for Bastian’s ascension, not bringing her into the Citadel until everything was in place.

“We never told her that you still wanted her dead,” Val seethed. “We never told her that you came back. Because she was a child, and you were her mother, and she didn’t deserve to know that. She deserved to think that you loved her, as much as a thing like you could.”

Mari didn’t stop her wife’s vitriol. She watched Lilia like one hungry dog watches another, wary and ready for attack.

But Lilia wasn’t up for that. Lilia closed her eyes again, sagging, like her skin hung too heavy on her spine.

No tears, though, as if all of them had been wrung from her long ago.

“You’re right,” she said, so quiet it could barely be heard.

The backdrop of sound was whipping wind, the skip of the hull over the waves, the growing clamor of screams as the dead attacked the Caldienan ships.

But Bastian was listening intently, crowding out everything that didn’t have to do with Lore, and he heard her just fine.

“I haven’t been her mother. I was just the person who gave birth to her.

But I want her to have a life. The world must be saved from her, but I want to save her, too. ”

Val and Mari slid their eyes toward each other, still with that wariness. After a moment, Mari nodded. “We’ll be watching.”

It was good enough for Bastian. But when he looked over at Gabe, the other man still wore a mask of violence.

Gabe helped Bastian to his feet. His hands lingered on Bastian’s shoulders, so warm they nearly burned. “When we get there,” he said, “I need you to stay away from Him.”

Bastian bared his teeth. “I understand why you’d want that, Gabriel, but that is not a promise I’m making. I don’t know what form He’s in, now that He’s out of my head, but if it has a face I want to punch it.”

Gabe’s fingers tightened on his shoulder, one hand coming up to cup Bastian’s cheek, equal parts gentle and gripping.

“I have to keep both of you safe.” And there was no hyperbole in his voice; he sounded like such a thing was integral to his own survival.

“I don’t know what He’s become. I don’t know what He’s done to her.

But I will free her, whatever I have to do.

And I don’t need you getting in my way. I have the most to atone for, I served Him—”

“Shut up.” He didn’t want to hear those lies, poison dripped by Anton into Gabe’s ear. And just in case the words weren’t enough, Bastian clapped his hand over Gabe’s mouth. “Just shut the fuck up, Mort. All three of us are getting out of this, do you hear me? I won’t accept anything else.”

Gabe frowned, heat building against Bastian’s palm. The screams from the Caldienan ships were getting louder, the firing of pistols, the smack of dead flesh hauling itself onto wooden decks.

Bastian removed his hand just long enough to replace it with his mouth.

Gabe’s was unyielding, clearly not wanting to stop this argument, but they were nearly in the thick of the fleet now and Bastian wasn’t interested in hearing all the ways Gabe thought he had failed.

“Use some of that firepower for good, love. I don’t think bayonets work against the dead. ”

With one more burning look, Gabe backed away, hands at his sides again, balancing his flames.

The Caldienan fleet surrounded them, now, the crewman at the wheel cursing as he pulled this way and that to keep from slicing right through another ship, steering against Alie’s breakneck pace.

Even at their speed, the fleet was huge, and they were stuck right in the middle, the Isles visible beyond the thicket of masts.

The Kirythean ships were here, too, though they were too preoccupied with fighting corpses to fight Caldien.

The sailors kept shooting at the endless hordes of ocean-dead, but all the bullets did was send flecks of rot spattering the decking, slowing the corpses down but not stopping them.

They were eerily silent, their mouths yawning open, no sound coming from all that black.

Gabe closed his eye, as if feeling out his targets. Then, with a roar, he thrust his hands outward.

The corpses went up like bonfires, dotting the ships in spots of flame, Hestraon’s magic now strong enough to bypass things like waterlogging.

Gabe’s fire was tactical, igniting only the dead, but the bodies flailed and so did the sailors near them, human screams of agony joining those of fear, rigging catching fire.

The smell was terrible enough to make Bastian’s eyes water, burning flesh and salt.

At the stern, Alie made the wind pick up, manipulating threads so the ship went ever faster. They approached the first ships and passed them in a heartbeat.

“Gabriel!” Malcolm, yelling from the prow, his hands white-knuckled on the railing. Michal stood next to him, hand on his pistol, though his wide eyes said he knew it’d do no good. “Could you try not to burn the entire fleet while we’re in the middle of them, please!”

Gabe didn’t seem to care. He was single-minded, hands ablaze, thrusting flame out into the air and letting it catch where it would. In moments, the ship they sailed on was the only one not somehow on fire, a dot of calm in a burning sea.

If killing that many people affected Gabe, he didn’t show it.

“My lady, could you please slow down!” The Kirythean crewman at the wheel spun it just in time to avoid a burning ship.

“No.” Alie was deceptively calm. The same calm that she’d had since this morning; apparently, since she’d tossed Jax overboard.

Now was decidedly not the time to address that, but it was a thing that would need to be addressed at some point.

Bastian couldn’t get a read on whether his sister was proud of herself or regretful. Maybe she didn’t know, either.

A boom , shuddering through the ship, through the ocean it sailed on. At first, Bastian thought Gabe had lit up a corpse too near a store of gunpowder, but no—the sound had come from above. From right over the Isles.

And something was blocking out the sun.

Only for a moment, though, a momentary rush of dark. Then blinding light, blazing from the sky, so bright it cast harsh noonday shadows despite the early hour. Bastian threw up his arm, shielding his eyes, trying to get a look at whatever was casting that light through his fingers.

Whatever it was, it had wings.

Fuck.

“Well,” he said, his voice hoarse in his dry throat. “I think we found Apollius.”