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Chapter Seventeen

VAARIN

I can’t read her this morning. It’s as if she’s taken all her emotions and locked them away, and I miss them. But I respect her guardedness, especially now that she knows I cannot be the man she needs.

There is a hollowness inside me as we take the final stretch of our journey toward the cove where our ship awaits. The gorge we’re in will take us all the way to the coast, where a perilous path will lead us into the cavern where the ship is hidden.

She hasn’t spoken since we left the shelter, and I long to hear her voice. “Tell me about your isle.”

“My isle?” She arches a brow. “There isn’t much to tell. It’s overcrowded and all but barren. My people are starving, but we have beautiful coastal views and plenty of fresh air. A shame that air cannot fill a child’s belly or bring milk to its starving mother’s breast. There are deaths, many of them. But the births come quickly to replenish us.”

I cannot imagine such an existence. To live with constant gnawing hunger. “I’m sorry.”

“Yes, so am I.”

“I heard you had alliances?”

“Yes, with the Rootborn of Thyraelis. At least for a while. We provided workers for their mines, and they furnished us with grain. But they are in the grip of civil war, and we have not received a shipment of grain for…a long time.”

“And your workers?”

“Have not come home.”

She lapses into silence again, and something stirs at the back of my mind. An awareness that is followed by the scent of the sea.

We are not alone here.

I keep my stride easy and relaxed and my gaze ahead, and when I speak, my voice is low and intimate so that only Thalia may hear it. “Princess, do not react, but we are being followed.”

I expect her to stiffen or look back, as is a natural reflex for most people, even when given instruction to the contrary, but she remains at ease by my side.

“I thought I sensed something,” she says. “And I saw a shadow in my periphery a few moments ago, to our left, high up.”

“There is a ledge up there. Narrow but passable.”

“What are we dealing with?”

“I fear that the Obsidian Pearl is tracking us.”

“Why aren’t they attacking?”

“I believe they wish to find our vessel.”

“Shit.”

“Precisely.”

“So what’s the plan? We stop and fight?”

I can’t help but smile at her willingness to shed blood. It calls to the primal beast inside me, but now that I’ve taken a moment, I can scent several signatures, too many to risk a skirmish. Her life is too valuable. I must get her to safety, and there is only one way to do that. A way that will require the bulk of my reserved power. But it will be worth it.

“Vaarin?” She looks up at me with a frown. “What’s the plan?”

I call to the moisture in the air, and it answers, rushing to surround us and create a vortex. My insides tremble with the expenditure of power, but I hold firm, dragging more and more toward me.

I grab hold of her and pull her to me.

“Vaarin?”

Oh, how I love the sound of my name on her lips. “I’m getting us out of here.”

A bellow rises beyond the roar of water. Our trackers know what I’m about to do, and I sense them hurtling toward me.

Too late.

The vortex forms and rushes toward us, swallowing us whole.

* * *

We emerge inside the cavern, which opens out onto the cove. The Yarissa rocks gently on the waves, anchored and moored to keep it hidden. The vessel is the largest of its kind, built to house a small town of people, to transport them to safer seas if the undersea becomes hostile.

This is my promise to my people, and now the Obsidian Pearl is about to discover it. I can’t allow any of them to live to tell the tale.

Thalia stares in shock at the ship then back at me. “What did you do?”

“I opened a vortex.”

“Wait—you could have brought us straight here at any time?”

“Not at any time. The distance and…” I pause to catch my breath because the feat has drained me. I need the sea, but not yet. Not until Thalia is safe. “Come. Quickly.”

Roughly hewn stone steps lead down to the dock, built so long ago that it’s barely visible beneath algae. I take her hand here to prevent her from slipping, but she’s steady on her feet, and it’s I that stumble, my lungs tight. She grabs hold of me and braces her frame to steady me. She’s surprisingly robust for a human.

“Vaarin?” She studies me with sharp concern, and I shake my head.

“I’m fine. Hurry.” I help her onto the ladder and climb up behind her onto the ship.

“We’re going to sail this thing?” She shakes her head. “We need a crew.”

“I know, which is why we’re not taking the main ship.” I hurry starboard, where a smaller boat is bound to the main ship. Large enough to house six, there are cabins below and a decent sail and navigation system. “Get in.”

She obliges, climbing down a second ladder and landing on deck. She looks back up at me. “Vaarin, come on.”

I smile down at her. “I’ll be right behind you.”

“What?”

I undo the knots holding the boat to the ship. “Steer north and you’ll be in safe waters by nightfall. You’ll see land by dawn.”

“Wait!” She reaches for the rope ladder just as the final knot comes undone.

The boat drops to the ocean, taking her with it.

“Vaarin! What are you doing? Come on!” She looks out to sea then back toward the cavern.

“I can’t leave. Not until they’re all dead.”

“Then fight them undersea. You’re stronger there.”

“And so are they. It would take too long for me to recharge. At least on land I have a chance.”

Her eyes widen. “A chance? A fucking chance? Against how many? No!” She makes to climb the side of the boat, her eyes on the rope ladder still dangling down the side of the ship.

I haul it up out of reach. “Goodbye, Thalia.” I use the last of my power to call to the current beneath the waves and push the boat out of the cove and into the wide sea.

“NO!” Thalia cries as the current carries her away. “Vaarin, no!”

And then she’s gone.

I allow my legs to give way and collapse on deck, depleted. Drained. The Obsidian Pearl will be here soon, and I’ll have to fight them without my elemental power.

But this ship comes equipped with tools I can use to my advantage.

I don’t have long, and so I get to work.