Page 21 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

PEDR

Einar watched Pedr like a wild drake ready to attack. Pedr ignored him to study the ropes, feeling his way into the arcane through his ship. He merged with the boards, their grains, whorls, nuances.

Why ? he asked. Why did you fail two days ago? What happened?

Nothing responded. Of course, it didn’t. Arcane wasn’t sentient. It didn’t speak to him. He had awareness of its intensity, the power levels, the dynamics. Sometimes, he thought something held it. A reserve. A hesitation. Arcane hadn’t quite committed to him.

There was no real connection. As the years passed, Pedr’s awareness and arcane understanding increased, but arcane didn’t speak .

Yet, it did.

Pedr blinked out of Rosenvatten and tilted his head onto his shoulder. No answers to be had. He’d have to figure it out himself.

Sun burrowed into his freckled skin. As Arcanist of the Sea, he didn’t worry about sunburn.

He tanned . . . sort of. His freckles connected, so intense he appeared a shade darker.

He didn’t miss the misery of pale skin on a sunny day at sea.

Simple pains weren’t really a problem, either.

Aches, scratches, fatigue had faded, though he could experience deep, physical pain with overwhelming injury.

Einar’s hard stare followed Pedr as he tugged the ropes. To further ignore Einar’s hard attention, Pedr recalled Stenberg frigate number thirteen. The ship, the powder. The smell of Stenberg sealstone thick on the air, and the onded. None of it made sense.

Sealstone?

Onded ?

Together, they meant something.

The urge to call for Himmel arose, but he stuffed it aside. She wouldn’t appear with Einar hovering so darkly, nor could he ask her to solve every mystery. Besides, the onded weren’t blatantly tied to the Wyvern Kings. They were tied to something on that frigate.

The dust.

Had to be the dust.

It hadn’t been clear at the time, but Henrik reported that the onded attacked them and then disintegrated into the same powder. Pedr had observed something similar from his vantage on the ship, but it didn’t make sense. As if . . . as if arcane made the onded.

What arcane?

None he had seen before. If it tied into rocks, it must be from the Arcanist of Land, Jordaire. Which meant he’d have to speak to Jordaire.

Didn’t like that option.

Yet, the powder resulted in death. Half-death as an onded, and then oblivion. Where were their souls? Which meant this horrid arcane tied into the Arcanist of Souls . . .

Shite.

He hoped not. Either way, he loathed his options.

“Powder,” Pedr muttered, tapping his finger along a rope. Lights trailed upward with each touch. His ship didn’t move, because he didn’t want it to move. It happened as much in his head as in the sails. He shook his head to clear his rumination and focus on facts.

He knew a few things. The dust, powder, whatever, arose from the onded. There may have been no bodies on the top deck because they had all disintegrated into the dust. Considering that , something arcane had to be involved.

He swung around to face Einar. “The onded ,” he called. “They were the powder, yes?”

Einar pushed off the side. “They turned into it.”

“Was the powder also below decks?”

“I think so.”

“You went down there?”

Einar nodded. The edge of his expression intensified. “Only one deck below. The bodies blocked the path, and so did the smells. Why?”

“I want to know more about the powder. Something was . . . strange . . . about it. Was there powder below?”

“Like I said, I think so. I didn’t go inside that far. It was dark and horrible. Smelled like dead bodies, and many of them blocked the passage.”

“Did it smell like sealstone?”

“Yes.”

“You went no farther than the first deck?”

“As I said, no.”

Pedr swore under his breath. He couldn’t avoid the inevitable.

An extremely flammable powder, originated in—or created by—onded bodies.

Said dust potentially negated arcane, or at least deeply affected his ability to use it.

He’d never heard of such a thing. Not once in all his years on the seas. Powder was dust. Dust was earth.

Earth was not his realm.

“Shite.”

He had to meet with Jordaire. One gigantic bastid of a man with a chip on his shoulder as wide as the mainland.

Einar’s eyes sparkled with suspicion. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“Whatever you’re trying to figure out has to do with Arcanists, doesn’t it?”

Pedr set his hands on his hips. He’d hoped to avoid this conversation all day, if possible.

Didn’t matter how intensely Einar stared or how awkward their silence.

Pedr didn’t want to talk about Arcanists or the space between death and the departing of souls or all the questions Einar collected, waiting to unleash.

Considering he’d made a promise, however . . .

Pedr met Einar’s glower head on. “Yes. I’m cursing under my breath because that idiot ruler of Stenberg possessed a powder onboard his best frigate that suppressed my arcane, which shouldn’t be possible.

The only Arcanist who could explain the powder is the Arcanist of Land, and I don’t want to speak with him. ”

Einar drew up, frowning.

“You’re serious?”

Pedr glared.

“You aren’t lying to me?” Einar paced closer. “You really meant what you said before Agnes—did you? You’re an Arcanist. They’re real. I have a chance to save her soul?”

“I never lie,” Pedr ground out, “and it would be unwise to imply that I do.”

Einar ignored his wrath. Pedr needed to work on his ferocity. Time had a way of wearing down his ire, and he couldn’t scare anyone if he was tired.

“You’re the Arcanist of the Sea?”

“I’m certainly not Norr,” Pedr retorted.

“Who are you? Really?”

Pedr spread his hands, bowed. “Arcanist of the Sea, as you say. It’s a pleasure. Now get out of my way. I need to summon the Arcanist of the Land and you need to go below decks. He won’t come if you’re gawking at him and I’m not going to waste my time.”

“No.”

“Excuse me?”

“I mean, I will. Eventually. But please answer my questions first.”

Einar’s slightly-less-arrogant reply eased some of Pedr’s rage. Pedr’s lightning-quick irritation flared so unexpectedly it took him by surprise. The purity of Einar’s desperation as he pleaded, “Tell me about the Arcanist of Souls,” cut right to a heart Pedr didn’t know existed.

Well, shite.

Pedr’s upper lip rose as he said, “There’s not a lot to say.

The Arcanist of Souls is a bastid. A real piece of work.

The most powerful Arcanist in Elestra. Wields arcane around souls.

He can bond and bind and control the dead.

Ever heard of a soullock? It binds your soul to your body, immobilizing both.

You’re stuck, can’t do anything, and die.

Probably not, you sheltered piece of shite. ”

Einar ignored Pedr’s escalating irritation. “You mentioned that another Arcanist could find him and strike a deal.”

Pedr scoffed. “I said we could try . There’s a world of difference between the two.”

“What does that mean?”

“Are you thick? It means that finding Agnes through the Arcanist of Souls is a fraught hope with a flame’s chance in the sea. There’s no guarantee. As I mentioned, you’re more likely to die than to succeed.”

“I don’t care.”

“Maybe I do.”

“Can you even die?”

“He’s the most powerful Arcanist in the world. He’s not someone you can stroll up to and make friends with.” Pedr gestured to his ship. “He thinks I’m a joke, prowling around the ocean on a ship driven by the arcane. He certainly wouldn’t do you any favors.”

Einar shrugged. “That’s fine. I have to try.”

“Is it fine? Some of us don’t die, you bastid, and I’d rather not endure the torture of another four hundred and eighty something years with that fool making my life a living hell each day.”

Einar dismissed that, too. “Tell me what to do. What’s next? How do we get there?”

Movement out of the corner of Pedr’s eye caught his attention. He glanced to the left. A distant wyvern flew wide circles over the eastern bay. It flew west, circled back. Unease rose inside him like drifting jellyfish.

He breathed out a vexed sigh. He couldn’t deal with wyverns right now, he had to speak with Jordaire.

First, Einar.

Humans.

They annoyed him more with every passing year. If it weren’t for Malcolm and Britt, he would have long ago given up contact and thrown all his focus and attention into wrenching his beloved Mila away from those biddies.

Besides, there was more at play than he could ever tell Einar, no matter how badly he wanted to shout the truth from the top mast.

“You want something to do?” Pedr asked.

“Yes!”

“Get below deck and shut up. I need to talk to Jordaire, and he won’t come if you’re yammering up here. After I speak with him, we’ll know better what the hells is going on.”

Pedr reached for a filthy glass jar hidden under a board below his bed.

The board slammed shut when he released it.

He held the jar up to the light. As long as his hand, only as thick as his wrist. Loamy earth filled the interior, creating a black rim along the far edge.

Ten years in this glass jar, and the soil looked fresh as a summer field.

He brought it out of his cabin and onto the deck, carrying it to the far side. Einar was nowhere in sight. Good. The fool could listen. Pedr tipped a palmful of the stuff onto his fingers. A painful shock reverberated through his palm, all the way to his bones.

He gritted his teeth.

Jordaire.

Such a horrifying monster.

Pedr lifted his palm to the sky. “Himmel,” he whispered, “please carry the offering for me. Tell Jordaire I need to speak with him.”

Wind swept the soil out of his palm. It rose in a flowing current, winging out of the bay and toward land.

He watched it go until it faded into the bright blue dome.

Eyes closed, he listened, waiting. Himmel was his only connection to the land.

Thanks to the Siren Queens cursing him to Rosenvatten, she was the only way to contact Jordaire.

Ten minutes later, Himmel whispered, “He will not come.”

Pedr composed his rush of anger. “I cannot go to him.”

“He knows.”

“I’m trying to help him ,” he hissed. “There’s something from the land that’s a problem. It’s a dust, a powder. It’s affecting humans. Killing them. Forming the onded. It’s not from the sea because I don’t recognize it. It’s not responding to my arcane, and I know it’s not your work.”

“I will tell him.”

The promise drifted into the sky, leaving Pedr stranded on the water, his heart a tight fist inside him. Curse those blasted Siren Queens. There had to be a way off this ship so he could charge the mainland and force Jordaire to listen.

One day.

But not today.