Page 30

HENRIK

B ritt gripped Henrik’s shirt, tugging on his shoulders in a reassuring way. Thank Norr, the woman finally listened.

As they advanced into the jungle, a trove of old experiences rose to Henrik’s mind. Remembrances he’d rather not deal with. He stuffed the recollections of overwhelming arcane, a shipload of prisoners, stumbling around for the right ikon, and almost probing the wrong one several times, into the gut-deep box.

His first time on the Unseen island had been part of his early soldat days, before he proved himself into the ranks. Without succeeding, he might have been shunted off to the Navy to be a gods-forsaken sailor. Another shudder wracked him at the thought.

Henrik kept the machete tight in his left hand. A natural trail broke through and around the intense vegetation. Such thickness existed on no other island. Ikons sprinkled most visible surfaces, and others lingered in hidden crevices. The unwieldy ebony, unnatural in its depths, drew the eye.

Perhaps that was the point of his arm ikon. An aid for what to avoid. Though unlikely that all three of them would make it off this island unscathed—no one left the Unseen island without some sort of injury—he’d be damned if it was Britt or one of the draguls. After what she accepted to protect him from Oliver, he owed her Malcolm.

And everything.

Henrik slipped easily into that space where he embodied awareness. Instinct guided. He honed into smell, sounds. The silence in which Lars and Britt trod was a welcome boon. They made it easier to turn on his soldat’s senses. For the first time in his life, all the training culminated in something that mattered.

As they advanced into the morass, vines gained new life. They tightened around trunks, slithered over branches, plunged into inky earth. Movement never ceased, whether vines wriggled up a tree, twirled in place, or shot through the air, knotting branches together. The world spun while he walked underneath an arch. Steady ground against mobile vines created a weird sensation of standing still while moving. He floated across the shifting sea, in a way.

Over an hour into their traverse, Britt tugged twice. She’d released his shirt and had both hands in her pockets. The right pocket swayed, bucking up and down in a violent fit.

He frowned, whispered, “What’s wrong?”

“I . . I don’t know,” she cried quietly. “She’s panicking.”

“Tesserdress?”

Britt nodded. Worry changed her eyes. Instead of snapping glass, filled with amused irony and implication, they were a smoky sea. Lightning and thunder in a bottle.

Strange mewling and squeaking sounds emitted from her pocket. He’d never heard them before. Denerfen issued his fair share of odd noises, but nothing like these. Like a miniature pig about to die.

Unnerving.

“Silence that infernal thing,” Lars hissed. “You’ll call the vittra! She feeds on pain and weakness, you daft idiots.”

Britt ignored him.

Henrik didn’t.

The vittra was a real enough legend, though he couldn’t be certain the lone one remained, or that she was truly alone. Other soldats told tales. Soldats he trusted not to embellish, the way sailors loved to expound.

He’d glimpsed no sign of a vittra on his visits here, but he’d been obscenely paranoid about every step, ikon, and trail. It brought him out of here alive. One soldat didn’t make it. Those thoughts returned to the gut box.

Henrik turned his attention overhead when the rustling noises increased. The vines tightened around a tree, grinding into the wood with scraping moans. Ground moss and bark drifted from above.

The escalating tension between the dragul and the heightened vines brought Malcolm to the forefront of Henrik’s mind. Henrik knew little about Malcolm, except his position as a high-ranking member of the Kapurnickkian military. Dragul bonded. A man of action, presumably. Courageous, too, if he took the place of four others. If he was still alive, he wouldn’t be happy to see a soldat, nor quick to reveal himself.

And if he wasn’t?

Henrik shuddered.

Every now and then, being a soldat forced him into a place of required trust. In the past, he had to lean on islanders. On untrained people, unzealous, without obligation to compel their work. He didn’t like it, but situations required it more often than expected. A gamble of the highest sort.

Today, the same gamble would be necessary.

He calmly stated, “Malcolm? We’re here for you.”

Britt’s shoulders pulled back. Her head snapped to his. He held up a quieting hand. With painstaking care, Lars set a foot on clean ground and slowly spun to watch behind them. Henrik never thought he’d be grateful for Lars' presence, but he was.

A flutter of movement, different from the methodical tightening of the vines, drew Henrik’s eye. Might have been a bird. The chirp of invisible avians rang so distantly they might be an arcane-inspired illusion. A few rare species were reputed to live here, though he hadn’t seen them in his infrequent and quick visits.

Sailors, more often than soldats, brought the nefarious criminals here to work out their own life. Most didn’t survive more than a week. Few knew about the roving ikons, the latent arcane. Every now and then, a criminal escaped. Stenberg drowned them if discovered again.

“My name is Henrik.”

Another fluttering from the trees, like a man dodging from one space to the next. A movement not native to the vines, for it moved too fast.

“Britt is with me.”

A cry issued from Britt’s skirt.

“Tesserdress, as well. Britt and the draguls are here under their own independence.”

Henrik leaned to the side, allowing a brief glimpse of Britt at his back. As quickly as he moved, he returned to protect her from the front. He kept a wary ear out for the periphery and hoped Lars truly did watch their back.

A footstep.

Cracking twig.

“I’m a soldat,” Henrik continued, louder now. “There’s another man. Lars. A captain. He brought us in his boat, and at a great risk for his own life. I know Stenberg brought you here, but I mean you no harm.”

“Tess!” Britt cried. “Stop. No, Tess!”

Tesserdress sprang out of her pocket, nearly crashing to the forest floor with a giant screech. Britt lurched forward, scrambling to keep the flailing dragul in her hands. Britt barely managed to stop Tess from plummeting to the ground and snapping her delicate wings. Scales bloomed through the air in a shimmering dust.

A body stepped out of a tangle of thick forest with a hoarse question.

“Tesserdress?”

Britt wheeled around, mouth agape. Henrik braced himself, machete up. A man stood there, wrapped in tattered clothes, bedraggled, too thin, familiar eyes bright.

The dragul screamed.