Page 26 of Winds of Destiny

Turo

It turns out that steering a boat down a turbulent river in order to make our escape is the capstone of what has turned out to be a rather awful day. The first rush of water is almost overwhelming, threatening to capsize us before I drag Kai to the back of the boat to rebalance the weight, but that’s barely enough to keep us upright. The water is moving too quickly and the shores are too close for us to do more than hold onto the back of the boat and pray we don’t get smashed apart on our way down to the Plains.

I’ve seen boats moved up and down this river before. The process is meant to be slow, laborious, and above all safe for the boats in question. Our progress is none of those things.

Crash. Our right sidewall strikes a particularly pointy bit of mountain hard enough to rip a hole in the wood. Water sloshes in and washes back red, and I suddenly remember that I’m bleeding…again.

Brilliant.

We hit the other wall, and there’s just enough space for the boat to spin in a dizzying circle before we smash into a new set of rocks. One of the boards on the bottom of the boat is loose now—we’re going to have a critical hole in a minute if we don’t do something. But what? I’ve been in boats before, but never while they were racing down a shallow river trying to break themselves into pieces. Fuck it, we’re going to have to abandon the boat and jump. I hope my leg holds out.

Wait.

“What the fuck are you doing?” I demand when Kai suddenly stands up, rocking the boat precariously as he lunges for his pack.

“Keeping us from being smashed into paste,” he grunts as he pulls his spear free. He hoists it up, blunt side facing out, and—

No. No way. We’re going too fast for him to use it to direct the boat; he’s going to break his arms. “Kai—”

“We’re almost down, I can get us there,” he says, and just as we come up on a turn, he slams the front of the stave into the rocks just ahead of us. Miraculously, the boat responds, veering away from the wall instead of crushing us to it before bouncing off.

It takes me a few more minutes to see how he’s pulling it off—it’s all in the timing. If he can hit fast enough and hard enough, he can move the boat. It doesn’t mean we avoid all damage, but it does prevent any more pieces from breaking off.

It’s not easy—water splashes off rocks and into our faces as we go, making some obstacles impossible to see—but eventually the rush subsides and the waters calm.

Holy shit.

We made it to the Plains. Our pace has gone from wild ride to lazy amble in the space of seconds. The river widens, and in the distance I can see the glint of the inland sea. We’re not so far from the edge of it here.

“ Ow. ” I hiss and startle when Kai suddenly sets a hand on my leg, bandages ready to go in the other hand. “What? Stop it, I’m fine.”

“You’re still bleeding after almost an hour,” he says, not bothering to look up at my face as he clamps me in place and begins to wind clean cloth around the wound. His hands are red and shaking—bruised to hell and back. “They probably used nimreel on their blades—it keeps the blood from clotting unless you apply a lot of pressure.” Which he was providing, ouch . “It will go away on its own soon.”

“I could wait it out.”

“Or you can shut up and let me do this.”

He’s annoyed. I can’t blame him—I’d be damn annoyed in his shoes, and likely a lot of other things. Annoyed is better than wallowing in his father’s betrayal, at least. Speaking of which… “We need to find the other boats.”

“I know.” After tying the bandage securely, he looks up at me. “But how? They could have been taken almost anywhere.”

Ah. He’s ascribing a lot more thought to this situation than I’m betting actually went into it. “I think it won’t be so hard,” I tell Kai. “Think about it—the boats were picked up five weeks ago.”

He nods.

“What were you doing five weeks ago?”

“Setting out from Huridell for Zephyth to…” His eyebrows draw down into a glower. “Ah. You think my father timed this with Embros.”

“Actually, I think Embros was running out of time when he took possession of those boats.” And I was positive that he was the one to do it. If he was driving his own chariot and leading his own attacks, this man wasn’t trusting any aspect of his master plan to someone else. “I think it’s very likely he’s been using boats to move his chariots around”—which would explain how they’d disappeared into the marsh outside of Zephyth—“but he can’t be using twenty of them for that. Four or five, at the most. That means he took possession of the others, then stowed them somewhere close by until he can go back for them.” I wasn’t completely sure of my guess, but it made sense to me. “We just need to follow the river to where it meets the sea.”

“I don’t think we have much of a choice,” Kai says, and for the first time I realize that his spear is missing. “It shattered on the last turn,” he says, following my gaze. “I’ve still got my sword, though. I’ll be fine.”

“ Fuck you’ll be fine. How are your wrists not pulverized?” I demand, sitting up and grabbing his hands in mine. The skin is raw and irritated, but the joints seem to be moving just fine. It doesn’t make sense. “These ought to look like fish bait,” I mutter.

“I prayed for strength, and Carnuatu provided,” Kai says, like that’s just something people can do and get results instantly from. Then again, he keeps proving over and over that he’s special. I wonder if he realizes just how rare his connection to his god is. “That’s why I’m not worried about the rams, either.”

Shit, right, our rides.

“They’ll come back to us,” he says, correctly interpreting the doubt I must be broadcasting. “You’ll see.” He gently tugs his hands away and sits down against the unbroken side of the boat, staring off into space. His face is blank, but his skin is deathly pale and his hands are clenching and unclenching into fists. He’s probably thinking about his father.

I don’t remember my own. Doric tried to be a paternal figure, but he was my teacher first and foremost, dedicated to whipping me into shape so that I could protect Cam with my life. I don’t know what it’s like to have a parent, but I’ve seen Cam with his father, and while they disagree about a lot of things, there’s no doubt that King Perael would sooner cut his own throat than let Cam die, much less try to have him assassinated. The bond between parents and children is supposed to be one of love. Kai must be rethinking every interaction he’s ever had with his dad, wondering where it went wrong.

Cam would try to comfort him, and probably succeed. I’m not great at being comforting, but at least I can be practical. I rummage through my pack and pull out the last of the dried, seasoned mutton, searching for the pepperiest piece, and hand it over to Kai. “Eat,” I say. He does so, not fighting me on it because he’s a good soldier who knows how important it is to keep up his strength. I follow it with flatbread, a few bits of crumbling honeycake, and a canteen of water. By the end of the impromptu meal, Kai is looking better and feeling well enough to push the food back onto me.

“You need to eat as well,” he insists, and I do so because I want him to feel needed…and also because I’m ravenous. The moment I’m done with my food, the boat ride goes from gentle bumps and knocks to a sudden smoothness, even though we’re not directing things.

It’s getting dark, but there’s still enough light to see that the river has loosed us into the inland sea.

“I’ll haul us to shore.” Kai goes to jump into the water, but I grab his hand before he gets more than a single leg over the sidewall.

“Don’t,” I say, remembering the vipers that leaped at me from the water’s edge when our journey started. “The water here isn’t safe. Pry off the top few boards. We can use them as paddles.”

He does so without complaint, and a few minutes later, we awkwardly paddle over to the shoreline where the reeds are thick enough that we can bend them over and step onto them without getting our soles wet. We take our packs with us and haul our battered boat up as far as we can, and then…

“So you think they’ve got twenty or more boats packed in here somewhere?”

“I’m certain of it.” They’ll be close to the mouth of the river, a landmark that rarely moves in our age of slow, steady rains rather than the thunderstorms that must have once whipped this landscape into a frenzy. The Plains recede and grow as the seasons turn, but the river holds true. “Possibly on the east bank, but it makes more sense for them to be over here. Closer to the goal, after all.”

“Catching us on the way to Zephyth,” Kai agrees. “All right, let’s hunt them up before we lose all the light.”

It takes all of fifteen minutes to find them, even with the encroaching darkness. They’ve been covered by stacks of cut reeds that obviously won’t blow away but that are just as clearly a different texture and orientation from the reeds around them. Embros might be a genius, but he’s not fantastic at camouflage. There are sixteen large, broad boats here—larger than they could have gotten down the river, so they likely attached wheels to move them here. That’s a tremendous investment of time and resources. Whatever his ultimate goal is, Embros is taking no chances.

“Well.” Kai draws his sword. “Let’s start a fire.”

“Maybe we should save one for ourselves.” Not that another boat ride appeals, but we have no assurance that we’re going to be doing anything but walking from here on out.

Kai shakes his head. “Embros was taking Camrael south from the Gate. Even in chariots, I doubt he’s hit the sea yet. If that’s his goal, we’ll catch him before he gets there.”

Well, he’s confident. I suppose he has good reason to be.

“All right, then.” I wave at the boats. “How do you plan to—”

My voice stutters and dies as the edge of Kai’s sword suddenly gleams with fire. I stumble backward as he swings it through the air, every stroke stoking the flames until finally he’s holding what appears to be a burning lance. He hoists it up above his head, his body limned in reddish-orange light in a way that makes him look like something out of an ancient legend, then levels his sword at the boats. Fire shoots forward, catches on the piles of dry reeds, and spreads hungrily.

In less than five minutes, the flotilla is completely ablaze. As soon as Kai sheathes his sword, I step up to his side, close enough that our shoulders are touching, and we stand in silent satisfaction as we watch the death of at least part of Embros’s plans.

…

We wake up to find that our rams rejoined us overnight and are placidly grazing a few yards away from the still-smoking wreckage we caused. I try not to show my surprise that they’ve returned, because if I’ve learned anything over the past week with Kai, it’s that he has to be one of the luckiest men in existence. The fact that either of us is still alive is proof of that.

We pick up the pace as we leave the water behind—we have to. I can’t know for sure how long it will take Embros and his chariots to reach the boats they undoubtedly have waiting for them, but it’s safest to assume that we’re behind and every moment counts. If things were less dire, I’m sure Kai would object to how hard I’m pushing myself now. Luckily, yesterday didn’t set my healing back too far. I’m not comfortable by any stretch of the imagination, but at least I’m able to endure without truly hurting myself.

Still, the first day’s ride is a strange one. Kai says next to nothing every time we take a break to rest the rams and eat. He isn’t eating as much as he ought to, either. The man weighs half again more than me—he needs food, and, although plain, we have it. Yet he resists, too lost in thought to remember the basics. Brooding . Ugh, I’m going to have to talk to him after all.

It isn’t until that evening, when he turns away from me instead of opening his arms to me as he has for the past week, that I finally decide it’s time to revisit our brief conversation from earlier about his father. I’m not going to let him stew in a broth of resentment for however long it takes him to get over it when we’ve got more important things to focus on.

Not to mention that I don’t like seeing him hurting. I’m not like Cam, though; I can’t talk people out of their pain by distracting them with fanciful words. All I can do is—well, is all that he did for me.

“Come here.”

Kai pauses, then looks over his shoulder at me. “What?”

“You heard me.” I don’t want to have to repeat it.

He rolls over but doesn’t move any closer. “I’d have thought you’d be happy to have your space back now that you’re feeling so much better.”

Is that a bitter tinge to his voice?

“Well, you thought wrong,” I say. The fact that he’s making me spell out what I want—and what he needs —is kind of infuriating. “You ruined me for sleeping on the ground in the space of a single week.” If I sound a little sour about it, whatever—this part is true, too, although I’m sure I’ll adapt again quickly when I have to.

I don’t have to, though. Not yet.

“So unless you don’t care about leaving me unable to sleep for the next however-long we spend on the road, get over here. Please,” I add, as if that’ll make a difference.

Maybe it does. Kai stares at me for a long moment, then sighs and scoots over so that our shoulders are touching. It’s enough—I drape myself over his chest and tuck my top leg between his calves, and instantly my body relaxes like I’ve just drunk far too much wine.

“That’s better,” I say with satisfaction.

Kai chuckles, and I hide my smile against his collarbone. “You just want me for my body.”

“Obviously.”

Except that’s not true. Not anymore. It wasn’t his body that kept me going after we lost Cam, although that certainly did help. It’s his heart that kept me moving, his faith in both his god and our quest, not to mention the faith he has in Cam. He’s been certain this whole time that we’re going to find him again. For his sake and for mine, I can’t let that faith falter. I need him whole.

“You already knew your father was a son of a bitch,” I say quietly. Kai stiffens but gradually relaxes as I stroke my hand down his side, the same way I used to gentle Lulu by smoothing out the feathers on her flank. “Why does it make a difference to know he’s been plotting against you for longer than you thought?”

“Because…” Kai trails off, and I wonder for a moment if I’m going to have to prod him again—maybe literally. Then he says, “It means that everything that happened between then and now has been a lie. I knew—I assumed—that the deal between my father and Embros occurred when Embros visited us four months ago. If it’s been a full year, then that’s how long my father has been planning to kill me. Through the fruit festival, through the anniversary of my mother’s death, through my birthday celebrations, he’s been planning to kill me.

“He fought me so hard on the engagement to Camrael when I first brought the idea up.” Kai’s voice is wispy now, as thin as smoke. “I sent the first messages about the match to King Perael seven months ago. It took time to work out the details, since news between our cities doesn’t travel fast, but as soon as he found out, my father was furious. He absolutely forbade it, but everything he said to me then, all the stuff about respecting our history and taking pride in putting Huridell first—all that was after he’d decided to take measures that he knew I would never, ever agree to. I just don’t understand it. I don’t understand him.”

I see the shape of the problem now, but I don’t know what to do with it. How do you comfort a man whose father turns out to be as bad as Anarx? “I don’t understand it, either,” I say at last. “Perhaps it’s impossible to understand. Or maybe we just need Cam to explain it to us.”

“We’ll have to ask him when we find him,” Kai agrees. Silence fills the air for a few minutes, but just as I begin to drift off to sleep, Kai asks, “Speaking of our prince, does he know you’re in love with him?”

I sit up, sleepy languor entirely gone, and glare at him. “What?”

Kai remains where he is, eyes wide, blinking rapidly, his hands still outstretched to the place I extracted myself from. “You can’t possibly think that it was a secret.”

“I…” To be honest, I didn’t think Kai would look close enough to notice my feelings for Cam, not when he was in the process of falling in love with him himself. “Tell me I wasn’t that obvious.”

“You weren’t that obvious,” he repeats dutifully. “At least not until after the attack. Having a strong sense of duty is commendable, but you were ready to run off into the grass with your kidney hanging out your back, so—”

I smack his side. “It wasn’t that bad!”

“It really was.” The unamused expression on his face speaks far more than his words do. We stare at each other in silence for a moment before he finally says, “You know I don’t mind, right?”

“I wouldn’t care if you did.”

Kai huffs and runs a hand down his face. “By Carnuatu’s horns, is everything an argument to you?”

I’ve driven him to cursing. There’s a petty part of me that feels good about that, but more of me wants to fix it. Kai is… He’s become a friend, probably a better one than I deserve. He has the right to ask me uncomfortable questions. “I know you don’t mind,” I say. “You’ve got a generous heart. Far more so than I do.”

Kai grins. It’s the first time he’s done that for days, and it makes him look almost boyish. “I’m sure I sensed you plotting my demise more than once on the trip to the Gate.”

“I…” He’s not wrong. “I was jealous. Cam and I…” Shit, am I really going to tell him this? Am I really going to lay my heart bare? I don’t want to, but something in his eyes, some spark of sincerity, convinces me it’s worth the risk. “We fought the night before we left Zephyth,” I confess, dropping back down onto Kai’s chest so I don’t have to make eye contact. “He told me that he loved me, and I know he understood that I felt the same, but when he reached for me, I turned him away.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew that if I let Cam have any more of me, I’d never be able to live without him.” Yet here I am, walking a tightrope between sanity and madness anyway. “I regret denying him. I should have given him what he wanted. It’s what I wanted, too—I was just too afraid to reach out and take it.”

Kai hummed in acknowledgment. “Yes, I can see how that would be hard. But you shared a tent with us later. That didn’t count?”

“I jerked myself off while telling you how to fuck Cam. It’s not exactly the same,” I say drily.

“Isn’t it, though?” His hand leaves a trail of warmth down my spine. “It was intimate, it was intense, and it certainly seemed like an act of love at the time.”

It had felt that way, too. And now I’m starting to feel uncomfortably aroused at the memory of it. I shift my hips back a little so Kai doesn’t feel my erection.

“I think you were meant to wear that black pearl,” he goes on after a moment.

I shake my head. “No, this is Cam’s pearl.”

“Is your city’s god in the habit of giving one marriage candidate two pearls?” Kai counters. “Because from what Camrael has told me, it’s never happened before.”

“That’s true as far as I know,” I allow, “but—”

“And after the ambush, you somehow managed to find it despite all the chaos of the scene.”

“It was easy to see in the sunlight. That doesn’t mean anything.”

“Doesn’t it?” Kai reaches down and touches his own pearl. “I feel closer to Camrael just wearing this,” he says quietly. “It’s like a part of me can sense him through it. It eases my fears and makes it so that I can go on, despite the setback we got at Fremont’s Height. Doesn’t yours do the same for you?”

I want to protest again, but the truth is that I do feel closer to Cam wearing it. More than that, there’s a comfort in having the pearl against my skin—it feels like a part of me. “Does that mean you think I’m destined to be with you as well?”

My question is laced with sarcasm, but the tender look Kai aims my way dries my mouth up.

“I hope to be so blessed,” Kai murmurs. Then his mouth curls up in a teasing smile. “You are riding around on a ram specifically summoned for you by my god. He didn’t have to give us two of them. We could have doubled up, but it would have slowed us down.” He boops my nose. “Just admit it, the gods love you.”

I open my mouth, tempted for a second to tell him about my black cat companion, but think better of it. It’s too late for a theological discussion right now. “You just want me to fuck you stupid,” I mutter.

“Well, I mean, I wouldn’t say no .”

I can’t believe I’m tempted to take him up on it. Clearly, I’m so tired I’ve lost my mind. “Go to sleep,” I say instead, firmly patting his chest and shutting my eyes. Kai obliges, and only a few minutes later, he’s gently snoring, dead to the world.

I stay awake much longer, very aware of every inch of his body against mine and very guilty over my own awareness.

If he’s right, though… If Cam and Kai and I really are meant to be together…

It’s a pleasant thought that finally drags me down into slumber.