A loud noise echoed up through the room, making both Eris and Skye lean toward their bars, looking down. The empress stood below, looking up. Her gray eyes fixed on Eris, completely ignoring the Skyweaver.
Eris’s cage shook suddenly, then swung as one of the Lumina soldiers unhooked the chain fastening her cage to the wall. As they started to lower her, Eris gripped the bars, glancing back to the Skyweaver.
“There’s something else,” said Skye, her gaze fixed on Eris.“Your father turned me into a god to save me; and in saving me, he destroyed the girl I once was. But you... you gave her back to me—my memories, my mortality.”
Eris frowned, not understanding.
“I’m human,” she said, speaking quickly now. “I can’t spin souls into stars. Only a god can do that.”
And then, just as she disappeared from view, Eris heard her whisper: “Youcoulddo that.”
Me?
But Eris wasn’t a god.
Was she?
Forty-Five
Safire had difficulty determining how long they’d been out at sea. There was no light in the hold except for the occasional flash of lightning that managed to squeeze through the cracks in the deck above.
She’d cut the other captives out of their rope bonds long ago and they now crawled through the darkness, looking for any object that might prove useful against those above deck. In their search, they’d found barrels of water, bottles of spirits, sacks of potatoes, and a variety of salt fish and pickled goods. The closest approximation of a weapon was a broken broom, which Safire gave to a girl several years younger than her. Some of the men were currently smashing bottles and handing them out—their broken halves would be able to slice a man as easily as any knife.
“Once we’re up on deck, we’ll need to use the element of surprise to our advantage. The point isn’t to fight them. The point is to lessen their numbers as quickly as possible. As soon as your feet hit that deck, don’t think. Just do whatever you canto get them over the side of the ship and into the sea.”
There was a mumble of assent.
“Don’t be afraid of them,” said the man who’d broken the bottles, now standing at Safire’s side in the dark. His name, she’d learned, was Atlas. “Damaged goods fetch less of a price—or no price at all. And that’s what we are to them: goods. They’ll do everything they can not to damage us.”
Surprised by this, Safire looked to Atlas, but could make out nothing but the rough shape of him. “I hadn’t thought of that,” she said.
“I wasn’t so different from them once,” he said. “I know how they think.”
Now for their most pressing problem: getting out of this hold.
The ship’s crew had pulled up the ladder leading down into the hatch, and the space between it and the floor was now too high for a single person to reach.
To solve this problem, they rolled barrels full of salt fish and set now-empty boxes of spirits below, creating makeshift steps up to the hatch. Safire selected five others to go with her as the first line of defense, while the next five would ensure everyone escaped from the hold.
Once everyone was on deck, they would do whatever was necessary to thin the crew and take the ship.
When they were all in position, Safire pressed both her palms to the door of the hatch. She was just about to push, when someone screamed from above, “Monster!”
Safire froze.
“Sea monster!”
A shout of alarm rose up, echoing across the deck over Safire’s head. The thud of running boots filled her ears.
“A sea monster will sink us,” came a voice near Safire.
Panicked murmurs filled the room around her.
“We’ll be drowned in here,” said someone else.
“Hush!” Safire ordered. “Stay calm.”
But it was too late. The unity of their common purpose broke. So Safire calmed herself, ignoring the fear bleeding through the captives around her, and listened.
