CHAPTER FORTY
We should use bones.
—Correspondence from Enya to Lelyth. Date preceding Sultiran Calendrical System.
Aquila’s talons thumped as they hit the rail of the ship. My neck ached as I stretched against Tiberius’s broad, velvety side. I blinked my eyes open against the darkness. A thick layer of clouds spread across the sky, shielding us from our moons’ light.
We lay at the stern, Tiberius with his legs tucked beneath him and a large black wing draped over me. He lifted his head at Aquila’s landing. The two of them stared at each other for several moments before movement from the quarterdeck caught my eye.
Can you speak to Aquila? Like you and I do?
Kind of. It’s somewhere between words and casting. It’s difficult to explain, but yes, I can communicate with him now.
I groaned as I gingerly sat up and rubbed my face. A dull, throbbing had begun behind my eyes.What happened?
You’ll find out, Tiberius’s large head bobbed as Nerissa prowled across the deck.
“Can I talk to her now?” she snapped at Tiberius. “Or are you still being an overprotective asshole?”
Tiberius snapped his front teeth at her as he pinned his ears.Tell Nerissa to go fuck herself.
What? For gods’ sakes…
I shook off Ti’s thick wing and stood. Nausea rushed upward as blood drained from my face, my vision swimming as I swayed. Nerissa’s hands caught my arms, and she swung me to the edge of the ship, where I emptied the contents of my stomach.
After several minutes of retching, I wiped my mouth on my shirt and turned toward Nerissa and waited, leaning against the rail. She handed me a waterskin. Black circles lined her green eyes.
“You,” she began, pausing as she scanned my face, “had a bit of an incident.”
I raised my eyebrows. “An incident?”
Nerissa swallowed before frowning, “I’m not sure how to explain it, other than your powers sort of… exploded out of you. Tiberius got you above Vienah’s cloud cover, which would have been fine except it wasn’t just the Obscura that you released.”
Vienah…I sent up a silent prayer of thanks for the water witch and her influence on the weather. It was dark last night, but not so dark that a huge display of power would have been missed by ships within hawk sight. The dark clouds would have camouflaged the darkness perfectly in the night sky, but that glowing Transcindiel power…and what they were doingtogether…
I threw a wary glance at Nerissa, who watched me piece it together.
“Your powers seem to be getting along now. It looked like a lightning storm from here. More gold than the true white of lightning, but with the clouds, it was disguised enough.”
“Was anyone hurt?”
Nerissa shook her head. “None on deck.”
“How long were we up there?”
“Four hours,” she said, glancing at my forearms.
I followed her gaze. The darkness had subsided, but the two powers coiled together deep in their chasm.
My stomach pitched. I hadn’t had a lapse of control like this since Odessa. The cause of it all slapped me in the face, and the emptiness of betrayal and devastation hollowed out my chest. My lip quivered, and I looked away from Nerissa. She pulled her gaze away and leaned against the rail.
“I cannot talk about it,” she breathed. “As I know you can’t. So, for right now, we don’t.”
A single tear formed in the corner of my eye. It hung there for a moment, creating a pool of warm liquid.
Bayne was soulbound to a monster. He was a hawk, tethered and unable to fly. But he’dchosenthis. Could I free him? What would the cost be?
Nerissa’s steely gaze was hard against the deep blue horizon, and I thought perhaps I began to understand her. It was far easier to keep your feelings, your most vulnerable self, locked up tight and safe within your heart than it was to be this exposed, this broken and betrayed, this devastated.
