“I wonder if it is connected to the wolves,” I said.
Tyrin’s pale eyes narrowed on the craft. “We shall soon know.”
“Indeed.” I crouched beneath the shelter of a tree at the edge for a better view.
The vessel docked with the practiced ease of a crew familiar with this port. Lines were thrown and secured, and the gangplank was extended. Five figures emerged onto the pier. Two were in human form; one had the tusks of an orc; one hovered rather than walked down the gangplank; and the last stood head and shoulders above the others, with one eye in the middle of his forehead. A cyclops. All were heavily armed. They moved with the wary efficiency of people accustomed to violence, scanning the beach and tree line for threats.
“Iron cages on the deck,” Tyrin said, keeping his voice low as he settled in beside me.
Following his gaze, I confirmed his sighting. The cages were equipped with shackles, and enough chain to bind a small legion waited on the deck.
My jaw tightened. “Slavers.”
“Undoubtedly.”
My great-grandmother had been captured by slavers as a hatchling. A citrine in my hoard preserved her memories of the ordeal. I had viewed it exactly once and sealed it away, unwilling to rewatch the horrors. An iron muzzle had been clamped over her snout to suppress her fire. The chains they had secured around her to prevent flight had done damage no healing could repair. They had systematically starved her until she lacked the strength to resist, then displayed her before buyers who assessed her value as though she were common livestock.
Slavers should be gutted, their heads displayed on spikes, until the whole vile lot of them were driven to extinction.
As they gathered on the pier below, their conversation carrying on the still morning air, every moment of my great-grandmother’s suffering replayed unbidden in my mind.
“—thought they were meeting us here,” the orc growled in Arabic. “Where are they?”
“Patience,” one human replied. He was leaner than the others,with a shaved head, a scar between his eyes, and an air of authority that marked him as the captain. “The sons of Oannes know better than to miss a delivery. The wolves will fetch a price that will more than make up for any delays.”
“Three males and a female, you said?” the orc scratched beneath a tusk with a yellowed fingernail.
“They will keep the female,” the leader said. “Unless, of course, we can persuade them to part with her.”
The cyclops cracked his knuckles.
Something cold and dangerous settled behind my ribs. The little thief was mine to deal with. The slavers would have to find their entertainment elsewhere.
“There.” The hovering male pointed north.
I followed his gesture, and my breath caught. Thick, dark smoke billowed in the distance. At its base, the unmistakable silhouette of the galleon, black against the brightening sky, limped toward us, its mainmast listing at an acute angle.
“Is that the galleon?” Tyrin asked, squinting at the vessel.
“It would appear so.” The words came out flat, not betraying the rage icing over my veins nor the panic tearing at my chest.
What remained of the ship the wolves had sailed on was now ablaze and nearly unrecognizable. Flames licked at the rigging, and even at this distance, faint shouts carried across the water. The serpent surfaced beside the vessel, its massive coils tightening around the hull.
“It would appear the sailors have larger problems than a missed delivery,” Tyrin observed.
The agitation of the slavers mounted as the galleon listed, burning and battered, clearly in no condition to make it to the island. The leader swore and barked orders.
I watched the destruction with an unsettling tangle of emotions that I lacked both the time and the inclination to examine. The artifact’s safety was paramount. That was the source of the pressure building behind my ribs. The artifact, and nothing else.
Yet my gaze kept returning to the burning deck, searching for a flash of crimson hair among the smoke and chaos.
She could not die. Not here. Not now. I had questions that demanded answers. A treasure that demanded retrieval. I had yet to look into those defiant green eyes and demand an explanation of why she had repositioned her blades to spare my heart when killing me would have been simpler and wiser.
I was owed that explanation. Her death would steal it from me.
My wings strained against my skin, and my pulse hammered as though I were the one trapped on a burning vessel.
And yet… the artifact moved.
