1
The War-Father has spoken to me about my softness before. If he catches me committing treason for a second time, he’ll have to kill me. No matter how sorry he is to destroy his favorite weapon.
My hands tremble as I creep past stacks of crates, piles of netting and rope, and rolled heavy sails. The ship tilts left, then right, rocking on the sea as chains clank and wooden walls groan.
On the floor in front of me is a splatter of blood. I breathe out a curse and break into a jog.
She’s wedged herself into the corner of the ship, between two stacks of crates. She’s facing the wall, and she’s wearing the same grime-stiff gown they all wear.
I know I'm lucky that I found her before the ship’s quartermaster realized one of the Enchanted had gone missing from her bunk. But my stomach stays firmly lodged in my throat.
The enchantments inked into her skin are supposed to keep her mindless. Blank. She shouldn’t be awake, or aware enough to hide.
For the past week, I’ve been working to free her from those spells, since they're draining her life to power this ship. But she wassupposed to wake up when I was ready to smuggle her out. Not in the middle of last night, or however many hours ago she escaped the bunkroom.
“You’re awake,” I whisper. “It’s alright. I’m the one who…”
The Enchanted spins to look at me, and bares her teeth.
“...Was trying to free you,” I mumble.
She's thin, with pale beige skin and a mole beneath her lips. There’s a wild, unfocused look to her eyes.
She probably doesn't recognize me. To her I'm just a lady knight in enchanted armor, gauntlets hanging on my belt, red-brown hair braided back with dozens of valor-ribbons. Nothing more than a trained mastiff dog who'll drag her back to the crystals that have been feeding on her life.
Without our Hellion warships, we aren’t strong enough to fight against the ancient, sleepless evils in these lands: the witches, and the dragons they’ve bonded to. And without the Enchanted, the Hellions can’t fight.
“Get. Away,” the Enchanted growls, her voice guttural.
Her right hand is slick with blood. Her fingers curl around a fish scaler, one of the serrated blades we keep in the ship’s kitchen. Which means she made it up two more flights and back unseen. On a ship this busy, I can’t imagine how.
It’s only then I notice her left forearm, and realize where the blood splattered on the ground came from.
Gods be merciful.
She’s awake enough to know what the spell is doing to her, and she’s shaving off her own skin, where the enchantment is tattooed, to stop it. My stomach heaves and I swallow the bile before it can rise into my mouth. The work I’d been doing over the past week left small wounds, too, as I pulled the crystalline magic out of her skin, but I didn’tbrutalizeher.
“What have you done?” I whisper hoarsely. “Gods, your arm.”
“You’ll. Have. To kill me. I won’t. Go back,” she rasps. Therhythm of her speech is odd, her mind not wholly her own yet. The woman points the fish scaler at me in her shaking hand.
I force myself to take a deep breath.
I looked every single one of them in the face, all thirty-six as they were brought aboard. Murderers, debtors, witch-sympathisers, undesirables. I chose her. We're too far into the trip for me to pick anybody else.
“I’ll bandage your arm with cleansing salve,” I tell her, pinching my lower lip hard between two fingers as I think. “Youcan’tgo back to the bunks, not with a wound like that.”
“I’m not. Going.”
“You’ll have to hide forweeks.” Even if I can keep a stowaway hidden that long, the wound on her arm might kill her. And there’s so much blood on the floor. What am I going to do aboutthat?
“I will. Hide,” she rasps. Suddenly her whole expression shifts. The fish scaler clatters to the floor and her knees thud into a kneel. “I’ll hide. Please. I don't. Want. To die. On this ship.”
“I’ll line some crates here to hide behind,” I say quickly, gesturing at where she’s kneeling. “I can’t bring you food and water often, but if you stay quiet…”
“Yes,” the woman begs. “Yes. I’ll be. Quiet.”
“You can’t keep using that knife. You’ll kill yourself that way.”
