Page 77 of Cursebreaker

Must be gained

Where spirit—”

Batya staggers backward a step.

“Where spirit what?” Owen insists, panic creeping into his voice. “What else does it say?”

“We’ve got to go!” Gabriel points his blade at the hatch in Batya’s floor. “Now.”

Titus reaches for Batya, but she jerks away as if stung. “No!” She moans. “The words are—fading—we might not get another chance.”

Blood drips from Batya’s eyes like crimson tears, oozing out from beneath the green paste. But she’s right; the glowing script seems fainter by the second, its glow diminishing, the words fizzling into nothing like stars twinkling out of existence.

“Where spirits of the sea remain,” Batya groans the final words, her voice booming like a thunderclap, just before they vanish completely.

Owen seizes Batya’s wrist as she stumbles sideways, steadying her.

“Don’t fuss over me,” she says weakly, swatting at his hand. “I’m—”

A small red circle squirts blood from between Batya’s eyes at the very moment the front door swings wide and the floorboards erupt. A handful of soldiers floods the room from both the underground hatch and the open doorway, rifles pointed at us, shouting incomprehensibly.

The pebble had shot through the air, faster than a bullet, piercing Batya’s forehead before I even heard the hinges creak.

And there, standing in the front door, framed by incoming soldiers as they stream past him into the house—

Will, hand outstretched, panting for breath.

“Aster!” he roars, voice breaking as a cyclone of wind envelops me.

Pop.

We land hard on the deck of the Starchaser. Titus absorbs the brunt of the fall, but he rolls, covering me with his body as if to shield me from bullets even here. Gabriel sprawls on his back, the shield face up on the deck beside him. He groans as his flesh rejects a bullet embedded in his arm. And Owen…

Owen sits on his heels, holding Batya’s frail body in his arms, her vacant eyes fixed on the stars above.

Someone shoves Titus off me. Hands grip my shoulders, clutching me with urgency.

“Whose blood is that?” Margaret demands, franticly searching me for a wound she’ll never find. “Aster—Aster, whose blood—”

I point, weakly, at Owen. Margaret’s eyes sharpen as she whirls, already moving toward him.

“Owen, where—” She stops short when her eyes land on the woman in his arms, the fatal wound in Batya’s forehead.

Charlie helps me to my feet, his gaze fixed on Batya. “What happened?”

Lewis shouts orders as the others move about the deck, preparing to sail. “Captain?” he calls to me from the helm. “Where to?”

Eliza stands next to him, hands raised, cloaking the ship. In the time we were gone, they anchored in an alcove of cliffs a few miles down the coastline, hidden from prying eyes. A clean getaway.

Almost.

Diana kneels beside Owen. She places her hand on Batya’s arm, chanting something that sounds like a prayer.

I meet Lewis’s knowing eyes from across the deck. “Set a course for the Republic of Ruin,” I shout, my voice hoarse. I turn to Charlie. “She’ll have a proper burial at sea.”

He nods. There’s no need for words. There never has been—not with him, not with any of my siblings. Charlie will tend to the dead. Margaret will tend to the wounded. Lewis will tend to the crew. And I will do my best to pretend that I am not breaking.

They’re looking to me to lead. So I will hold it in. Keep it together.