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And waited.
After what felt like an hour but was probably only a few minutes, I relaxed slightly. Perhaps the fey had not seen me, after all. Or perhaps they had, and were merely mustering their forces.
I waited some more.
But no one came. I eventually breathed a little easier, but wondered what I was supposed to do now. What if more of those lights came on? I couldn’t hide them all. What if this one refused to go out, leaving me—
The light went out.
I blinked at it, but it was definitely out. The blanket was soldier grade material, with a rough feel and a loose weave. I could see through it well enough, especially at this distance, and the only light at the moment was faint aftereffects jumping in front of my vision.
For a moment, I just sat there, wondering why there was a little frisson in my mind. It was a small sensation, hardly there at all, like a tiny fingernail scratching or a dim indicator light. As if something was waiting . . .
I thought, “Light.”
And there was light.
“Out.” I whispered quickly.
And there was none.
Huh.
I remembered how, when I first found the little craft, I had wanted to see it better, and the next moment, it had lit up. And later, at the top of the cliff in the first cave, I had heard the approaching Svarestri and wished for a way out. And the next thing I knew, Ray and I had been scooped up . . . and taken out.
As strange as it seemed, it appeared that the vessel could read my desires, and respond to them. I did not understand how this was possible. I did understand that this was useful.
Possibly very useful.
Another fey ship approached, with a sweeping blue light that was creeping over the rocks and crevasses of the cliff face, coming this way.
“Out,” I thought, as hard as I could, and their light went out.
I smiled.
The fey were unhappy. I could hear them from here, chattering to each other in a strange, guttural language. Odd; I had always heard that their languages were beautiful. Each to their own, I thought, and spun them around.
I actually laughed that time, as their craft slung about, hard enough that several of them almost fell out. But they didn’t, catching themselves at the last minute, which annoyed me. They had hurt Ray, had torn him limb from limb, had peppered him with stones. They were still looking for both of us, and would likely kill him if they found us, and take me off for possibly an even nastier fate.
Torture, I thought. They will want to know our plans for the war. I smiled again, and even without the mirror, I knew it was not a nice one. Let me show you my plans, I thought, and sent their craft rocketing across the void—
Straight into another.
The two crashed, then backed up and did it again. And again. And again, until very few of the boards remained intact and even fewer of the fey remained on board. And those who did were screaming.
They must have been yelling for help, because the other vessels came zipping over from every direction, and I learned a new thing: I could not control them all. One was easy; two was possible with simple commands, such as ram each other repeatedly. But no more. Whenever I tied to add a third, it jerked slightly, and seemed to stall out for a moment, but then tore away from my mental grasp.
Fair enough, I thought, and ordered one of the new arrivals to start firing those blue energy beams at all the rest.
“What the hell is going on?” Ray demanded, sliding back inside our ship.
“I am creating a distraction.”
“What?”
I sent the wildly firing vessel straight at two more, which sprang out of the way just in time. But they weren’t able to avoid getting strafed by those weapons. The sizzling blue beams mostly missed one craft, just sheering off a bit of the top, but the other was sliced clean in two.
Unfortunately, most of the fey appeared to have ducked. Fortunately, that did not help them much, as their craft was now tilting and whirling and acting crazy. It started firing randomly, too, although I had not told it to, which caused the others to scatter.
