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“Perhaps when the seals are broken, Feron and the others will find a way to help you.” My words were shaky just like the hope I had for that being true.
Riven wrapped his arms around me and breathed deeply from my neck. “Then we should get some rest so you can get us to Koratha as quickly as possible.”
As if sleep was at Riven’s command, a wave of fatigue crashed over me and I closed my eyes, welcoming the darkness. Riven held me against him all night long in dreamless, painless slumber.
CHAPTEREIGHTEEN
WE MADE IT TO KORATHAby the sixth night. The crescent moon had risen to its peak, casting a silver streak over the rolling waves. Apart from the crashing rhythm of the sea, the world was silent. Tranquil. I didn’t trust that peace. The calmer it was, the deadlier the storm, and we were sailing right toward it.
“The canoes are prepped?” Gerarda asked. I turned to the others who were also staring out at the horizon where the Order was waiting just out of view.
Nikolai nodded and tugged on his stretched coil of hair. “And the smaller rowboats.”
A string of watercraft lined the ship, each tied together like the strands of a braid so we could sail the entire fleet to shore. Gerarda had insisted.
When we found no one to paddle them back to the ship, we would abandon them on the shores along with the Shades we couldn’t save.
I adjusted the strap of my quiver across my chest. My throat burned with the urge to drink. Not to calm my nerves, but to calm the worry that Damien was going to peek into my mind and have his soldiers waiting to ambush us. Or that he already had.
I pulled out the lilac elixir Riven had given me instead and let the sweet liquid calm my stomach. As long as I didn’t fall asleep until the mission was over, I wasn’t risking anyone’s life.
I checked my weapons belt for the third time. Gerarda placed a gentle hand on my wrist. “We need to leave.”
I swallowed. I was stalling. I could see in the kind way Gerarda held my gaze that she thought she understood why. That no matter how much I’d barked to the contrary, she believed there was still a tiny bit of hope inside me thinking we would find the Shades alive.
My chest tightened but I didn’t tell her how wrong she was.
I turned to Riven and felt the whisper of his shadows curl around my legs as I nodded. “Do it.”
Riven stepped forward and raised his hands. At first, there was no change to the sky. The moon shone down on Syrra as she adjusted the sails and glowed against the others’ backs as they pulled the anchor up using the large wooden wheel at the center of the ship. But then wispy strands of black blew over the moon, indistinguishable from clouds to anyone who didn’t know it was magic. Riven took his time, pulling thin shadows across the crescent as slowly as a gentle wind. He didn’t completely obscure the light but darkened the sea enough to hide the real magic.
Riven walked down to where the others had stopped turning the anchor wheel and climbed the mast of the ship. When he reached the small platform at the top of the post, he raised both his armsand a fog of shadow rose from the sea. Within seconds we were entirely encased in darkness.
Syrra steered the ship as I used my gusts to fill the sails just enough to move us through the water. We were as quiet as an eagle through the sky.
Riven used his vantage point to stretch the fog across the entire horizon. Anyone on lookout would misjudge where the night sky and the sea met, concealing our ship completely.
It was minutes before we reached the perimeter of the island. There was no way to sail a ship so large directly to the shore. The towering rings of jagged rocks were meant to keep the Order safe from naval attacks. But smaller vessels paddled well would get us to the shore unscathed.
Hopefully.
When we neared too close to the outer ring, Riven cooed like an owl. Syrra’s teeth clamped shut in the darkness before Vrail ignited a large faelight along the deck.
Riven dropped down beside us. We worked silently to lower each of the vessels into the sea. Twenty-seven large canoes and nineteen rowboats all tied together to one larger vessel Nikolai had outfitted with a small sail. Too small a sail to tow such a load under normal conditions, but with my gusts we could maneuver the line of watercraft through the rings of rocks between our ship and the island.
Gerarda stepped into her own craft. Nikolai had made it smaller and thinner than a canoe. It had no seat, but a cushion that sat at the bottom of the shallow hull. Once she was inside, Nikolai threw his custom design over her head and then fastened the bottom of it along the tiny hole Gerarda sat in. Every part of Gerarda’s body from her neck down was encased by the vessel or the black bodysuit, completely secure from the sea.
She pulled her double-sided paddle against her canoe and ducked her head. Nikolai tapped her back once and pushed her into the freezing water below with a single kick. I heard the splash as Gerarda hit the water and ran to the edge of the deck. Her vessel popped through the surface and she began paddling toward the shore of Koratha.
Syrra dropped a wide ladder made of Elvish rope over the side of the ship. “We have one hour.”
Nikolai took a glass vial of black liquid from his pocket and shook it. It transformed into a bright orange color. “This will slowly darken. When it’s black, time has run out and ouronlymission will be to return to the ship.” He gave me a hard look.
I lifted my leg over the edge of the deck and secured my foot on the first rung of the ladder. “You’re acting like I’m not the one who set that time limit.”
Nikolai rolled his eyes before daintily stepping over the lower edge. “And you’re acting like you don’t have a habit of breaking the rules. Even ones you set for yourself.”
It took everything I had not to stick my tongue out at him. We descended the rest of the way in silence. Syrra and Vrail sat at the back of the boat while Riven and Nikolai sat at the front, ready to adjust the sail as needed. I called that turbulent power forward until it whipped inside my chest and aimed it at the small sail.
