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I yawned and looked down to see Fyrel clinging to the small pegs sticking out of the mast. I reached out my hand and pulled her up into the eagle’s nest with me. “I will sleep when I get you all home safe.”
I kept my gaze locked on the east. I hadn’t lied, but the truth was more complicated than I wanted to burden Fyrel with. I had searched the ship high and low for Nikolai’s store of wine but hadn’t found it apart from the two skins he had left on my bed. I knew the rest must be glamoured but without a way to ask Nikolai where they were, it was pointless to look.
Without anything to keep the dreams away, I wasn’t going to risk falling asleep so close to Volcar. Half of Damien’s armada was stationed at the snowy city and while we were moving faster thaneven the falcon flies, I was not going to assume news of our attack hadn’t reached the armada in the west.
Damien had proven that he had moved beyond Mortal inventions. He had schemed with Curringham from halfway across the kingdom and received reports that came from the Faeland itself. I didn’t know what tools he had at his disposal, but I knew we needed to be on alert. The ships at Volcar would be armed and waiting.
Myrrah believed the same and gave the coast a wide berth. Wide enough that we sailed against the current, but my gusts pushing against the sail made that possible.
“I haven’t seen the other initiate you trained with.” I nodded down at the group below. “Saraq, if I remember her name.”
Fyrel stilled beside me. “A small group of Shades tried to fight on that first night—once they realized what Damien had planned. Rohan told us what happened in the throne room and said that an Arrow should always be the first line of attack.” She wiped her eyes. “I told Saraq that it wasn’t a good idea, but she made her choice.”
I didn’t need to hear the rest to know that none of them had survived.
“I never thanked you for healing my arm,” Fyrel said, changing the subject. She took the spyglass from my belt and peered into it from the wrong end.
I shook my head and flipped it the right way for her. “No need to thank me.”
She closed one eye and looked into the distance where the smoke from the fiery mountain in Volcar was visible along the horizon. “You were sweating when you did it. Does it hurt?”
“To heal people?”
Fyrel nodded, still looking through the spyglass.
I sighed, considering the question. I didn’t want to tell Fyrel the real reason for my sweats had nothing to do with magic, but a lackof wine. “No. Though it makes me tired and I need to rest if I do it too much.”
“Can you use it to heal yourself?” Fyrel leaned far enough against the banister to make me nervous.
I pulled her back by the scruff of her tunic and looked down at all the Shades sleeping on the deck huddled together in groups. In that moment the warmth of my magic flared in my chest and soaked through my bones. I couldn’t deny that there was something healing in seeing the Shades safe in their makeshift beds.
I’d finally done something right.
“Yes,” I whispered, answering Fyrel’s question, but the young initiate didn’t hear me. She had lowered the spyglass and her eyes were wide. Her arm extended out, pointing to where black sails were peaking over the horizon.
I grabbed a knife from my belt and threw it at the post just above the steering wheel. Gerarda’s head snapped up. I called as quietly as possible, “Sails on the starboard side.”
She nodded and unlocked the wheel, steering us farther west. My gusts were still swirling against the sails but I didn’t trust our speed. The masts on Damien’s ships were taller so their scouts would still be able to spot us.
“Watch the sails,” I ordered Fyrel. She straightened her back and nodded once.
Whispers echoed from the lower decks as the Shades woke from Gerarda’s stark maneuver. The older Shades threw off their cloaks and blankets, grabbing for whatever weapon was nearest.
I hoped we wouldn’t need them.
The suns were just beginning to set along the eastern horizon. Soon it would be too dark for the ship to see us, regardless of how high above the sea their scouts flew. I just needed to give us the advantage until then.
I thought of Riven and knew that he would already have the ship cloaked in a haze of shadow. But I didn’t have the gift of darkness.
My skin tingled as an idea rushed forward. Riven’s fog hadn’t been fog at all, just whisps of shadow mimicking a fog from a distance. But I could make a real one.
I closed my eyes and focused on the thrashing flow of that new magic under my skin. I felt the water stir underneath the ship and let it rise. I focused on my breath just as Feron had taught me and instead of pulling the water together to make one strong blast, I stretched it as far as it could go. The water lifted and pulled across the horizon, tendrils disintegrated into tiny droplets that hung in the air.
Fyrel gasped beside me and I opened my eyes.
The fog had surrounded the ship and expanded forward until the black sails were no longer visible by eye or spyglass. Droplets of all sizes hung in the air, floating like the tiny faelights in Myrelinth. A chorus of shocked whispers circled underneath my feet and Fyrel popped one of the larger bubbles with her finger.
It splattered like rain onto her boot.
