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Land.
“I think…” He trailed off, his voice too quiet in the sough of waves, tried again louder. “Is that Caldien?”
Malcolm looked up. A weary smile broke over his face. “Should be.”
“It is.” Words from Val were rare, and the sound of her voice made them all turn her direction. The old poison runner didn’t look at any of them, her eyes trained on the horizon. “We’ll be there by tomorrow. Then it’s another three days’ ride inland to Farramark, if that’s where your friends are.”
“Friends might be an overstatement,” Malcolm murmured. “Colleagues, more like it.”
“As long as they have somewhere for us to sleep while we plan.” Gabe glared at the oncoming coast. “If Apollius wants a war, we’ll fucking bring Him one.”
Lore
She woke to waves.
Waves, and an unholy stink, like dozens of unwashed bodies all pressed together. When her eyes opened, the sky above was clear, deep indigo scattered with stars that faded near the glow of the full moon.
Gods, her head ached.
Slowly, Lore sat up.
It stank like dozens of unwashed bodies because she was, in fact, packed in with dozens of unwashed bodies. They crowded the floor of wherever she’d found herself, all asleep, shifting and snoring and a whole host of other unpleasant bodily functions happening beneath the glow of the moon, right up to a splintered, salt-stained wooden railing.
Beyond that, ocean.
“The Queen finally graces us with her conscious presence.”
She turned too quickly, creaking her aching neck. “Fuck,” Lore muttered, clapping her scarred hand to the muscle.
“Very queenly indeed.” The speaker crouched behind her, a man with eyes that had gone mostly cataract and teeth that had gone mostly rotten. His breath was no improvement on the stink. “Wed and then wasted,” he said, shaking his head. “Ol’ Sainted Arse only kept ya long enough to make sure you were still alive after that collapse, then he sent you on your merry way. Hell of a thing.” His hand rose, caught a strand of her hair. “Bet you’ll be popular, once we reach the Isles. Bet you’ll find yourself a whole new court—”
Lore was long past being frightened by how easily she could call Mortem, now. It flowed to her easily as water downhill, black threads arcing out from the dead wood of the ship, the tattered cloth of the man’s shirt. She channeled it quickly through herself as she reached out her hand.
Delicately, she wove just enough Mortem around his unwelcome fingers to turn the tips of them to stone.
With a garbled sound, the man sat back, staring at what she’d done. “They were right, then,” he said, tucking his hand close. “You’re a deathwitch. I’d heard the rumors, even in the Isles, but I didn’t actually believe it.”
“It’s true.” Lore pushed herself up from the hard deck. “And when I’m sure you’ll remember, I might even fix those fingers for you.”
Wincing, she lurched over to the railing, leaning over to try to catch a breath of fresh air. Her deep gasps ran the risk of becoming something panicked, but she forced herself to calm, gulping in salt spray, letting it lash against her face.
A prison ship. Headed to the Burnt Isles.
And Bastian had sent her here.
For a moment, she wondered if maybe that part wasn’t true. Maybe Jax had given the order, only pretending it was from Bastian. But that wouldn’t make things better; that would mean Bastian was still unconscious.
Or still inhabited by Apollius.
Her last few moments of lucidity after she pulled down the Church filtered back into her mind. The familiar voice in her head.
Slowly, Lore turned over her palm.
Still gray as a corpse.
And something else, less important, but still making her stomach sink. Her ring was gone. Apollius must have taken it back before putting her on the prison ship.
“I do not want this,” she hissed because it felt necessary to let the world know it. “I do not want Mortem. I do not want to be an avatar of Nyxara. I never did.”
