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There was little else now but dread and Dreadwall. The roar was deafening, the sky before and above us billowing gray. From the base, a cloud of white mist and green spray cut across the entire world, growing larger and more threatening as we hurtled toward it. It was easily a half league deep, and we were heading into it in a matter of moments. Buck had abandoned clocking our speed once the line had snapped at sixty knots, which was clear impossible. Then again, Thanavar had promised us impossible. At this speed, the sea spray cut my cheeks and stung my eyes and the wind bit like winter in
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With a deep breath, I laid my hands on the mast. Runes and patterns glowed up her timber, flashed all along her deck, danced across her sails. The rails, the sails, the shrouds, the yards. She gleamed and glowed like a starry sea. She was beautiful. She was magnificent. She was magik.
My timbers will hold.
my strength. Beloved… Kier Gavriel Thanavar, her beloved. Honor. Me? Honor, strength, freedom, fly. She meant me. Anchor and sea. Trust and believe, child of the north. Mine. I blinked the tears from my eyes, summoned my breath. She was so strong and so brave. And, in that moment, I realized I would rather die trying to be half of what she was than live as none at all.
Magik and seamanship, Thanavar had said. We had it in fathoms. But it was him. I knew it. All him. His plan, his goal, his ship, and ultimately, his fate. We were tied to him like stays or shrouds, lines or rigging, but he was the wind in this voyage. He was the waves. And fog it, I loved him for it. He swept his eyes across the main, found home when they found me. A twitch of his lips just for me. “All hands,” he said. “Steady as she goes.” And into the Dread we went.
I appreciated even more, now, the power of the Worldrune and the web the suns had spun. More than on paper, it was drawn in the sand, in the stars, and in the sea.
And I knew in my bones now what it meant to serve the Ship of Spells.
He knelt down beside me. “Aro’el,” he said. “Can you hear me?” “I’m in the whale,” I murmured. “Half fish. Half bird. All sea.” “Your runescars are not shining.” And I felt his hand on my forehead, brushing my cheek, smoothing my damp hair. His touch was music, a song I longed to sing. I just didn’t know the tune. “What have I done to you?” “Lost,” I said. It was hard to speak with words, not rune. “I think I’m lost.” “Moons, what have I done?” The muscles of his jaw rippled as he thought. He reached for the ropes that secured my hands. He burned them free and gathered me in his arms. “It’s
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“How is your leg, Mr. Buck?” “Not bad, for not there.”
He tried to smile at me. I tried to smile back. It was a brief moment, a fleeting moment, but for now, it was enough.
“Thank you, gentlemen. You are dismissed.” “In other words,” said Smoke, “get to work, ye lice-crowned, lily-winkled swabs.”
“But after that, if you do decide that you are allowed to want, and that you want me, then you need to make the offer. And you’ll need to make it good.” My voice was weak but firm. “In fact, you’ll have to cross oceans, for I am not an easy woman to catch.” There was the slightest twitch of his lips. “I pray, then, I’m up for the chase.”
Rum and lime, bitter and sweet. And this time, I tasted the sweet.
I held my breath, counting as she stayed low, praying she wouldn’t go under, capsize, or break. But she heaved, then sighed, then settled on the water like a gull. There was silence on deck for a long moment before the ship erupted in cheers. It was magik, pure and simple, like nothing we had ever seen or experienced before. Magik and seamanship. That was the Ship of Spells.
Suns. The days when my heart did not break.
“Thank you, Aro’el,” he said. “For believing I was a better man. Perhaps, in some other life, I could have been.”
He was undone. This man, the last Priestlord of Lindurithain, wanmage become mirror become Dread, lord of all the runes in erthe, sea, and sky, was broken and desolate, and I had just offered him hope.
I was comfortable with my body. It was power for me, even with runescars covering every inch of skin. I grinned wryly when he sat back for a moment, eyes filled with wonder as if seeing a woman for the very first time. He’d been a priest, so maybe it was.
The truth struck me, sudden and merciless. The gold in his eyes had never been a trick of the light. He was more than a Priestlord. He’d always been more. He was a Dreadmage. Born of the old magik, bound to the chimeric, and—Forge help me—the keeper of my heart.
Finally, he pulled away, his sea-deep eyes dancing, and he smiled at me. Suns. It was the suns.
Dev stood with hands on hips, looking every inch a regal prince in the boots of a pirate. His dark eyes were serious, his usually laughing mouth a tight line, and my heart swelled at the thought of him as king. Bryn’nyd King of Oversea, the Stolen Prince Come Home.
I didn’t need to see him. I could feel Kier behind me, giving me strength by letting me lead.
She had made me stubborn so I would survive, and now that same stubbornness stood against her, facing her down.
No shell for me, only heart. Only hope and pride and a stubborn refusal to crack.
“Permission to come aboard, Captain?” Smoke looked down at us from the rail. “What’s the password?” “Able,” said Echo, and he flicked his ear. “And Whack!” shouted Smoke. “Ha! Permission granted, ye sour, baggy-winkled picaroons.”
“Racing through the foggin’ Dreadwall with the foggin’ Navy on your foggin’ heels, while you close the biggest foggin’ gap in the entire foggin’ ocean behind you as you go does not foggin’ sound ‘merry,’ Dev,” he groaned, and he ran a hand over his forehead. “What if we’re caught in the Dreadwall as well?” “We die,” said Dev. “In spectacular fashion.” “Oh,” said Smoke. “Oh my.” What magik, to have silenced his elegantly profane tongue.
“Trust me, my mother is stubborn enough to succeed on sheer will alone.” He glanced down at me, and his lips twitched. “Like her daughter.” “Just like her daughter.” And I beamed at him.
His eyes locked on mine, and my heart hammered in my chest. My entire body was alive with rune, wild with purpose and duty and calling. All because I’d been pulled from the sea by the Ship of Spells and loved by a man with the heart of a hawk. “Are you ready to change the world, Aro’el?” he bellowed. “Aye, Captain,” I cried. I would never forget his smile that day. It was as glorious as two suns.
Rise up, rise up, Dread Wall of the Sea, of Luna, Lyrik, and Lore, Gift of the Suns, be still, be strong. For good or for ill, be strong.
think Bracebridge knew he was out of his depth, with Dreadmages, ironmages, and runechasers in the fray.
“Aro’el?” I heard Kier shout. “I’m fine!” I cried back, offering a shaky grin. “I’m good!” I lied like the best of them now, thanks to the Ship of Spells.
I turned my weary eyes to see him, shining and arrogant and proud. He was grinning at me through his tangle of sea-dark hair. His eyes. My heart. I hate you, I mouthed, my lips tugging into one cheek as I teased. “Good,” he said.
“I choose life,” he said, so close I could feel his breath on my cheek. “I do. I choose a path of life, and I know it will lead me back to you. I will close this gap and repair this wall…and then I will find my way back to you.”
“I have loved you since the day we pulled you from the sea,” he said. “Fierce. Stubborn. Powerful. Strong. And now—glorious. My Aro’el.”
He had the right to chart his own course. But so did I. Besides, I had mutiny in my bones. “I have my own course to chart,” I said. My heart was pounding, but the rhythm was sure. “And it leads me straight to you.” “I look forward to it, then,” he said. “For I am not an easy man to catch. Beloved.” Beloved. I would find another way. I would bleed, break, bargain with every ounce of chimeric in my veins if I had to. I would find him. I would save him. I would release him from his life of duty and remorse. Besides, deep called to deep. We were runechasers both. We would find each other because
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I spun around to Smoke. “Another chest of chimeric!” I ordered. “We’re closing this foggin’ gap!” “Aye, Chaser,” he barked, and I felt a surge of pride. Chaser. I had chased, and I had found. I had fought, and I had won. I would close this gap and run with the wind. I was stubborn, and I was loved, and I was not too proud for the Ship of Spells. I couldn’t be proud enough.
My heart broke for all our world, for the lure of power that drove men to fury and the lust for vengeance that made all else fade.
I wondered if they’d let him keep the earring. I doubted it, but I had learned the power of a stubborn heart and an iron will. We both had them by the shipload.
Then Smoke, the one he’d known longest of all. “Are you sure you won’t come?” asked Dev. “Are you sure you won’t stay?” asked Smoke.
“Captain,” said Dev, knuckling a salute. “Highness,” said Smoke. “Fog you.” “Not today.”
“Thank you,” I moaned through my ragged breaths. “For everything.” “It was my delight,” he said. “I am so very proud of you.”
“What are you going to call her?” “Her?” “The ship. You can’t run her under a Rhi’Ahr name,” I said. “She’s your ship now.” “Ah,” said Smoke. “I was thinking the Woodraven.” Back in the days when my heart did not break…
I could play this great game. I had the bones. They sure as hels had mutiny in them. Besides, I’d make my own rules, just like him.
I released a deep breath, needing a new shell to grow again around my soft heart. For I needed to be strong and stubborn and wayward just a bit longer if my plan had a hope of working.
