“I don’t care what General Aylard said,” I cut in as I stepped around him, getting the attention of the other soldiers. Their gold-and-ivory cloaks rippled in the wind as they turned. “I am telling you to get this crowd under control. I will take care of whatever is in the water.”
Hopefully.
“Of course, Your Majesty,” a darker-skinned guard said with a slight head bow. “Sa’Quir, get Volour’s team to the gates. Have them stop any wagons coming in and free the horses.”
As the soldier barked out quick orders, I took a breath and turned to the gates. Hoping Casteel got to Malik, I willed myself to the docks.
The wind had calmed as the wooden boards of the dock creaked under my feet. I scanned the sea, the waters dark instead of the stunning shade of blue the sea normally was. I dragged in a deep breath and caught the scent of salt in the air, but also something else. The sickly-sweet stench of…stale lilacs.
Death.
Kolis.
The water suddenly churned violently between the docked ships. My breath lodged in my throat as something Ian had spun tales about as we walked the southern shores of the Stroud Sea as children erupted from the water, seawater cascading off creatures with the heads and bodies of a horse but gills beneath their eyes.Gilledhorses with slick, pale flesh clinging to jutting, sharp bones threaded with brightly colored blue and pink coral.
Seahorses.
They wereseahorses.
And they weren’t alone.
CHAPTER 31
POPPY
Riders were crouched on their backs, and I couldn’t tell if it was seaweed or clothing hanging from them. They were in the same condition as their horses—more bone and chalky white barnacle than dull gray flesh and seemingly held together by thin strands of tendon and the very will of the sea. They held onto reins with one hand and raised shadowstone sickle swords in the other.
The horses shrieked as their hooves bore down on the sandy shore. It wasn’t a whinny or a neigh. The sound was warped, almost bird-like, and utterly terrifying.
And I just stood there, open-mouthed and in shock, as they rode right past me, dozens of them heading for the streets of Lowertown. I knew I needed to do something, but I was stunned.
Seahorses?
They were real?
Shouts from the occupied ships at the dock drew my gaze. A large merchant ship, several piers to my right, was rocking. My gaze lowered, and I saw what they shouted about.
Ceeren.
Or at least what I expected the ceeren to look like. They were climbing the sides of the ships, their upper bodies like mortals—long-deadmortals. Their flesh was like the riders’: patchy and covered in barnacles and kelp. Their lower halves werelike creatures of the sea, scaled and finned—really, super-dead creatures of the sea.
How they could pull themselves up the sides of the ships with more bone than muscle was beyond me, but they looked otherworldly strong. Their nails or claws scored the wood and tore out chunks of it. If they could do that to wood, flesh and bone would be nothing.
“Archers!” a voice from the inner Rise called. “Fire at will!”
I twisted at the waist as arrows sliced through the air in a wave, their tips glinting red. Bloodstone. They struck the riders and their horses, piercing flesh and bone. The impact of the bolts didn’t knock the riders from their rotting saddles.
Itshatteredthem.
Bloodstone, something I wasn’t sure was used as a weapon in their time, could kill gods? Well, dead gods. Did that make a difference? I didn’t know, but those riders, who had to be ceeren in full mortal form, were completely, totally dead.
My mind kept looping back to that fact. Dead ceeren were riding seahorses through the streets of Lowertown. And only two beings could raise the dead like that.
The true Primal of Death and the true Primal of Life. Instinct told me I couldn’t—not to this extent, anyway, where the power of life or death could reach back thousands of years. No. The essence would need to be tied to a Court for that.
My stomach shifted with unease as confusion rose. Like last night, I didn’t sense him. He wasn’t here, but…
His will was.
