But he kissed me, long and slow and tender and strong. I closed my eyes and stifled my whimpers, wishing it would never end, knowing it would never last.
He rose to his feet, swung an arm, and suddenly, he was the hawk once again. It was so fast, so fluid, no cracking of bone, no creaking of skin, and I wondered if I would ever become that skilled. It was poetry and pattern, and once, I’d longed for it more than anything in my life.
Now, I longed for something very different.
He launched out over the water and disappeared swiftly into the night.
I looked down at my own naked, chimeric-marked body.
“Forge,” I grumbled. “How the hels do I spin clothes?”
I rolled to my knees and began the hunt.
41. The Cloudgate
We were ready before dawn as we prepared theTouchstonefor careening when a shout came from the rigging. Six sails in the northern Channel, all flying Admiralty ensigns, six thick-hulled warships led by theTemplemore. Thanavar had been right, and from their rate of knots, we had only hours before the Navy made land.
So, just after Forgedawn, Dev ordered the entire crew over to theMarelethanto take shelter from the Navy on the island’s east bank. That left a skeleton crew on theTouchstone, but her rudder had not been damaged, and with magik and seamanship aplenty, she glided smoothly through the bay toward the shore. I stood at her prow under the early-morning suns, one hand on the fife rail, sending chimeric into her bones. The breeze was sharp, the bay waters choppy, and finally theTouchstoneshuddered, groaning as her keel slid into the sand.
TheTouchstonewon’t need anyone after tomorrow,Dev had said.At least she’ll be home.
Home, she said in a voice barely there.Home.
The Island InBetween.Lindurithain.Home of the House WoodRaven.
In a leaking longboat, Dev, Echo, the ironmages, and I rowed through the shallows toward the rocky shore, but the closer we got, the more my heart began to sink. For this beach, once beautiful and glittering with magik, was now a shore of devastation, covered in ice and snow and wreckage and blood.
I didn’t want to get out. I didn’t want to go.
Dev slid out his sword and stepped from the longboat, and I followed, chimeric sizzling in my fingertips as we sloshed through the water and onto the shore. It looked like a war zone, with crushed tents and scattered gear—barrels and chests,picks and axes, spears and arrows and bodies slain across the sand. It was the crew of theMarelethan, slaughtered in the night, throats slit open, bellies split apart. The stillness was unfathomable. Even the wind held her breath.
Fifty or moreRhi’Ahrto kill before dawn.
My stomach pitched, and I bent over, hands on my knees, desperate to catch my breath.
I had never seen blood like that, he’d told me,bones and brains and shattered faces.
His pain and his vengeance, right here in the sand.
Slain the way you might pick flowers.
TheseRhi’Ahrwarriors hadn’t stood a chance now that the last Priestlord ofLindurithainwas home.
Like oil, the ironmages flowed past me, silent and lethal as they fanned out across the sand. I looked up to see Dev quietly pick his way through the carnage, checking for life or danger or both. Echo stood, eyes wide, boots in the water, arms wrapped around his chest. I wondered if he could feel the echoes of the fighting, the cries of soldiers cut down, and my heart broke for him. I wanted to hug him, hold him, offer him comfort for once, to bear his burdens and ease his gentle soul.
He caught my eyes, tried to smile, and it broke me all over again.
We were mapping the fate of the world, I told myself. We were trying to end a war.
I took a deep breath and straightened my spine, summoning the chimeric that flowed in my veins.
While reaching the Cloudgate had been our goal these long months, I had never given much thought to what it might look like, and I found myself overwhelmed by its strangeness and its splendor. The morning glowed like twilight, with skies of cinnamon and gold. The beach sand was the color of ginger, and it turned the waters of the bay a brilliant green. The air washeavy with the scent of sweet grass and limons, damp erthe and decay. Leaves were red, purple, or brown, but curling as if bitten by the first tooth of frost. In the distance, the volcano towered over the trees, clouds of dark cinnamon tumbling slowly from its cone.
Fabled and forsaken, it was a legend that was dying, like the goddess who was dead.
I heard a splash and turned to see the second longboat rowing up on the shore. Neale and two other seamages hauled the boat up onto the sand, and Dev jogged over to help them drag the trunks and crates from the Court of Sand. I let my gaze sweep past them, caught by a sight at the far end of the beach.
Half in water, half in trees, a circular structure thrust out of the shoreline. I wondered if it was a dock of some sort, or a wharf made of stone. It was huge, easily as wide as theTouchstonewas long, a high, smooth, flat platform growing out of the sand. Chimeric drifted from its surface into the waters and onto the rocks.
