I flung my hands high, forced my fingers to begin the hold spell. Circles with the right hand, fist with the left. My teeth chattered the incantation, and the air hissed as the rune sprang to life, but the waves swelled and pulled me down again, andI choked as saltwater rushed into my mouth. I kicked my legs, forced myself up, and swore out loud. The pattern was disintegrating, so I pushed my hands from the water as, once again, theEndorathil’s cannons boomed behind me.
I felt heat as a ball whipped through the disappearing spell, and I flung a second at it, seeing the chimeric catch with a crackle of sparks. Not fast enough. The ball smashed into theDawn Watch’s hull, and splinters of wood sprayed outward like a volley of arrows. My fingers danced out a third spell, aPraesidiumfor protection, and it was purely instinct that brought my hands up to cover my face. It was also foolish. My hands were my life, my craft, my future. My face was merely an afterthought.
The force of the blast jerked me back, and I went under once more. But the moment my hands touched the water, the ocean boomed. Light radiated outward, and every fiber of my body caught fire. In that moment, I was flung out of myself the same way I’d been flung from the deck of theDawn Watch. I saw theEndorathiland the shatteredDawn Watch. I saw the horizon and the sky and the smoke darkening the faces of the suns.
But then I saw things I had never seen—sparks racing through ice and snow, a white hawk with a golden staff in its talons, branches of a tree reaching for the stars. Rings and circles made of rune, an island filled with dying palms, a volcano spewing chimeric into the sky.
And then I was back, thrashing in the sea and waiting for the air to return.
Rise and fall, ebb and swell. I shook my head, spat the salt out of my mouth. I struggled against the weight of the water and the chimeric that was dancing across the surface. I needed my hands, but I could feel nothing at the ends of my leaden arms. With a cry, I pulled them from the waves and froze in horror at what I saw.
Dozens of splinters from the hull of theDawn Watchhad pierced my hands. Some were embedded in my palms; others stuck out of my wrists like spines. Secondhand chimeric crackled between my fingers, sizzling water-soaked patterns into my skin. The flesh was torn away like ribbons, revealing glimpses of thin white bones and long yellow tendons. My heart sank like the powder boy as I stared at the pin hodges that had once been my hands.
The air boomed as theDawn Watchcracked in two, but I swear I heard none of it.
I saw nothing as enemy cannons emptied final rounds into her shattered, sinking hull. I heard no mates screaming, flailing, drowning. No sails flapping, ripping, sucking when theDawn Watchslippedunder the black water. Debris floated all around me, crackling with flame and chimeric, but I was merely one more piece. Broken, shattered, destined to follow the powder boy into the deep.
And just like that, theEndorathilswept away, riding the horizon like a proud seabird. I watched until she faded completely from view, until there was nothing but sky and clouds, smoke and loss. I was alone in the sea, rising and falling with the waves. The waters were cold but not freezing, and not cold enough to numb me while I drowned. I wasn’t versed in death spells yet, but even if I was, I doubted my hands could have formed a pattern.
I thought of the swabs who begged for beer at the doors of the dock taverns. I used to despise them, being young and proud and skilled and able. Now, without my hands, I would be one of them. A useless mage whose hands couldn’t even hold a coin, let alone a drink.
It didn’t matter. I’d never make it back to the docks.
After a while, my shoulders began to ache, and I realized I was still holding my hands above the surface. I lowered them,but the moment my hands touched the water, chimeric crackled, sending ripples across the waves and pain echoing down my body like lightning. I tried again. Same result. I narrowed my eyes to study what had become of my arms.
The sleeves were all but gone, the char turning linen into lace as it continued to burn. The splinters were sticks of glowing incense now, as chimeric runes dissolved the wood. My hands looked as though they had been branded in a forge, rune and flesh blending in a web of pattern. The designs for my hold and protection spells still sizzled, writing stories across my skin.
I closed my eyes, wishing I were a graymage. I’d call a shark to bite off my arms. Hels, I’d call a whale to swallow me whole.
My mother had told a story once about a wayward girl who had swum away from home. A whale swallowed her whole, then spat her up on shore a year later. By then, she was a wyrmaid—half girl, half fish—and she died on the rocks. My mother swore it was true, but I never believed her. Now, with my head dipping in the waves, I almost wished it was.
A blackened deck plank floated nearby, caught in the web of chimeric that rippled around me. It was etched with rune but wasn’t sizzling, and somehow, I knew it was from theEndorathil, damage from one of the few shots we’d landed. But I’d rather die than be saved by the enemy, so I kicked and flailed toward another plank, this time one of ours. I snagged it with my elbows, pulled it under my chest to rest my cheek on its grain.
My dark hair spilled over my face, becoming one with the wet timber. This was the last piece of the ship,myship. My first true posting, my last true hope. I bit back the stinging of my eyes and forced the ache deep down beneath the will that kept me afloat. TheDawn Watchhad been an insignificant frigate, I told myself, with an insignificant crew. The captain had never spoken a word to me, and Taran Vir maybe twenty, even though he’d been tasked with my training. The bosun had been hard, and theredmage had been harder. But despite all this, theDawn Watchhad been my home for eight months. More than that, she had been my future. Without a ship, I was nothing.
I bit my lip. Worse than nothing. My mother had been right.
TheRhi’Ahrplank was floating toward me yet again, as if drawn to my dying light. Rune patterns sizzled through the water, and I didn’t care.Let it take me, I thought darkly.Suns, just let me drown.
Rise and fall, ebb and swell.
The suns were high in the sky, Forge the Bold and Ember the Pale. Forge was large and white, while Ember was distant and dim. Twin suns of the Northhelm, emblems of our besieged empire. They watched as I floated, so I sent a prayer to Forge that day.I never prayed. I’d chosen the way of Forge just to be allowed to serve in the Navy, but I didn’t believe. My mother prayed to the Sister Moons, sacrificed to the Sister Moons, dedicated me to the Sister Moons at my birth. Declaring allegiance to Forge was the last, best rebellion I could have staged. Too bad it wouldn’t serve me now. Too bad she’d never know.
I can’t say how long I floated before I heard a splash on the waves. The sky was golden as the suns began to set, but I didn’t open my eyes. It could have been a ship. It could have been a shark. I didn’t care. My life was over regardless. It was only a matter of time and magik before my body caught up.
Another splash, so now, I looked. A huge winter hawk rested on the water before me, wings tucked across his back. His wingspan was probably twice my size, with feathers as white as salt. His eyes were an eerie white as well, his beak black and hooked for tearing. I could see his talons through the water, paddling with swift, strong strokes. Like theRhi’Ahr, winter hawks were born in the ice and snow and dread of the Nethersea. Figured that the last creature to see me alive wouldbe Netherborn.
Once again, my eyes began to sting, and tears gathered behind my lashes. Tears for my short, miserable, wayward life. Tears for my sad, valiant, pathetic crew and for the horrible, useless way they died.
With no one but a seabird for company, I finally let the tears spill, quiet and stubborn, mixing with the salt of the ocean. I didn’t sob. Didn’t have the strength. I just drifted there, too tired to care, too numb to fight, yet somehow my feet kept paddling beneath the waves, slow and useless, as if they hadn’t heard I was done.
The winter hawk merely watched, content to rise and fall on the waves like me. Finally, I released a breath, then another. I looked up at him. He was magnificent and free, with only the sky for a master. He had only himself and the strength of his wings.
“Take me with you,” I pleaded.
He cocked his head, and I wondered if it was the first time he’d heard a voice.
“Let me be a bird,” I said. “Let me fly away from everything and everyone and not have to die alone and broken on the sea.”
