Nora sighed and reclined back, leaning her weight on her palms. “So you really think the king went looking for this Ravki place?”
Aesira’s eyes met hers. “Our queen seems to think so.”
“And what do you think?”
Aesira focused again on Vargah in the distance, seeming tiny and insignificant beneath where they sailed, the curved lines of the city blurring together. “I think my sister is trying her best to make sense of Desmond’s disappearance. I think she’s clinging to the last bit of hope she has.”
“Hope,” Nora repeated. Not a question. Just a quiet statement. Maybe disbelief. Nora and Nev were raised outside of Novaria, in a small outpost in the northern desert. Their parents didn’t have much, so when they became of age, both girls were sent to train with the Order. A place for unruly girls to become someone else’s problem.
Being in the same squadron, they’d grown close and stayed that way. Everything about the Order was brutal. The training. The constant barrage from their leaders. The impossible lessons of restraint. Control. Obedience. And even though the memories were not pleasant, Aesira was grateful it brought Nev and Nora to her.
She went back to untangling her hair, the sand woven tightly between her curls. “If Desmond didn’t leave to find Ravki. If he just…” She dropped her curls down and sighed. “If he justleftKamari and Vargah, that would feel so much worse. So, I think Kamari has convinced herself he’s left to do something important.” Aesira hadn’t given Nora and Nev the full story of what Stone found in the journals. The mention of dragons. As far as they knew, Desmond left in search of Ravki for a reason entirely unknown. Not in pursuit of the beasts that would sever his ties with Celestria and theastraand water the goddess provided.
Nora nodded, running a hand across the back of her neck. Her vibrant red hair was twisted into a braid but Aesira could see where the tiny granules of sand stuck between the plaits. “We should get some sleep,” she said. She stood and pulled Aesira to her feet. “Can’t imagine any good will come from being above deck at night.”
Sweat beaded on Aesira’s brow as she tossed and turned in the small bed below deck.“Aesira.”A voice dripped in her ears, hollow and hissing all the same. “Zeliath.”
She sat straight up, knocking her face directly into a low-hanging beam. “Fuck,” she muttered, rubbing her palm against her forehead. She glanced under her bunk, where Nora was still fast asleep. Sliding out of bed, the wooden planks were cold beneath her feet, each of them creaking as she took a step toward the door.
“Aesira.”The voice encircled her like smoke, billowing into her ears, her mouth.“Come, Aesira.”
“Stone?” She placed her palm flat against the door and waited for the voice. “I’m coming out.” Her sword was propped up against the wall, she unsheathed it, then opened the door.
Darkness occupied every surface of the ship. She felt her way along the wall, creeping down the long corridor, past several other doors where she could hear snoring coming from the other side.
“This way, Aesira.”
She gripped her sword in one hand, climbing the wood ladder that led to the upper deck. Hot and sticky, a breeze coated her skin, pulling loose a few curls from her bun. She adjusted her grip on the pommel and paused. One foot on the deck, the other on the last rung of the ladder. Nothing but silence and stars stretched for miles overhead. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath. “Focus,” she whispered.
The scorching wind brushed her again, bringing forth more beads of sweat on her brow and upper lip. The ladder creaked. Her heart pounded. But still, the voice didn’t speak.
She opened her eyes, one at a time. Sucking in a sharp breath, she reared back but was pinned between the door jam and the creature that was now inches from her face. Hollowed cheekbones, stringy black hair, and tarnished remnants of clothing matted to a half-skeletal frame.
“Aesira.” Its voice wrapped around her like a noose, tightening and tightening until she couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t speak. “Commander. Sister. Princess.” It raised a knobby hand, half flesh, half bone, and stroked a line down her cheek. Aesira tried to raise her sword. Tried to remember her decades of training but she was stuck. Frozen. At the mercy of this being. This wraith.
“Come with me.”Despite her subconscious screaming at her to run, she obeyed, taking the final step off the ladder. Her sword fell to the deck with a sharp clatter. Her hands were too light, too empty, without it. She tried to force her head to turn toward her discarded weapon but the wraith took her hand, its bones digging into her soft flesh and all thoughts of her weapon vanished.
The wraith took a step toward the bow.
Aesira followed.
Another step.
Aesira followed.
“Close,”whispered that same voice, though it was softer now. Intoxicating. Aesira could feel the muscles in her normally tense shoulders relax. Could feel a weightlessness in her chest she had never experienced before. Peace settled over her like a warm blanket, wrapping around her anxieties and duties, putting them to bed for the first time in her life.
“You’ll be able to rest here, Commander. Wouldn’t you like to rest?”
Yes, she wanted to say. She would like that very much because despite how much she loved her job, she also resented it. How it stripped her of everything she was. How it expected her to be everything she wasn’t.
“They don’t appreciate what you do,” the voice whispered against the shell of her ear, as if reading her thoughts.“No one appreciates how much you’ve sacrificed.”Her breath hitched, it was something she’d thought many times but never dared say out loud. A grim, oily truth that on her darkest days spun her out of control.
Only when the drinks came easily and she lay alone or beside a companion, quiet and hardly satisfied, did she let poisonous thoughts overtake her mind. Only then, at her very worst, would she let herselfhateand be resentful. She let herself be angry for how much of herself she erased for the Order.
How many times they beat her down or made her quiet. Submissive. She resented how hard she worked to be someone she didn’t care to be. How many years of her life she would never get back and for a future she’d never have, all because her parents thought her to be a burden.
Unladylike.
