45
She woke to a steady and familiar rocking. A chorus of creaks and the faint whine of ropes straining filled her ears, followed by the scratch of a pen. Cracking open her eyes, she saw a familiar room surrounded her. An expansive bed, bookshelves dominating the opposite wall, a table that was used more often as a desk…and two wingback chairs positioned in front of the windows that overlooked the back of theStormfrost. One of which was occupied.
Adela sat in the chair, somewhat angled toward the bed. She had her ankle propped on her frosty knee, a book perched on her lap. The pen Eira’d been listening to glided over the pages, the pirate queen’s attention fully enraptured by whatever notes she was jotting down.
Or at least Eira thought her focus was wholly consumed.
“Took you long enough,” Adela murmured without so much as glancing her way.
“Sorry,” Eira mumbled. She went to sit and instantly found herself off-keel. Eira repeated the process to no more success. One of her arms wasn’t working…
“Don’t rush it.” Adela was at her side.
Eira hadn’t heard or seen her move. Her focus was entirely on her side. Eira reached out her right hand. Fingers trembling, they hovered where her left arm should be. Once was.
Her ears rang. She blinked several times, as if she could wake herself up from what was certainly a strange dream. The sleeve of her sleeping gown hung limply over a stump at her shoulder. Bandages covered her skin, dulling the sensation of the fabric gliding over top.
Yet…somehow she felt it. More than the stump, phantom tingles and pains ran up from the hand Ulvarth had stabbed through with the dagger. She could still grip the fingers of the severed hand. Feel the muscles in her arm tense. As if it were still there. Except, itwasn’t.
“The pain will go away, eventually.” Adela’s words were even and calm. But there was a touch of gentle understanding under her perpetual matter-of-fact demeanor.
“Why?” The word felt distant, like it came from someone else’s lips.
“The poison.” Adela sank to the edge of the bed, staring out the windows. Eira only saw through her periphery. Her focus was solely on the spot where her arm should be. “It’s necrotic. It immediately starts rotting the flesh by the wound, but it spreads in the blood and will build up elsewhere, if you let it. With two points of injury, one as severe as it was, the only way we could stop it from completely claiming you was by removing the arm.”
The pirate queen shifted. Eira didn’t realize what she was doing until Adela’s hip was exposed. She’d pulled her heavy coat to the side and adjusted her trousers just enough to expose her side above the leg that was missing. The leg she’d sought revenge for by sending Eira to the mines on Carsovia.
Adela’s pale flesh was riddled with dark veins, gray, stony skin suspended between them. It was worse lower on the hip.Eira suspected that underneath her trousers, right by where the pirate queen’s own leg had been amputated, was likely all black.
Eira lifted her eyes to meet Adela’s. Shifting once more, Adela pulled back the collar of her shirt, exposing a portion of her upper chest. More of the dark veins were there. Less severe. But as prominent as they were undeniable.
“You…”
“That poison is as wicked as everything else that comes off Carsovia. I was too slow in cutting off the damn thing to stop its spread.” Adela motioned to her leg made of ice. “I’ve been battling with it ever since.” She turned to face Eira. “That’s how I knew, with you, what had to be done. Stop it before it could go too far. Though, I admit, I wish I could’ve at least told you before it happened.”
Eira’s attention shifted back to her missing arm. She imagined herself moving it, as if studying a hand that was no longer there. Jolts of pain fired through her shoulder at the effort. Now, she wondered if the chill she’d felt on her left side had been the poison at all, but rather Adela beginning the amputation back in the fight with Ulvarth—trying to slow the poison.
“What now?” Eira whispered. She hadn’t intended to vocalize the question.
Since she had, Adela answered, “Now you’ll learn how to use a limb of ice.”
Her Uncle Grahm had done as much. Adela had two limbs of ice. Eira had even managed with one, more or less, in Carsovia when she’d used ice to hold together her leg. It wasn’t the end; logically she knew that. Emotionally…she was still caught on the spot where her arm should be.
Cool fingertips rested lightly on her cheek, guiding Eira’s face back to Adela’s. The pirate queen leveled her gaze. Eira swallowed thickly.
“This will not shake you.”
Eira managed a nod. Adela was right; she’d been through so much…too much to have this be what stopped her in her tracks. The initial waves of shock and grief were already passing.
“Good.” Adela’s hand fell from her face and she stood. “Because the fates have shown their cards and I am more committed than ever.”
“Where are we?” Eira tried to put her thoughts elsewhere.
“Not far from the Isle of Frost.”
Eira blinked.That far?She knew she’d promised Adela that once she’d extracted her revenge against Ulvarth, she’d be her heir and sail across the lands. That she’d never look back.
But part of her had been expecting to be able to say goodbye. Were her friends even here?
