The city of Lliandor looms around us, dark and indifferent.
I take Imas’s hand. He squeezes it, his fingers threading through mine.
We step into the rain, leaving the House of Imas, the title of Lord, and the old lives we wore like shackles behind us in the dark.
22
LORD IMAS
The sea is a flat, gray slab, indifferent to the lives clinging to its surface.
I pull the heavy hemp rope, the rough fibers biting into my palms. My muscles scream in protest, unused to the brute, repetitive labor of hauling a sail. Sweat runs down my back, cold in the biting wind coming off the ocean.
A week ago, I could have moved this entire ship with a flick of my wrist. I could have summoned a wind to fill the canvas or calmed the waves with a whispered command.
Now, I am just another back bending under the weight of the work.
"Heave!" the boatswain bellows, a scarred orc with tusks yellowed by age.
I heave. The sail snaps taut, catching the gust.
I step back, wiping the sweat from my brow with a forearm that is already bruised. I am unrecognizable. My brassy hair is tied back in a messy knot, dull with salt spray. My clothes are rough wool, smelling of tar and fish. The charcoal of my skin is no longer a mark of high nobility; here, among the mixed crew of humans, orcs, and low-caste elves, it is just a color.
I amDfam. I am caste-less.
And I am exhausted.
I find a coil of rope near the railing and sit, my legs trembling. The physical fatigue is a novelty. It is a simple, honest ache that has little to do with the twisting madness of Chaos. It is quiet.
Leora appears from the lower deck.
She is wearing a simple gray dress, the hood of her cloak pulled up against the spray. She looks small against the vastness of the horizon, but she does not look afraid. She looks... present. Her eyes, the clear, unclouded sapphire of a Purna at rest, scan the deck until they find me.
She comes to sit beside me. She does not speak. She simply takes my hand, her fingers threading through mine. Her skin is warm, and the contact sends a steady, rhythmic pulse of comfort into my mind. It is not the overwhelming flood of the ritual chamber; it is a gentle tide, a reminder that I am not alone.
"You're bleeding," she says softly, turning my hand over to reveal the raw blisters on my palm.
"It is nothing," I say. My voice is rough from the salt air. "The price of passage."
"We could have used a stone," she whispers, glancing around to ensure no one is listening. The pouch of Zanthenite is sewn into the lining of her cloak, a fortune heavy enough to buy this ship ten times over .
"No," I say. "A Khuzuth Lord does not pay with stolen gems in a common port. It draws eyes. It draws questions. Labor is anonymous."
She traces the lines of my palm. "Does it hurt? Being... this?"
"Being magicless? Mortal? I’m still a dark elf." I look out at the water. "It is slow. It is heavy. I feel gravity in a way I never did before." I pause, watching amynahbird dive into the waves. "But my mind is my own."
She leans her head against my shoulder. "Do you think He will come for you?"
I stiffen. I do not need to ask who she means.
"The Serpent?" I ask, the name tasting like ash.
"Yes. You killed his priest. You broke his altar. You... rejected him." She shivers. "Will he follow us?"
I look at the sky. It is vast and empty, devoid of the swirling, chaotic clouds that permanently shroud Lliandor.
"The gods are not hunters, Leora," I say slowly. "They are appetites. The Serpent does not chase; He waits. He is the trap, not the predator."
