And suddenly it was all too much. His grief too great to be borne.
Whatever it was, whatever the reason that his existence brought death and sorrow to the ones he loved, it must end now. And he understood why every unmarried adult male in House Merimynos had committedkepuwhen Siavaluana and Sianna had perished. Not for shame of being unable to protect their precious, adored women. Not to avoid burdening their House with too many sons. It was grief. Pain so deep, so unendurable, that ripping their own hearts from their chests was the only solace left to them, the only escape from the unquenchable, writhing agony of their loss.
Without Gabriella, there could be no Dilys. He could not live in a world where she didn’t.
He didn’t even want to try.
His claws sprang forth. Howling her name on a roar of anguish, Dilys drove his hand towards his own sternum with bone-shattering force.
Night had fallen, and Gabriella was once again pouring violent emotion into the cauldron of her captive magic. This time, the pain of what she was doing was worse than ever before. The monster was wild, furious, desperate to break free. It shrieked and raged inside her, turning her shackled magic into a volatile inferno that threatened to tear her apart. Despite her determination to keep quiet so as to avoid rousing suspicion, a low moan rattled in her throat.
Her collar vibrated against her neck. She didn’t think anything of it at first, but as she continued to push herself and her pained whimpers became cries she muffled against her arm, the vibration in her collar increased as well.
Then came a snap, like a bubble popping against her skin. Shards of agony pierced her brain, and everything went black.
When she woke, the sky was still dark, the sun still several hours from rising, but for the first time since she’d been collared, she could feel a hairline crack in the barrier standing between herself and her magic. It was so small as to be almost imperceptible, but to a weatherwitch who’d been cut off from her gift for weeks, that hairline fracture might as well have been as wide as a canyon.
She opened her eyes and glanced around the cabin. Solish was sleeping. The guard at the door was playing a game of cards to pass the time, the lantern beside him burning dimly so as not to disturb the viceroy’s sleep.
Gabriella fixed her gaze on the guard and for the first time in weeks tried to put Persuasion in her voice as she whispered, “You are very tired. Your eyes are so heavy. You can’t keep them open.”
A few seconds later, the guard yawned and his head began to nod forward.
It was working!
Emboldened by her success, she pushed a little more. “You have to sleep. Your whole body is so weary. You cannot stay awake another minute. You have to close your eyes and sleep now, and you will not wake up until dawn, no matter what you hear.”
The guard’s head slumped forward, chin resting on his chest, and she heard the rumble of soft snoring.
Elated, Gabriella reached for her magic, calling for its vast power to flood into the collar around her neck, hoping to burn it out. The collar went red-hot. Her flesh went hotter still. The Rose on her wrist was a glowing ember. The pain of it was terrible, as if she were burning alive from the inside out.
Either she must have made some sort of sound or the smell of the scorching linens around her must have dragged Solish Utua out of his sleep, because he sat up in the bed, took one look at Summer, whose whole body was now glowing with the fire trapped inside her, and screamed, “Tzele! Bring thetzele!”
The door to the cabin slammed open. Three hulking brutes came rushing towards her.
All she could think was,No!She wasn’t going to let them touch her. She wasn’t going to let them drug her. She wasn’t going to be held against her will. Not now. Not ever again.
And every ounce of violent, volatile, enraged emotion, every second of pain, anguish, and humiliation she’d suffered since her kidnapping, every tear she’d shed, every prayer for salvation and strength, every single powerful emotion that she’d ever known, she poured into the bubbling cauldron of her magic’s heart.
And then she Shouted: “NO!”
And the collar cracked open wide.
And the magic she’d spent a lifetime caging burst free.
“NO!” she Shouted again. Time slowed, each instant stretching out, bringing every tiny detail into sharp focus. She watched the men rushing towards her turn into twin pyres of flame and ash. The man who’d bought her from Mur Balat met the same fate. Then the ship—Gabriella’s floating prison, sailing her towards the barbarian who thought he could own a Season of Summerlea—bowed under tremendous force, wood bending, charring, then splintering outward into an explosion of a million shattered, flaming pieces.
Sound travels fast over water.
Gabriella’s Shout—the scream of a Siren—traveled faster than any natural sound on Mystral. It raced across the Varyan. Shattered every window on the Calbernan Isles and every window for hundreds of miles along the eastern coast of Ardul. In its wake, dragged along by the great force of that scream, raced a massive wave, atsunamispeeding out from the floating pile of burning flotsam that had been an unwise warlord’s ship.
Every Calbernan in the Isles—every Calbernan sailing the Varyan—heard that Shout.
Hundreds of miles away, aboard theKracken,Dilys heard that Shout.
With it came the searing harpoon to his heart... not the death blow of his own clawed hand but sudden, savage joy as hisulumiblazed to blinding life.
“Gabriella!” he roared. He leapt to his feet. “Helmsman! Weigh anchor! Set a course for the source of that Shout!”
