Leaning forward, I kissed him hard. The rough press of my lips to his was an anchor—to me, to here, to a place where those awful memories that plagued him didn’t exist. He softened beneath my hands on his chest, and his lips moved away from mine.
I rested my forehead against his. “It’s time. Let’s sink this cesspool and go back to Avalon,” I murmured.
Nodding dazedly, Vox flexed that incredible power once more. He floated us off the ship, back onto the deck of our much smaller boat. I could see the tiny lifeboat with the crew I’d deemed innocent already floating back toward the eastern edge of Lake Vale.
“Raise the anchors, Iker. It’s time to go.”
We were less than a mile away when a sucking noise echoed across the surface of the lake, and huge tendrils of water gushed over the ship, tipping it like a child’s bath toy. Fire lit the hull, and soon, the wooden siding was burning like a funeral pyre.
Vox stood alone on the bow of our boat, silhouetted by the fire. So much power at his fingertips, but the taste of his thoughts, of his conflict, broke my heart. Even in the face of the evil that had been Yaron Vylan, he grieved. Not the man himself, but the idea of what he could have been. Vox’s loneliness was like a blanket that coated us all.
Avalon walked up behind him, wrapping her body around his, her love pulsing out of her in near-visible waves. She would ensure he was lonely no more.
We all would.
Fifteen
Avalon
It took another five hours of sailing to get to the landing point on the northern edge of the lake where we decided to moor the boat. In the whole five hours, our three passengers had said nothing as I tended to knife wounds on the back of the larger man, and wrapped the burns on the feet of the younger woman. Not even Powell Ingmire had said a word, though he sat close to the other rescued captives protectively.
I’d been surprised when Hayle, wild with anger and horror, had appeared on the deck with not just Powell, but two more wounded victims of Yaron Vylan’s cruelty. Hayle had said Powell refused to let them leave on a separate lifeboat. That either they came with us, or he went with them, but there was no way Powell Ingmire was separating from his fellow victims.
Hayle had relented quickly; it didn’t matter if there were extras. Our agreement with Moran and Neho Ingmire was that we got their brother out, and that’s what we’d done.
Now, they all sat huddled on the small bed below deck. I’d found them clothes and food, and they ate with the ferocity of people who hadn’t been fed properly in a long time. Though I didn’t need to watch them eat to know they’d been starved—it was in the hollowness of their cheeks, the way their ribs painteda harsh contrast beneath the small lantern swinging above their heads.
I’d helped the girl dress, talking softly to her, bathing and dressing her wounds as she sat there, almost inanimate beneath my hands. She didn’t even flinch away from my fingers, or hiss when I dabbed on an ointment to remove any bacteria from the wounds on her feet. As soon as I was done, she’d just moved back toward Powell, huddling close to his body like he could protect her from whatever boogeyman haunted her thoughts.
Vox stayed up on deck, because the one time he’d come below, the girl had begun whimpering in fear. It had been tragic and awful, and I could see something breaking inside Vox at her response.
Once land came into sight, it was time we had a talk to our guests. They had options now, and decisions to make. Hayle and Lierick came downstairs to sit before the group. Vox descended too, but kept far to the back.
They’d decided that perhaps it was best if I spoke to them, like a woman was maybe less confronting after everything they’d been through.
“Does she have a name? Does he?” I asked Powell, pointing to the other man. He was older than both Powell and the girl.
“He’s Malak Trenton. He was once Yaron’s best friend.” Vox’s voice was expressionless, and I couldn’t tell how he felt about Malak Trenton.
I studied the man. He looked… broken. Haunted. “Should you be at the bottom of the lake too, Malak?”
Powell shook his head furiously. “No. Malak isn’t like them. He isn’t… He was…” Powell was clearly struggling to find the words, and I made a soft, calming noise.
“It’s okay, Powell. I believe you.” I cast a quick look at Lierick, who nodded. Whatever he saw in Malak, he wasn’t another Yaron. “And the girl?”
“Celis,” Powell murmured. “She hasn’t been with us long.”
Long enough to haunt the girl, though.
I nodded encouragingly. “We made an agreement with your brothers. We’re taking you north and hiding you, until it’s time to go home. They said you’d know when that was. We can give Malak and Celis money to make it to Cyne, or to disappear into the mountains or any of the villages they wish, or return to their families.”
Celis clung tighter to Powell, and the boy got a stubborn set to his jaw. “Celis comes with me, or I’m not going anywhere.”
Vox sighed behind me. Well, that made things a little more difficult. Still, these two had been through so much—if this was what they needed to start healing, so be it.
I reached out and patted Powell’s shoulder, and if I hadn’t been watching him so closely, I might have missed his flinch. “Okay, Celis can come with us. And Malak?”
Powell looked over at the man. “Malak can make his own decisions.”
