But I had the very pulse of S’Kir in my veins. The power of the whole world, the power of two disparate people who lived and loved and died there. Maybe I needed those four to love me, and me to love them back because there wasso muchinside me. To try to give that all to just one man, just one person might kill them. Smother them the way Dorian was me.
One man for each season. One man for each way the winds blew across S’Kir. One for each ocean, and one for each horizon. In return, all of S’Kir for them. All of what I held inside, held by the four of them. A full measure of who I was and full measure of them for me.
The Healer of the Scar, drawing the four corners of our world together in a single locus.
This was everything I was. I needed them, and I wanted to need them.
I needed to love Dorian, but he had to let me be who destiny, fate, or the Gods, needed me to be.
I could love them. If they would let me.
Chapter Thirteen
Kimber
The square sail rippedfrom the arm at the top and was flung into the wind, threatening to snap against the rigging ropes.
“Get that cloth down!” I screamed over the waves and whipping wind. “Get them all down!”
I had run to the top deck to find Roran desperately hanging on to the wheel, trying to keep the ship from keeling over.
“Where did this come from?” I yelled over the howling wind, bringing up a ball of light so no one would trip or fall in the dark.
“I have no idea!” Roran yelled back. “It was clear, and then it wasn’t! Rolled up on us from the east in a moment. I would have gotten you, but the first wave nearly keeled us over.”
“I’ve got the wheel,” I said. “I need you to get the sheet down and stowed, quickly.”
Aiko scrambled up the mainmast, reaching the top arm in no time. Desperately holding on to the wheel to keep the ship steady, I watched him pull a dagger from his belt and methodically cut each rope at the bottom arm. He crawled out slowly, and finally the last rope was cut.
The massive sheet was torn away from the ship and pulled up into the wind, dancing away from us and lost in the grays and whites of the violent sea.
Aiko crawled back just a little and dropped to the deck as the ship bowed up through a dangerously tall wave. It caught him and dropped him hard onto his knees, and quickly bottomed out sending him flying forward.
“Gotcha!” Roran yelled, holding desperately to the foremast and Aiko’s collar. “Help me get this damn lateen furled!”
Roran and Aiko turned their attention to the massive sail as I was still desperately holding the ship as steady as I could between crests and troughs as the from-nowhere storm tried to take us to the bottom.
“Lash it!” I heard Rilen scream.
Sparing a quick look behind me, I saw Belshazzar tossing the rope around the folded mizzen lateen. He was half using his vampire speed—he’d learned earlier that moving that fast on a wet deck was flat out stupid. Rilen had barely caught him by the shirt.
He stared down at the wet planks, accusingly. “I haven’t run on a non-skid deck in…”
“Non-skid? How does that work?” I asked. “Never mind, we have to get the sails stowed.”
Each of the men on the ship had almost gone overboard at least once. I had even been pulled to the edge while I was trying to make Dorian understand what I wanted him to do.
Aiko finally grabbed him and put him on the mainmast to try to get the lines untangled and secured.
“Are we screwed without that sail?” Rilen called.
“We were screwed with it!” I yelled back.
The ocean wasn’t calming at all. I didn’t understand where this had come from—all I knew of the weather never gave a hint that this kind of wind and rain would kick up.
Belshazzar grabbed the other side of the wheel and let me shake out my tired arms. The sky was lighter, but the lightning still sliced down to the water.
“Isn’t there anything we can do?” Belshazzar asked.
