I feel her tense behind me. “They’re not in control of themselves. We don’t hurt them.”
“Zephyra, Zephyra, Zephyra,” they moan, one after the next, until their haunted gasps fill the open chamber like a noxious gas. They skulk forward, almost limping with stiffness. “You are home, and he is near. The sorcerer will be so pleased.”
He is near.
He is near.
He is near.
The chanted words sear through my gut like bile, and Zephyra wavers, her body quivering against mine. It’s her worst fear come to life. The sorcerer is close, and we aren’t.
“I… I don’t…” Her braid whips me in the mouth as she twists and turns, searching for any way out of this. And then—“Do youhearthat?”
I glance over my shoulder at her. “Are you referring to the seashell monsters’ demented chanting?”
“No. No, thevoices, Arion. Do you hear them?”
In the minuscule gaps of silence, I seek them out. A whisper or a scream oranything, but there is nothing—nothing—in this fucking chamber. And she has started losing her mind with fear. “There areno voices, Zephyra, but thereareguards. You need to decide what we’re doing, because I’m not certain we can debilitate seven stone men at the same time without magic. Even if theyareslow.”
“No killing. No magic,” she says.
Right as the guard nearest her shouts, “Seize her!”
All at once, the guards stop moving slowly. All at once, they leap across the chamber. Straight toward Zephyra. Her gaze widens further as the first lands in front of her, his flesh oozing black ichor and sand. I whirl around to protect her, to stop him by ramming my sword through its skull, but she rears back. Not with her dagger, however, with herfist. She punches the guard straight on his gnarled nose. Her knuckles collide with sharp green barnacles, and she hisses with pain—but the monstrous guard makes no sound. Has noreaction.
While her skin splits, while shebleeds, it remains frozen.
Her chest heaves as she clutches her fist to her chest, and the monstrous guard—it raises a hand. It moves forward as if to seize her by her throat. And her blood is still dripping, oozing down her arm, beading along the floor.
The sight of her blood, of herpain, sickens me as much as it did on the ship. Worse than it did on the ship. Because she isn’t safe here, and I’m supposed to protect her. Ineedto protect her.
My magic stops roiling, stops thrashing and clawing and snapping rabid jaws inside me, and it finallyexplodes.
A ring of blue flame erupts from my chest, devouring the guards in a split second. Incinerating them into seven misshapen piles of ash and dust. Unfortunately, I’m not in control. The magic doesn’t stop there. It blows against the limestone walls—throughthe walls—into the very heart of the castle, and the whole thing rumbles in response. Not as if the halls are changing, but as if the halls arebreaking. Pieces of rock fall overhead. Chunks of limestone crumble from the walls. The floor splinters under our feet.
“What the fuck did you do?” Zephyra backs into me, horrified. “You can’t… you shouldn’t have…”
Her words drift off when she notices my gaze is still at our feet, and she gasps as her blood spills into the tiny fissures, filling thestone crevices, somehowexpandingand swirling larger and larger, slicing the fissures deeper and deeper, seemingly carving them into the shape of…
I still. My heart stops beating.
Her blood has revealed the shape of—
“A door,” she breathes. “That… looks like a door.”
The castle quakes again, rough enough to throw Zephyra off her feet. I manage to catch her before she hits the floor, and I hurl us out of the way of more debris. Rocks. Stones. I don’t give a fuckwhatit is, so long as it doesn’t hit us. Hither. I sweep her hair from her face, checking her for injuries, my palms hot on her cheeks. “Are you okay? Are you hurt anywhere else? Let me heal your hand.”
“I’m fine, Arion.” She pushes me away, seconds before a massive boulder crashes between us.
No. Not a boulder.
Aperson.
What the fuck?
Philippe splatters against the floor, viscera exploding outward just as violently as my magic had, leaving only his boots, his sword, and his hat untouched. Zephyra looks up, and so do I. It’s not just rocks falling. It’s people. Our people. All of them.
Two more smash. Splatter.Die.And decades of training and years of the Trials flash before my eyes. I stop thinking. I start reacting. Using my magic, I manage to catch two crew members inches before they hit the floor, phantom hands hoisting them aside as I prepare a method to rescue the rest.
