Odgar is almost never without his knitting, or nalbinding, or whatever. Clearly trying to distract himself. I train with Valdis whenever I get the chance. It helps me remain in the present more often than not.
The closer we get to Erleya, the more nauseated and tense I feel, but I try my best to relax.
As I’m dozing off beneath the uncannily hot sunlight, Briony speaks up out of nowhere, and I damn near jump off the boat. I straighten from where I’d fallen asleep leaning against the mast, and Briony’s brows rise.
“Apologies,” she says. “But you are clearly not getting enough sleep.”
“You are as obvious as ever, Briony.”
She smiles and I sink down against the mast, leaning my head back. My body craves sleep, but my mind cannot be still. The anxieties eat away at me.
“What’s on your mind?” Briony asks.
I open one eye and peer at her. It’s sometimes still so odd speaking to her as a friend when she played a role in my torture nearly four months ago. Even now that I know it was for show, sometimes it still triggers me.
“Whatisn’ton my mind?” I retort.
“What happened between you and the Uldaran prince?” She sets a knowing gaze on me. For a woman only in her late twenties, her eyes hold the maturity of someone much older.
I sigh and lower my voice, trying to make my language as delicate as possible for the priestess. “We …” I grapple for a mild word. “Slept together.”
Briony titters. “I am not offended by the wordsexor others you might care to use, but I appreciate your censorship.”
“Fine, we had sex. Then we didn’t. Nothing reallyhappened.” I shrug and hug my arms around my frame. If nothing happened, why do I feel so out of sorts about him now? Why do I want to get closer to him as much as I want to get farther away?
Then again, when have any of my thought processes ever made sense?
“Land!” Someone calls out from the distance, and activity bursts on deck.
I swallow and rise, following Briony to where everyone gathers to look at the stretch of dark green on the horizon.
Valdis and Odgar appear on deck, Odgar smiling at me from a distance before stuffing a ball of wool and his work in progress into his trouser pocket. He begins calling out orders andexchanging quiet instructions with other crew members. As we get closer to the land laden with trees, another larger landmass looms behind it.Thatis Erleya.
“Do you think it would be wise to touch down on the Outer Isles and perhaps then sail across under a guise to Erleya?” Odgar asks.
The Royal Brigade was not heavily active in the Outer Isles when my mother was on the throne, but I’m not sure what’s become of military affairs since then. “Perhaps,” I say at last. “Getting into Erleya in a small boat may not be as easy as you’d think. You lot don’t exactly …fit in.” I eye his thick leather armor and battle-axe over his shoulder. At least he’s shed the fur as we arrived near warmer shores than Uldarvik.
It takes hours still before we are close enough to see the port of the Outer Isles.
As we draw near, a high-pitched sound cuts through the air before an arrow embeds in the ship wall behind me. I shriek and duck as another arrow nearly lodges in my forehead. My heart rate soars, my body immediately growing hot and cold at once.
Everyone scrambles to gather weapons. Guilt rolls through me—I was wrong about the Outer Isles. I was wrong. More arrows rain down, striking some of the crew. Valdis drops beside me on the deck, shoving leather armor onto me, cinching the belts so tight they hurt, then pressing a bow and quiver into my hands. Briony dons leathers as well, but she doesn’t take up a weapon. Instead, her hands are glowing, prepared to blast whatever powers she can at the enemies.
Odgar appears at my side, his axe clutched in his hands, while I think of the best solution given the map. “Sail north,” I whisper to Odgar beside me.
“What?” he shouts over the clatter of arrows.
“Evade and sail north!”
To my horror, small boats are sailing toward us, and even more terrifying, several men clad in dark blue uniforms and black masks over their eyesappearon our deck. Everyone shifts into battle mode as wind, water, and fire whip around our ship.
Fuck, these are all Wielders. How in Lugda’s hells …? I scream as a man appears entirely too close to me. Briony blasts him with blue light, but it never hits him. He disappears only to reappear directly in front of me, and I slice my hand through the air, sending a blade of fire carving through him.
Odgar tugs me away as the man falls hard to his knees, his hands trying and failing to keep his innards where they belong.
One by one, crew members start to fall. My chest aches from the loss all around me. My heart thunders then slows as a terrifyingly familiar power builds hot and dark within me. I want to push away the voice, but more boats are coming, more reinforcement, more Wielders.
After the kindness that these Uldarans have shown me, after everything they’ve done for me and been willing to do, I cannot let them go down this way. I know what my fire can do if I let it. If I embrace it rather than be afraid of it.
