I look away as Odgar wrenches his weapon from the body, but his voice urges me on. “Can you shoot fire arrows at their ship?”
Brilliant. “Yes, I think so.”
“Alright, I’ve got you covered. You shoot, I’ll ward off these shit sacks.”
Energy buzzes through me as I grab the arrow again and nock it. I focus on setting the arrow tip on fire, but it doesn’t come willingly.
“Any time now,revna,” Odgar says in a singsong voice. The sound of squelching flesh follows.
Ignoring the churn in my stomach, I will my flames to life again. This time, I let the embers shoot up along the shaft of the arrow to the tip, then loose. It soars toward the other boat and into the chest of one of the Ardallans.
I shoot another, then another, alternating between aiming for parts of the boat and the attackers.
The fight seems to go on forever. My entire body is quaking, and I’m not sure I can summon any more fire. When I’m certain I have nothing left, the surviving Ardallans jump from our ship and swim for theirs.
A small cheer rises up around me. Odgar douses any remaining flames, his water sweeping across the floor of our boat and overboard.
My knees buckle, but by the time I realize I’m falling, I’m already on the hard deck. I force breaths into my raw throat, my skin feeling as much on fire as the other boat desperately steering away from us.
Odgar drops down beside me. “Are you alright?” he asks, sounding breathless.
I can barely lift my arms, but I nod, meeting his gaze.
“Thank Brenjor,” he says, invoking the Uldaran protector and god of thunder. He lets his head sag for a moment.
Someone pats me on the shoulder, but it’s not Odgar. I glance up at Valdis, and her blue eyes regard me with respect. “Well done,” she says, wiping blood from her spear with a stained cloth.
I turn away from her and retch my guts up all over myself and the deck.
Chapter 32
Days transpire,and my entire body feels on the brink of rebellion. My head throbs endlessly, even with the tinctures and Alys’s healing. The dizzy spells come more frequently, and my back and bum twinge incessantly. Even dismounted, everything hurts—my thighs scream at me as we trek up a mountain. I focus as best as I can on the path ahead and not on the crumbly edge of the mountain where death taunts us.
Tiernan has been teetering between simmering silence and tenderness almost constantly. It seems that the farther east we travel, the more tense he becomes, and the less he seems to sleep. Often, when I wake in the mornings, he’s no longer on the bedroll beside me. He’s always quick to bring me a tincture or even to heal me so Alys doesn’t need to exert more energy than she already does, but he becomes more and more withdrawn. Every day I ask him if he’s doing alright, and every day he says he’s fine. But there’s a look in his eyes I cannot quite figure out, and the more I remind him that he can tell me anything, the less he seems willing.
I try not to let the frustration get to me as we hike up the mountain at the start of the late afternoon. I mull over my ancestry, wishing I had time to talk to Alys privately aboutmy birth parents and her history with them. It still stings knowing that the only parents who’d ever been part of my life weren’t related to me by blood. That Taig isn’t even related to me by blood. Part of me is angry that Alys didn’t tell me the truth sooner—that she had these suspicions about me and chose to keep them to herself—but had I been in the same position, perhaps I would’ve done the same thing. Still, it feels like another betrayal of sorts, and with Osheen traveling with us as well, Ava not speaking to her mother, and Tiernan being unbearably secretive, there’s enough tension in our group to cut with a knife.
Isobel is always a tension breaker. I’m not sure I’veeverseen her in a bad mood. She seems to have endless energy and chatters almost nonstop. She’s been trying to learn more signs, but she often forgets that she needs to sign for me to understand. Still, I find it endearing, and I find myself wishing I had her enthusiasm for everything. Her sibling is the opposite—much like Ava, they always seem unimpressed. They’re one of very few words, but never malevolent and always helpful.
We’re trudging through a grassy forest of tall trees packed close together when the sun begins its descent. Ava calls for a stop. We’re all dragging our feet—all in desperate need of a good night’s sleep.
Isobel and Sloan make a fire, and Chiyo approaches me as the others patrol to ensure the coast is clear. “This place reminds me of Dubh Carrig,” she says.
I glance around and smile. “I can see why. Do you miss it there?”
“I do. I wish I could exchange letters with my mam more frequently, but … I don’t want to waste all our enchanted parchment, of course.”
“Of course. It wouldn’t hurt to useonethough.”
She chuckles. “Look who’s embracing her rebel identity!”
I laugh, and my back protests, but it’s worth it. Tiernan returns, a smile on his face. “There’s a private spot near the river. Perfect for bathing,” he reports.
“Great,” says Chiyo. “Ladies first.” She slings her arm around me as a look of disappointment, if I’m not mistaken, crosses Tiernan’s face. I raise a brow at him, but he seems to remember to school his features into a carefree expression.
I cast out my thoughts to him. “Unless you want time to talk or something?”
Tiernan shakes his head. “Go ahead. Chiyo’s excited.” Even as he mind speaks, Chiyo releases me, seemingly calling to the other ladies. Ava and Isobel look our way, but Alys smiles and politely declines.
