“You set the fire,” Kai said, in a voice so cold even his own skin prickled at the sound. “And they paid you for it.”
Why else would he have tried so valiantly to save Kai’s life, fought so hard to drag him off that crumbling ship? There wasno love lost between them, not since Kai had threatened to feed him his own testes if he did not leave Ceri alone. A promise on which he would be all too happy to follow through, especially with the raging waters now whispering encouragement in his ear.
“No,” Pike gasped. “N-no, I stole the ice.I stole it.”
Green light lit his widening eyes in the split second before Kai took hold of his shirt, slamming him backward into the biting cold edge of the boxes.
“Liar,” he hissed.
A muddled chorus of outrage rose from somewhere behind him, and several pairs of feet skidded closer. Kai let the sting in his skin overcome him, let it burn in his veins and hum in his ears, let his blood call to the Mother,roarfor her—and the roar spilt forth from his own body and became the roar of the waves. The sailors skittered to a stop, swearing colourfully; one of them, he thought by the soft thud behind him, must have fallen to the ground in his own haste to retreat from the towering wall of water that hung over them all, a glittering canopy of seafoam.
Kai pressed his forearm beneath Pike’s chin, forcing his gaze up.
“You killed two people.”
A boy with his whole future ahead of him. A woman with the future of their people ringing endlessly in her mind.
“I didn’t—” Pike spluttered uselessly, “—wasn’t.”
Kai eased the pressure on the man’s windpipe, ignoring the hiss of reproach from his own stinging blood.
“It was an accident,” Pike choked out on a relieved gasp. “They just wanted to scare you. Show you what she could do.”
No remorse in that relief. Just a wheedling, weak-willed man, desperate to explain why he wasn’tquiteas dark a stain on the soul of Adhlas as he appeared. Kai pressed down on his throat, and the roaring in his veins became a purr, the wave above arching higher, looming over them all.
“Please,” Pike wheezed.
“I just want to scare you, Pike,” Kai said softly. “Show you what I can do.”
“I’ll give you anything, please.”
“You have nothing I want,” Kai spat at once.
But that wasn’t quite true. The pendant pulsed in protest as Kai stepped swiftly back, dropping Pike in a crumpled heap on the dock. The wave retreated, a decided pressure filling his chest as though he’d absorbed the full volume of that water into his own body.
“Passage to Eisalaan,” he said tonelessly, gesturing to the vessel beside them, its gangway still lowered and waiting. “We’ll take your trade ship, cut through the graveyard.”
And he would leverage the waters. Call on the Mother to speed their journey. It could be his one chance to catch Avette unaware, cutting ahead of her Eisalaan Gard and beating them back to their silver shores.
“I have a shipment to deliver,” Pike said, the words so weak it was clear he’d given up his attempt at a protest halfway through. Kai sneered at him all the same; it felt good. The pendant hummed in agreement, more of its cold seeping into him in reward.
“And would that be the same client you delivered your last shipment to?”
It hadn’t escaped his notice, now that he was reminded of the Machull ice. On their first night, Eleni mentioned a missing shipment of goods. Only Kai had made his bed amongst those very goods every night, so it intrigued him to hear that it had gone missing somewhere between theArabidaeand the palace.
“Leave the ice,” said Kai over his shoulder to the sailors, eyes never leaving Pike’s breathless, purple face. “And climb aboard. We’ll need to set sail before the sun clears that horizon.”
The sailors withdrew at once, their footsteps echoing up the gangway as Kai stared expectantly down at their crewmate. Pike’s ruddy face went from purple, to white, to creeping, raging red. The sudden surge of anger brought him a burst of courage, and he shoved himself up on his forearms, jutting his square chin as he glowered up at Kai.
“That crew answers tome.You force us aboard that ship without our cargo, and I can’t promise they won’t drop you overboard the moment we pass the harbour.”
Kai laughed.
An honest burst of laughter, thick with delight and so charged with the Mother’s call that his pendant beamed like the sun emerging from the clouds. He dropped into a crouch, elbows propped on his knees as he leaned in and let the merry green glow light Pike’s stricken face.
“And what would that accomplish exactly?”
Kai smiled at Pike’s snivelling silence.
