Let. Go.
A garbled cry echoes overhead followed by a heavy thud, and I curl into myself as tight as I can.
“Please!”
It was foolish to think I possess even the slightest control over my magic. It crackles beneath my skin until my heart races, and it’s all I can do not to claw at my clothes and throw myself out the window. My body wants to run—to fling itself against the windand escape everything above and below. I bind the impulse the best I can, so focused on fighting myself that I don’t notice the pounding of wood has shifted from the ceiling to the door.
Not until the latch splinters and the door crashes open, my magic breaking free with it.
“Feck.”
I’m on my feet and darting around Faolan’s desk before the man can grab me, but his hand still brushes my skin. Visions of scarlet and black flesh race across my eyes. He stops at the end of the desk—as broad as Lorcan but blond, half his face streaked liberally with silver dust. As I trip on Faolan’s discarded scarf, he grins.
“There you are.”
We move at the same time. I’m fast, but his reach is long. He catches my arm just as I clear the corner of Faolan’s desk, dragging me over the wooden top until I’m sprawled on the ground before him. My shirt catches on the corner, tearing down the back.
“Please—” He has me by the hair and I scream, writhing against his hold before instincts kick in and I curl into myself as before. A stupid decision. If I close my eyes, hold on to myself, the evil will retreat into the shadows, won’t it?
He hoists me up like a sack of grain.
This is how I die. Not drowning by a storm or at my father’s hands, not looking for a lost isle, but laid before the king I spurned trying to take charge of my own life. My fingers tighten around the dagger and—
The dagger.
I wrench my wrist free and swipe, splitting his arm open from wrist to elbow. Blood sprays the ground seconds before I meet it as he drops me. My shoulder and hip hit the wood first and I gasp, fingers flying apart, sending the dagger skittering across the ground.
“No!” I roll onto my knees and am halfway to my feet, searching for the glint of the blade, when he catches my ankle, throwing me onto my back. Stars swim across my vision, but I kick until something crunches. Scramble on hands and knees toward the door.
Get to the deck. To Faolan.
I’ve not crawled two paces when the man jerks me onto my feet and strikes me across the face. Twice.
The shock throws me back against the desk, where I latch on to the edge, choking on air. His own breaths are ragged at my back, so close my skin crawls to get away.
“Try anything else, little princess, and I’ll return you to Maccus in pieces.”
Leather bites into my wrists as he attempts to bind them, yet as he presses me into the desk, I catch the glint of metal at last. Not the dagger, but a wee silver box engraved with whorls of smoke and seven-pointed leaves.
Bruidin flame.
I lurch forward, breaking his grip just long enough to flick the lid free and take every leaf in hand. One hard twist has me facing him, and though my wrist screams in protest against the bindings, it’s nothing to what I’m about to feel. My jaw clenches tight as I shove my hand over the man’s eyes and curl it into a fist, breaking all ten leaves at once.
Flames erupt from my palm.
I wrench my hand back, but it does nothing to dull the pain—nor the sound of his screams. Fragments of fire cling to his face in a macabre display, transforming his skin into a blistered map of scarlet. I gape, horrified, as he gouges his cheeks with tattered nails, trying to rake the burning leaves free.
I stumble out the door, scooping up the forgotten dagger as I go.
The ship tilts sharply as I reach the hallway, slamming me intothe opposite wall in a pitiful tangle of limbs. I don’t recognize the animal sound that escapes my lips when my burned hand strikes wood, nor the clumsy series of thwacks coming from the stairway opposite me.
Not until a body rolls over the final step and crumples at the base, useless and broken. Somehow, I don’t scream. Instead, I walk back as quietly as I can manage in the semidarkness, my gaze locked on the steps. My back meets a curved wall that holds for a breath, then gives behind me.
“Feck!” The swear escapes before I can bite my tongue, and I writhe against ropes of fabric, desperate to get free, when someone hauls me up by the arm.
“Winds o’ fury, lass, you—oi!” Faolan catches my wrist just in time to stop the dagger from sinking into flesh, and my eyes stretch as wide as they’ll go.
It’sFaolan. He’s speckled with blood and gods know what else, shirt torn down one arm—but he’s smiling, and the sight is so foreign and familiar at once that I drop the dagger to the side and collapse.
