“Mortem.” Gabe seemed more horrified by how the corpses had been animated than by the fact that they were clearly attacking. More horrified by the implications. “Those were made with Mortem.”
Well, shit.
Reaching for Spiritum was instinct, trying to slip into channeling-space. But Bastian’s hands remained empty of golden threads, and his vision stayed in stubborn color. He had no magic, no way to sever the ties of Mortem animating the drowned bodies. He had nothing but the knife in his shoe.
Which he pulled and used, hacking at the hand still straining against the hull, trying to haul the rest of its bloated body up onto the deck. The hand came off easily at the wrist, the rest of thecorpse dropping back into the ocean with a wet plop. The fingers kept wriggling. Bastian kicked it over the side.
When he whirled around, Finn was staring, a ring of white visible around the entirety of his irises. “What in every fucking hell is that?”
“Dead bodies that my wife is somehow reanimating.” Bastian looked to Gabe. “Either our girl has gone rogue, or Apollius made her do it.”
Gabe had looked right next to rage before, but now he was made of it. His hands spread open at his sides, flames poised in each palm. “I’ve got the next one.”
“There might not be a next one.” Val was leaning over the railing, staring into the water. “The dead don’t seem concerned with us, your now-handless fellow notwithstanding. Pity about that crewman.”
“What?” Bastian crossed to her, peered over the railing.
The dead were a school of fish, arrowing through the water, corpses slipping graceful as mermaids beneath the waves. All of them headed for the horizon, for the Isles. For the Caldienan fleet.
“Looks like they’re only going after Caldien,” Val said.
“Not quite,” Malcolm said grimly.
Bastian looked up from the macabre parade beneath the sea’s surface. More ships appearing on the horizon line, sapphire pennants snapping. Kirythea. All the ships that had been patrolling the sea around the Isles for the past year, now gathered up and headed their way.
And approaching from the north, barely large enough to see—more ships, with a sliver of purple waving from splinter-thin masts. Auverraine. Alexis must have gotten reports of Kirytheans on the move, given the word.
“Well,” Bastian said. “Now it’s a party.”
Excellent, beloved.
The dead came to her calling, easier than ever before. They unearthed themselves from centuries of sand, their bodies barely held together by magic. She directed them like a symphony, steering them toward the Caldienan vessels, the Kirythean fleet, the Auverrani warships just encroaching on the horizon. She was god and she knew no loyalty but to herself.
And to Me.
One ship she left alone, after a single mistake at the beginning of her raising, when power was heady and hard to steer. That one ship seemed to glow in her mind, a map to it like she used to feel the map of the catacombs. Her body had always been a compass.
Everyone she loved—used to love, still did, love that had grown and festered through ages—in one place. One fast ship, steered by threads of wind, bringing close those reliquaries of power that she would take.
Her body was changing. She could feel it, pain but pleasure, too. Growing larger, shining like a miniature sun. Lifting off the ground, hovering above the Fount. The skin of her back went taut, then burst, a gout of white feathers and golden blood, wings that spread from one edge of the isle to the other.
“I will be better,” Lore murmured to herself, quiet in her metamorphosis. “They’ll see.”
They will, Apollius soothed.They will.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
BASTIAN
War is where true leaders prove themselves.
—From a letter written by Emperor Ouran to his son before the death of the Duke of Balgia
Alie didn’t ask before speeding up their ship, and it nearly sent Bastian pitching over the edge. The railing dug into his gut, the prow almost lifting from the water as Alie spun threads of wind, puffing up the sails near to bursting.
A fist in his shirt, Gabe hauling him backward. They landed in a tangle on the deck, just in time for Bastian to see Lilia grab Mari’s arm and pull her away from the rail, too.
“Thanks.” Mari’s voice was unsteady, from either the sudden speed or the sight of the restless sea-dead or both. She stood, brushing herself off, giving Val her hand to pull her up from the deck. “I’m Mari. I don’t think we were introduced.”
