Winterlight, I mouthed mockingly.
His lip curled as he realized his mistake. “Tie her to the capstan,” he said, drawing a dagger and facing the steps to the main deck. “The rest of you, with me.”
Deimos threw me against the spokes of the nautical windlass, pushing me to the floor with a knee pinning my legs. His arm stretched over my head, reaching for a length of cable.
My heart bludgeoned against my ribs. Not fear.Anger.
A burning vat of acid rose through my throat, fire lighting in my veins. To have come so close and find myself here, unable to cross the final stretch between me and freedom.
Just three short yearsof freedom—that’s all I wanted.
I lurched forward, closing the space between us with a snap of teeth. Deimos swerved away, avoiding a chunk stolen from his chin. Teeth bared, I stared at him through the long strands of my hair, a silent snarl coiling my lips.
The cold eclipse of nearby drones fogged his breath as he cinched my bonds tight. He stood, thumb over the handle of his own knife, lupine eyes hard on me.
Shouts cracked through the sound of the sea. Cries for help. Heavy thuds punctuated the clamor, the sound of slow footfalls and dragged weight followed by distant splashes. Deimos held my book up, rotating it to catch my attention. He placed it on the stairs behind him, hand still over his knife.
We listened in silence to the percussion of murder. To hollow grunts and iron clanging. A dark puddle gathered between the seams of the plank boards above my head. It finally dripped, liquid splatting over wood, dull and soft.
Then quiet.
An eternity of quiet. Of freedom-snatching, heart-rending quiet.
I glared at Deimos through my lashes. I wished I’d killed him the day he’d pulled me from the docks of my home. I’d felt my power that day. The force of it igniting my veins, rushing from my heart to every tiny capillary and back, masked by pain and fear for Selena. Something felt but not understood. I should have summoned it anyway.
Thumb smoothing over the handle of his knife, he watched me as though he knew my thoughts. Without a trace of emotion. The same expression I usually wore. Then he drew something from his pocket and swallowed it. Knife in hand, he rounded the stairs to the main deck and vanished.
The puddle over my head continued to gather.
Drip…drip…drip…
The sound set my teeth on edge. I rocked my head against the capstan, ignoring the shiver that trickled down my skin when I remembered my bargain with Darkness.
The ship rocked onto its side, wood groaning as its sails turned. We were heading back.
Calder.
No. I’d come too far. I’d come tooclose. I’d summoned Theia, Goddess of the Sea, and she’d given me my fate. I’d sacrificed my sister, my voice, the remaining years of my life. I would not return to Calder tied to some wooden axis in the hold of a ship for Thaan to command for the rest of my days. The rest of my days weremine, and I would not give them back.
I twisted my hands, fighting the cable Deimos had tied. My left wrist was too tight to budge, but my right hand had never uncurled from the clawed fist I’d cursed myself with by writing in Selena’s book. Fire seared into the tendons of my wrist, a sluggish burn that lingered even after I paused to breathe through the heat. Sweat beaded across my forehead. I gritted my teeth and tried again, turning, turning, turning. Until it came free.
My hand and wrist were ghost-white. I watched the color return, flexing blood back into my fingers, but they barely moved. The burn flared down my arm, but I reached around to my other hand, numb fingertips searching for a knot to untie.
A sound from above made me freeze. Sharp and flat. Unidentifiable. I waited for only a moment, listening for steps nearing the stairs. But the quiet returned. The ship bobbed left and right, pumping through island swells.
I scrambled to set my stiff fingers into motion.
Frayed cord. The ribs of a knot. Gentle tugs, one at a time. My heart sped as the rope relaxed. Another pull, and my hand came free.
Success.
I shoved to my feet, flinging open the weapon cabinet and grabbing the nearest sword. I’d never held one before. It dangled awkwardly from myleft hand, ungainly in my grip. I hesitated. Then lifted the skirt of my dress and grabbed a dagger, fitting the blade snug in my garter.
Thank Theia for obstinate pleasure servants.
My book sat on the steps, and I cut a length of burlap hanging from one of the crates, wrapping it around the book and tying the ends through my dress’s sash. Then lifted my head toward the sky above.
Silence unfurled from the main deck, broken only by the sound of the sea, the protest of stretching and shrinking wood. Sword in my left hand, my right destroyed, I leaned on my elbow as I fought for balance against the hard sway of the ship, climbing stairs back to the sun.
