Siren's Fury (25 page)

“Then why didn’t you tell her?”

“Because it wouldn’t have made a difference,” Myles says, looking at me.

I don’t reply.

Because standing here so close to Eogan I can feel his heart, his realness, even as he’s igniting the air around us with the angered heat pouring off his skin . . . I know it wouldn’t have. I would’ve chosen the same and chanced it.

Eogan suddenly sags. Turning from Myles, he presses against my arm. His tone falls from furious to soft, urgent. “Nym, I don’t have much time. Have you spoken with Sir Gowon yet?”

I prop him up with my hands, willing him my strength, my energy whether it’s of a darker variety or not. “He didn’t believe me. And I’m not certain it would make a difference now anyway because Draewulf’s Dark Army has taken over.”

“Did you give Gowon the message?”

“I told him about the Elegy, but it didn’t matter.”

He runs a hand through his hair, and everything about that simple gesture, that familiar act, makes my shoulders ache and my heart whisper its determination that I want things how they were. I
want what existed two weeks ago. “You can take care of it all right now.” He dips his gaze to my hand still holding a blade.

I glance away. We both know I can’t do that.

He sighs. “Listen, I’m sorry for all of this. But I need you to find a way to speak with Gowon again and make him understand.”

“He won’t listen. He either can’t tell you’re not acting like yourself or he doesn’t care. Either way, he doesn’t trust me.”

His lashes flutter, and for a moment a glint of shame slips through along with his frustration. He rubs a hand along his stubbly jawline. “Gowon was brought on as my father’s advisor when I was young, and I’m sorry to say that any coldness displayed on Draewulf’s part is more familiar to Gowon than anything I’ve become in the four years since he’s seen me.” His eyes level with mine even as his chest shudders and his body sags again. “But I need you to try again. Tell him to look again at the Elegy. Tell him it’s begun.”

I swallow. “What’s begun?”

His expression ices over as he pulls away. I watch it. One second it’s soft and tired and concerned, and the next it’s sterile. Something behind it flutters.

“Blast it all, Eogan, what’s going on?
What’s
begun? Why is Draewulf keeping us alive? And how do I use this . . .
thing
to free you?” I shove my fingers toward him and let a jolt snake out of them, latching onto his shoulder. He immediately lurches back again and thrusts my palm away.

“Nym, you can’t use that on me. I am trying my best to survive long enough to . . .” The stiff expression softens even as his voice is gravely cautious.

“Long enough until what?
Until Draewulf leaves you?
”

“Unlike Myles, Gowon’s a good man, Nym. He’ll look out for you and do what needs to be done for the Bron people.”

“That’s not what I asked,” I snap. “Can you survive long enough until Draewulf leaves you?”

A sigh. Finally, “No.”

And he doesn’t have to explain. Because he is dying too soon. Too fast.

And no one can fix it but me.

Eogan’s face yellows for a heartbeat and he looks even more ill. Aged. He runs a finger over a lock of my hair. His breath is coming thick, tangling against my skin and landing on my tears that appeared from who knows where and are dripping off my cheeks and chin. His finger brushes my lips. “Let me go,” he whispers. “End this for all of us.”

Not a bleeding chance.
“Don’t you see what I’ve just done? That I’ve brought you to the surface? Do you know what this means? We’re so close. I can help you!”

“You can’t save me, Nym. Especially not with that ability.”

My voice cracks. “You don’t mean that.”

His body’s doing that shivering thing again, and it’s quaking so hard my body’s trembling too. “Get rid of this ability Myles gave you and get away from him. Get away from
me
.” He grips my arm but it’s not to steady himself; it’s to force me back, to force me to listen. “You have to survive, do you understand? For you, for me, for the Hidden Lands . . .” His quivering is becoming violent. His fingers cup my face. “Tell Gowon we were wrong. Tell him he’s taking the blood in order. He needed me first.”

I’m shaking my head. “First for what?”
What is he talking about?

“Just as our Uathúil powers are bound to our land, so are they
bound to our blood. He needed mine first for the block. To protect him.” His head tips strangely. I squint. And suddenly I’m losing him. “I will stay alive as long as I can because I will not let you die at his hands. But you have to kill me or run, Nym.”

And then he’s leaning in, brushing his lips against mine in a kiss. “If you don’t, I swear I
will
come back to haunt the very breath in your lungs and blood in your bones—I will
make
you survive.” His chest is heaving, his lungs shoving the words up his throat. And suddenly I’m watching him fade, fade, fade through my fingertips, clamoring for every single breath of consciousness as the black seeps its way back in to muddy those green eyes I could’ve swam in forever.

“No! I won’t let you go. I won’t let him take you!” Can’t he see that? Can’t he see he’s the only person who’s ever existed that I could feel safe with? That I could be better with?

That I can save?

His lips part into a bemused, ghoulish smile.

And suddenly that vortex in me is growing, craving, calling out for air. I press my palm back onto his chest and feel Draewulf’s essence fighting against Eogan.

I squeeze. I
will
free him.

“Nym, don’t. I won’t be able . . .” His voice cuts off as if he’s choking. And it sounds like death in my ears.

“I will
not
let you take him,” I say to the monster reappearing. But it’s too late because that smile’s already turning, twisting, even as I go from cleaving my hand against his chest to beating it and swearing that
I will become strong enough to free him
. “Just give me another day,” I whisper to Eogan’s fading emerald eyes.

Draewulf raises a fist to smack me.

Then stops. And scoffs, as if I’m not even worth his repulsion, as if seeing me suffer was torture enough to satisfy his sick bloodlust.
He tucks a strand of hair behind his ear and purposefully, casually, turns and walks away. Flicking his fingers to hurl an unprepared Myles once again at the wall.

I lunge after him but there’s a rustle and a swirling of thick black fog wisps that fill the air and block my vision, and by the time I’ve weaved my way through them, Draewulf is gone.

Abruptly I’m bending over and coughing from that chasm in my chest that has absorbed too much energy and yet not enough. Never enough. My bones are rattling so hard it feels like I’m having a seizure and my head won’t stop pounding.

Myles’s face swims bizarrely in front of me when I walk over to him, and he grabs my arm to pull himself up. For a moment, my skin prickles beneath his fingers.

“Looks like you’ll be needing to hurry the training, my dear.”

CHAPTER 28

W
HEN WE REACH THE HALLWAY TO OUR quarters, five wraiths swarm us with their sunken-in, death-masked faces spouting hisses and glaring at us with their chilling yellow gazes. Their bony hands reach for our arms. “Ussss. Ussss,” it almost sounds like they’re saying amid the bustling Bron boots and shouted questions as to how we got out and where we’ve been.

I recoil from the wraiths and lurch for the Bron soldiers. “I need to speak with Rasha,” I tell the largest guard, the one who tried to take my knives after the banquet two nights ago.

“You’re in no position to ask anything.” He grabs my shoulder and hustles me through the wraiths and toward my room, but as we’re passing Rasha’s, I reach a foot out and kick her door.

There’s an immediate click and the giant guard stalls—perhaps to see if she’ll allow me entrance or simply because I go limp in his arms and he doesn’t feel like dragging me. Either way, the door creaks open and through the partial space I see Rasha slumped on the bed, her brown face pale. She frowns.

“My apologies,” the Bron guard says, and drags me toward my room. I could count to five before she calls after us to let me enter.

“But only Nym.” She peers coolly past me to Myles, who’s being jostled by his own angry set of guards. Behind us, the Dark Army soldiers hiss louder, a low, nerve-clenching sound.

The Bron guard shoves me in and the Cashlin men slam the door behind me, then proceed to make a quick weapons search of me, confiscating my knives before situating themselves, two near the windows and three by the door.

“Well?”

I take a deep breath. “I need your help.”

Rasha lifts a brow.

“To speak with Sir Gowon. As much as I hate to admit it, I believe he can help us. And Eogan,” I add softly.

She nods as if she already knew this.

I move closer to her bed. “Look, I’m sorry I was a bolcrane and I’m sorry about what I said earlier.” I look over at her guards. “For insulting your people regarding the war.”

“Me too.”

I wait. Because I’m hoping that’s not all she has to say.

She sighs. “However . . .” She takes a deep breath. “There may be some accuracy to it.” Her intense gaze eases, almost to the point it glimmers with a fleck of shame. “It’s true we didn’t help your Elemental people,” she whispers. “We did more than you know, but not enough. I’ll not make excuses because we have our reasons for staying uninvolved, but still, some of the decisions our matriarchs have made have not always been right. Nor favored by everyone.”

I nod.

She flutters her hand as if it’s no big deal and her voice takes on its airy tone. “Apologies exchanged and accepted then. However,
that doesn’t let you off from explaining to me what in hulls you were thinking in taking on . . .
whatever
it is you took on.”

I peer at her guards again who are watching us in silence. Then turn and stride to the open window overlooking the airship pad. “How much can you see?”

“Enough to know that you went with Myles and took on an ability that’s not your own.” The bed creaks beneath her weight. “I can’t see it clearly, but it looks dark. Oh Nym, what were you thinking? Why didn’t you come to me first? I warned you and everything!”

I flip around. “And what would you have told me? That it wasn’t a good idea? I knew that but I had to do something. And so far it’s been fine.” I curl my nearly perfect hands to show her. “Better than fine actually.” I look up with a grin. “I almost freed him tonight. Another day and I should be—”

“I would’ve told you it was more dangerous than you imagine.” Her face has grown serious. She slips her feet onto the floor and stands to stare at me with both hands on her hips.

Did she not hear me?
I almost freed him.
“You think I didn’t weigh the cost? My Elemental power was dangerous too—the
most
dangerous Eogan once said—and I learned to control it. I can do so with this one too.”

“A nice sentiment, but—”

I start toward her. “But what? You would’ve wanted me to give up? How could I? And now—now it’s almost worked, Rasha. We’re going to do this!”

She pauses and, after a moment, nods in resignation. “Perhaps you would’ve chosen differently if I’d trusted you with more information on the airship.” She reseats herself on the bed. “And I understand why you made your decision, Nym. I just don’t know
that in this case the end result will justify the means of getting there.”

“Then we should’ve just killed him when we both had the chance.” I look away, at the door. At the ceiling. At anything but her concerned frown as a stab of discomfort pricks my spine. Why do she and Eogan not see what this can do?

A moment longer and I sigh. “Eogan agrees with you if that makes you feel better.”

“Agrees how?”

“That this power I’ve taken is dangerous. He says it’s what created Draewulf.” I dig my foot into the carpet and swallow hard to shore up my suddenly quaking throat.

She gives a single, sad dip of her head. Another half-minute and she lifts her gaze to one of her Cashlin guards. “Ask them to tell Sir Gowon that the Elemental and I demand to speak with him. If he refuses, tell him I’m aware of a defining choice he made eighteen years ago.” She hesitates. “And if the Bron guard outside refuses, tell him I’m aware of what he did last evening.”

The guard clicks his heels and unlocks the door to speak with the Bron soldiers out in the hall.

I furrow my brow.

She looks at me and bites her lip. And admits with a subdued smirk, “I have no idea what he did last night, but it’s worth a shot.”

I grin. “And Sir Gowon?”

Sadness flashes through her expression and into her tone. “You are aware of Bron’s rite of passage for their boy soldiers?”

When she doesn’t continue, I nod. Mainly because I suddenly don’t trust my voice. All I can picture is Kel.

“When Gowon’s own son was ready to take it, Eogan’s father used it as a test of loyalty, giving Gowon a choice—have the boy
prove his and his father’s fealty to the crown or be demoted. When it came time . . . The young man the boy was made to kill in combat was his best friend. A child barely a year younger than himself.”

My chest hardens. “You read that?”

She nods. “Although it’s now in the far past, I’m certain it’s still an area of shame for him.”

An area of shame yet he inflicts punishment on those who would disobey? Or perhaps that’s why he allowed Kel to live the other night.

She clears her throat and drops her gaze to my wrist. “So who gave it to you?”

I glance down as she fluffs a pillow and leans back.

“The ability.”

Oh.
“Myles took me to a woman.”

“How
did she do it?”

“Through a drink.”

“Can you go back and get rid of it?”

I don’t answer that. I won’t answer. I merely walk over until I’m facing her spot on the bed again. “Like I said, it’s been fine. I don’t need you to worry about it. I think we should be concentrating instead on what we’re going to ask Sir Gowon and how to stop the Dark Army.”