Ferran's Map (51 page)

The sound of creaking floorboards reached
her ears. A jolt of adrenaline sharpened her senses. She checked
her boot and found her knife still hidden there. Her only instinct
was to defend herself.

Dizzy and disoriented, she managed to slip
from the bed and crouch low at the foot of the cot, knife held at
the ready, facing the door. Her vision kept wavering; she squinted
to focus her eyes, waiting for the unknown intruder to make himself
known.

The door swung inward slowly, groaning in
resistance. Her eyes widened as a dark figure filled the doorway:
Cobra. Fear gripped her, and her vision swam again; she wanted to
pass a hand over her eyes.

The assassin fully blocked the doorway and
gazed around the room. She could sense his lethal intentions; he
wanted to kill her.

He stepped inside, walking with a slight
limp as though wounded. She must have injured him when he abducted
her from the parade. She felt satisfied at that—perhaps she could
escape. She wondered how long before more members of the Shade
would arrive. She had to act quickly.

Sora waited until he was only a yard away,
then lunged. She only had one chance. She intended to sever the
tendon at the back of his leg and debilitate him.

Then her sense of balance abandoned her
completely. She stumbled and missed her strike. Cobra stepped
easily away and kicked the knife from her grasp, grabbed her firmly
and lifted her clear off her feet. She tried to struggle, but the
room kept spinning and she couldn't seem to organize her limbs.

“Sora!” Cobra hissed, though now she felt
confused, because his voice didn’t wheeze as it usually did. “Sora,
be calm! Look at me!”

She almost slipped his grasp, but he locked
his arms around her waist. He forcefully picked her up off her feet
and carried her to the cot. Suddenly she felt extremely hot. Sweat
dripped down her forehead and gathered at the back of her neck. She
couldn’t seem to get enough air.

He placed her on the cot and she stared
upward, weak and panting, waiting for the room to stop spinning.
Her vision blurred again, and when it cleared, she saw not Cobra
standing above her, but Crash.

Crash.

Another jolt of near-panic sent her scooting
across the bed. She curled defensively into the farthest corner of
the cot. Yes, she remembered now….Crash joined Cobra’s side in The
Regency, and he was now helping the Shade….He must have accompanied
Cobra when they abducted her from the parade. Caprion was right; he
had betrayed them, but why? Her thoughts felt slippery. She didn’t
know what she remembered or what she had dreamed, or if she was
dreaming now….

They faced each other for a minute in
silence until her heart quit pounding.

“Crash,” she finally said, her voice low.
“Where are we?”

“The Smokeshaft District,” he answered
immediately. “I'll return you to the Ebonaire manor in the morning.
You’re safe here.”

She blinked, wondering if she were truly
safe with him. “Where have you been...?” she murmured.

He let his hair hang down across his face
and didn’t meet her eyes. “I made a promise to you,” he said
softly. “I tried to save Burn’s life. I was impatient...I
confronted the Shade alone. I never should have gone to
Cerastes.”

Her head spun, and for a moment she saw
Cobra sitting before her again, his yellow-green eyes crinkled in a
leering grin. Then his face became distorted and she saw someone
else; the shadows suggested a man with long hair and skeletal,
sunken cheeks. She didn’t recognize him at all, and recoiled in
fear.

He offered her a strange-looking bundle of
herbs. “You must chew this,” he said.

She blinked hard. Her head throbbed. “Who
are you?” she asked hoarsely.

His face shifted again, and then Crash
stared back at her. He looked solemn. Her question didn't seem to
surprise him. “You're sick,” he said firmly. “Cobra poisoned you.
Here.” He pressed the bundle of dry herbs into her hand.
“Chew.”

She stared at him. She understood his words,
and yet she felt overcome by delirium. Now he looked more like a
ghost, his skin pale as snow, his eyes large as moons. Shadows
shifted in the corner of the room and she thought she saw ravens.
She felt hot and sweaty enough to remove her cloak, though she knew
the room must be freezing—it was snowing outside and they had no
fire.

A fever,
she thought rationally,
though it didn't help her delusion.

She put the bundle of herbs in her mouth and
began to chew. The herbs tasted overwhelmingly bitter on her thick
tongue.

“Sora,” Crash said quietly as she chewed, “I
didn't mean to put you in danger. I’ve made many mistakes the past
few days, and I may do things in the future that won’t make sense
to you. It might seem like I’ve betrayed you, but I haven’t. You
have to trust me.”

His words brought a surge of bitterness to
her gut, worse than the strange-tasting herbs. Her thoughts cleared
momentarily, and tears welled in her eyes. “Then it's true, and
you're helping the Shade?” she asked.

“It's not so simple,” he murmured.

Sora shook her head slowly. “When I saw you
in The Regency, I didn’t want to believe it. Caprion was right all
along. You took the Dark God’s weapons to Cerastes, and now he's
done something to you. You’re not the same. I can sense it.”

He didn’t deny her words, but watched her
closely.

“He won't let you go now, will he?” she
asked.

Her intuition seemed to take him off-guard.
“No,” he said. “He won't. I'm afraid I've caused much more harm
than good.”

Sora felt suddenly frail, her body
exhausted. She couldn’t imagine the days to come. What if Crash
never left his Grandmaster's side? What if the Shade dug their way
into his mind? She didn't fully understand what had happened, but
she felt the change in him, the stiffness—the coldness. What if she
lost him forever? Her adventure began when he entered her life; she
couldn’t continue without him.

A sense of helplessness descended. Perhaps
he cared for her, but she couldn’t save him from his past. She
couldn’t help him, and she couldn't fight him.

Her chest felt like it would collapse inward
on itself. Nausea twisted her stomach. “Now what, Crash?” she asked
wearily, defeated. “Are you loyal to him? Take me to Cerastes if
you must—there is no more I can say.” She was at his mercy, and in
many ways, she always had been.

“No,” he said, and then his voice became
unexpectedly gentle. He reached out, grasped her under the arms and
pulled her across the cot. She stiffened, but couldn't resist. His
arms enfolded her. “No, Sora. Not that.
Never
that. I truly
don't know where I've been the last few days. I lost myself for a
while....” He paused and searched her face. “Cerastes is powerful,
and he has a strong influence over the Shade, but when I saw you
again, I knew everything they stood for was a lie.” He looked into
her eyes fiercely. “You brought me back.”

As she gazed up at Crash, his words
frightened her. Could he lose control so completely? Could Cerastes
assert such a powerful hold over him? As silence filled the space
between them, she began to think back on their journey together, on
everything she knew about Crash, and why he would choose to remain
with Cerastes. She almost understood. He had never laid to rest his
past. He could hardly speak of his days in the Hive; he was still
running from it.

But he wasn't the only one with unresolved
history.

When she first entered The Regency, she felt
pulled back into her old life, surrounded by maids and decadence.
Old thoughts resurfaced: her petty ridicule of others, her
preoccupation with her appearance, her desire to be accepted—or
perhaps, to be found acceptable. Old wounds reopened. Once again,
she had a frantic need to uncover the truth about her father's
murder, to reach closure.

Yet now Sora remembered her newer self: a
person more recently defined. She had chosen to leave behind her
estate and all that went with it. She didn't have to play the
nobility's game, or live in fear of rank and status; her
confrontation with Lord Seabourne proved as much. Over the past
year of travel, she had gained confidence in herself. Wealth and
prestige no longer intimidated her. She knew her own worth now.

Perhaps Crash was facing a similar
homecoming. Perhaps he, too, hadn't quite discovered his new
identity, away from the Hive, away from the mistakes of his
past.

“We all have demons, Crash,” she said
quietly. “But you don't have to let them define you.”

Surprise registered on his face.

“If you need to return to Cerastes, do so. I
understand,” she murmured. “Just remember what's in the past, and
what's in your future. Remember who you are.”

He lowered his eyes. He seemed speechless.
She sensed how lost he was, how lost he had always been, although
she hadn't truly realized it before now. He isolated himself with
cold words and a stoic facade, but underneath it all, his wounds
still bled. He had a heart. She knew that for a fact, because she
could hear it beating.

She felt the need to continue. “Some days we
make mistakes,” she said gently. “We feel like we take a step
backward, or even worse, like we aren’t true to ourselves.
Sometimes, our lives change dramatically and yet we still feel
stuck in the same place. But every day, we have the chance to start
anew. ” She reached out and touched his jaw. “We're all headed
somewhere, and with each new day, we get a little better and a
little wiser. You showed me that. You're not going to lose
yourself, Crash...and you're not going to lose me, either.” She
managed to smile.

When he finally looked at her, his
expression made her breath catch. She saw reverence in his gaze,
and quiet wonder.

“You've grown,” he said softly.

“Well, of course,” she grinned, “you helped
with that.” Then, in a soft voice, “I relied on you in the
past...perhaps too much. Maybe I need to stand on my own for a
while, and maybe I'll be better off for it. Go where you need to,
Crash. You’ll always be my strength.”

He studied her closely. “You're already
strong, Sora. Stronger than you know, in ways I don't know how to
be.” He brushed the hair back from her face. Without speaking more,
he pressed her into his shoulder and cradled her head against his
wide chest. She closed her eyes against an unexpected surge of
dizziness. Sparks of color danced on her closed eyelids, and she
wondered what she might see if she opened them.

Then she felt his lips brush against her
forehead.

She raised her face blindly, seeking him
out; his lips found hers. She gasped, but the sound was lost in his
kiss. His hand cradled her throat as he worked, gently teasing her
mouth until her jaw loosened and she went limp against his body.
Her heart raced. Heat surged through her, and she forgot about the
poison, about her delirium, the darkened room, the snow falling
outside the window. All that existed was beneath his lips.

He gently maneuvered her until they rested
back upon the cot, his body propped up over hers on one arm. She
kept her eyes closed against her dizziness and focused on his
warmth.

“Do you trust me?” he said against her
temple as he brushed her hair back.

She wrapped her arms around him and pulled
him close. “Yes,” she said.

“I'll be gone in the morning.”

“I know.”

“Don't give up on me, Sora,” he said. “Don't
be afraid.”

She opened her eyes and saw him clearly.
“I'm not afraid,” she replied. Then, “Will you return to me?”

He didn't answer with words, but with his
hands, his lips, every place their skin touched.

CHAPTER 31

Darkness crept over The Regency as Ferran
rushed the driver home. With such thick clouds, evening felt like
midnight. When they reached the Ebonaire estate, Ferran told the
driver to pull around back to the stables. He wondered how he would
sneak someone as large as Burn into the manor. The staff would be
gone tonight, most likely celebrating at the southern gates near
The Bath. He didn't anticipate a problem getting Burn inside right
now, but tomorrow morning, the large Wolfy would be impossible to
hide.

Shockingly, Silas strode boldly outside the
rear kitchen door as soon as his carriage rolled to a stop. Ferran
allowed himself a long groan as he watched Lori rush out into the
snow on the pirate’s heels. She wore a long cloak wrapped around
her Healer's robes and carried a lantern in one hand. She had a
frantic expression on her face.

He motioned for Burn to stay put and exited
the carriage, meeting Silas and Lori halfway to the kitchen
door.

“What are you doing here?” Ferran demanded.
He felt a headache coming on.

Silas looked affronted. “Getting
compensation for the ship you destroyed!”

Ferran blinked. “Eh?”

Silas grabbed Ferran by his shirt collar,
which was somewhat difficult, as Ferran stood almost a foot taller
than he. Still, the Dracian was strong and pulled him close. “My
men tell me a scary bloke from the Shade showed up and lit my damn
ship on fire!” he declared, his face inches from Ferran’s own. “The
Dawn Seeker
is nothing but cinders and smoke! She’s sailing
the high winds now in bits of sailcloth and ash!”

Ferran was stunned. He looked at Lori for
confirmation and a pained expression crossed her face. “The
Dracians are all here,” she said quickly. “I’ve hidden them in the
stables, but it won’t be long until Martin finds out….”

“Bells,” Ferran cursed. Then he shoved Silas
off. “And how is any of this my fault? I wasn’t there when the ship
burned down!” Yet even as he said it, he touched the stolen book in
his pocket and all the pieces fell into place. The Shade, who must
already know the book was missing, retaliated by destroying the
Dawn Seeker
. Why else strike now and not earlier, like when
Crash stole the sacred weapons, or when they took Krait
captive?