The Midnight Sea (The Fourth Element #1) (23 page)

Chapter Twenty-Eight

W
e passed through the Bosporus strait, and into the body of water the Greeks called the Propontis. I knew from my lessons with the magus that Xeros the First had come this way with his warships, bent on conquering the Free C
ities and bringing them into the fold of the empire. He’d made it all the way to Athens before they drove him back with fire, the single defeat in our two hundred-year history. Now Eskander intended to take the same route, straight to Persepolae.

Where the Immortals would be waiting for him.

I knew how lucky we were to have escaped. They were unprepared for the sudden burst of power through the bond. But five thousand of them together? No human army could face that.

Well, it wasn’t my problem any longer, I reminded myself. I’d managed to crawl out of the belly of the aurochs, and if Eskander wanted its hide for his wall, he could hunt it himself.

The
Amestris
made steady progress through the inland sea. I found my nausea was less on deck, so I found a corner out of the way of the crew and watched the forested shore slide past. One morning at dawn, I saw a great flock of birds. They must have numbered in the tens of thousands. I stood at the bow, open-mouthed with wonder, as the flock split in half, then rolled together like waves breaking. They whirled in tight spirals, dancing apart, then together again, each bird banking at precisely the same instant as if they shared a single mind.

“Starlings,” one of the sailors said. He had paused in his work to watch. “A good omen.”

I sensed Darius standing behind me.

“The magi call it a murmurration,” he said.

“It’s like they share the bond,” I whispered, riveted by the gorgeous spectacle.

“The starlings overwinter in Karnopolis. I’ve seen it there, many times.”

He had been distant since we boarded the ship and I knew why.

Victor.

Until the bond was broken, his father would be privy to my every emotion and sensation. It was awkward, to say the least.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “About the Prophet. Do you believe he lives?”

“I don’t know. Anything is possible.”

“The histories say he died in the Battle of Karnopolis. Our first victory, when the daēvas drove back the tide of Druj. I’ve been to his tomb. It draws pilgrims from around the empire.”

“The Numerators wouldn’t have existed yet,” I said. “So it would have to be the magi. But would they keep such a secret? He was one of their own.”

“The city was besieged. An army of Revenants battered at the gates. I think they would have done anything to keep them out.” Darius stared at the water. “If Eskander marches on Persepolae without the fire, it will be a slaughter. Of both sides, most likely.” He paused. “And the King has my mother.”

I took his hand. I had thought the same thing. It was a perfect disaster that the necromancer had gotten away.

“How did they come to be bonded?” I asked. “She must have been at Gorgon-e Gaz with Victor, if you were born there.”

“Shortly after they sent me away, Artaxeros came to inspect the prison. He saw Delilah and wanted her for his own. So he took her.”

I hadn’t realized that such things went on, but then I hadn’t
wanted
to know either. How easy it is to commit savagery when good people turn their eyes away.

“She told me who she was,” I confessed. “I kept it from you. I’m sorry, but it’s what she wanted.”

He didn’t say anything.

“They would have killed you. Or used you against her.”

He sighed. “I know. It doesn’t change the fact that I abandoned her.”

The starlings took a final sweeping bow, then flew into the rising sun. I watched the dark cloud dwindle to a speck on the horizon.

“Where do you think the holy fire came from?” I asked. “Was it truly a divine gift?”

He slowly shook his head. “I think Victor is right. That the Prophet made it somehow.”

“I’ve been dreaming of fire, Darius,” I admitted. “Terrible nightmares.”

“Are you asking if they’re mine?”

“I did wonder,” I said.

“No.” He frowned. “Do you think it means something?”

“I have no idea.” I struggled to keep the frustration from my voice. “I thought I understood the cuffs, how they worked. But the only one who truly does hasn’t been seen in two hundred years. And I’m so afraid I’ll make a mistake.”

“Maybe I can help you,” Darius said.

“How?”

“There are simple exercises they taught us as children. You can practice them if you like.”

We decided to start with water, since I had worked it before. Darius lowered a bucket on a rope and dipped it in the sea. Then he found a cup and said he wanted me to fill it without touching the bucket.

“Close your eyes and listen to all the sounds around you,” he said. “Focus only on that.”

At first, I heard only the wind sighing in the rigging, the creak of ropes and splash of the waves against the hull. But the longer I sat there, the more I began to detect subtle sounds. Bare feet moving on the wood. The murmur of voices below deck. The scrape and snap of the sails changing direction. A muffled, steady thumping that I knew was his heartbeat.

The sounds ebbed and flowed, until they no longer seemed separate. It was like listening to music without trying to pick out individual instruments.

“Can you sense the bucket of water?”

I felt very relaxed, almost drowsy but alert too. “I think so. Yes.”

“Try to lift a spoonful.”

Easy
. I exerted my will on it, imagining the water rising into the air. Nothing happened. It slid through invisible fingers. I tried again. And again.

“Try to clear your mind,” Darius suggested.

“I
am
,” I hissed.

Gulls. Splashing. Wind. Grinding, of my teeth. One little spoonful. That’s all I wanted.

I could see the water in my mind, luminous with power, but still it resisted me.

“You’re trying too hard.”

I opened my eyes and gave him an angelic smile. “You wish me to fill the cup?”

“Nazafareen…” Darius started to scoot back but it was too late. I seized the bucket and upended it on his lap.

“There. I did it! Are you pleased?”

He looked down at his pants. Then he raised the cup in a toast. “To my bonded, who could teach patience to an oak tree, stoicism to a martyr, and temperance to a saint. Her gentle nature rivals the trembling doe of the forest…”

I started to laugh. “Don’t forget that I sing like a nightingale.”

“And spout like a whale.” He stood up, dripping, and refilled the bucket. When he sat back down, the grin on his face was nothing less than evil. “We’re going to try this again. Picture a flower this time. Any one, it doesn’t matter. Hold it in your mind. And Nazafareen…” He leaned toward me. “If you do that again, I’ll drop half the sea on your head.”

“You’re a tyrant and a bully,” I sulked.

“Flower,” he barked. “Now.”

Two hours later, I had managed to fill and empty the cup three times. On the last occasion, I threatened to pour it down the back of his tunic if he didn’t let me stop, and Darius relented.

“Tomorrow, we do it again,” he said.

“You just like bossing me around for a change,” I said, feeling mean and petty and exhausted.

“It is rather fun,” he said. “When you’re concentrating, you bite your lower lip in the most adorable—”

I threw the cup at him and stalked down to my cabin.

“Sick again?” Tijah asked when she saw my face. She and Myrri were playing a game of dice on her bunk.

“Of Darius, you mean? Then the answer is yes,” I grumbled, stuffing a pillow over my head.

Tijah laughed long and hard. “So he won’t put up with your crap anymore? My heart’s breaking for you, nomad girl.”

I made a rude noise. But as usual when I let my temper get the best of me, I was starting to regret it. I would apologize to him later. Thanks to Darius’s help, I had taken a small step towards controlling my gift. I would never get my hand back, but if I truly mastered using the power, I would be strong again. For it was my own weakness that frightened me the most.

As it turned out, I was spared any further lessons because the next day, the
Amestris
finally reached the Hellespont, which looked like a narrow, winding river. The captain explained that it was a tricky place to navigate because the currents flowed in two directions simultaneously—northeast and southwest— between the Middle Sea and the Propontis. He required the daēvas’ help, so I was alone at the rail when I first saw the town of Sestos on the opposite bank, and the force that occupied it.

I counted more than a hundred and fifty galleys anchored in the harbor, each with three banks of oars. Eskander’s army camped on the shore, their tents and picket lines stretching as far as the eye could see. It was all very clean and orderly. Cavalry drilled in an open area, wheeling and maneuvering their horses as tightly as the starlings.

The
Amestris
was known to the Macydonians, and we were greeted by soldiers wearing armored breastplates, with strips of thin leather protecting the upper arms and hips, leaving the legs bare. Most wore a simple conical helmet, but the officer who addressed us sported a horsehair crest with a gold laurel wreath worked on the side. I didn’t understand the tongue he spoke, but Kayan Zaaykar seemed fluent in it.

“The King awaits us,” he said. “We are to follow this officer.”

It was the second time I was about to deliver bad news to a god-like figure, and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t afraid. But we were already in the jaws of the wolf and there was no turning back now.

As we walked through the camp, drawing curious stares from the soldiers, I noticed a row of strange-looking wagons. Each had vertical braces that supported a long wooden beam with a cupped end, almost like giant spoons, tilted at an angle. I’d never seen their like and wondered what they were used for.

I was about to ask Kayan Zaaykar when we arrived at a tent that was larger than the rest, with a spear thrust into the ground a few feet from the entrance. When the officer drew the flap aside, I expected to see the luxurious amenities that Artaxeros reportedly enjoyed on campaign. But the tent was austerely furnished. Three men stood around a table, studying a map. All were young, but one stood out from the rest.

He was shorter than his companions and clean-shaven, with curly, dark blonde hair. There was a sternness in his face, and also a kind of restless energy. When he turned to us, I noticed that one eye was brown, the other blue. He wore no crown or other regal insignia, but our escort addressed him with reverence. Their language was strange, both fluid and harsh-sounding to my ears.

Eskander’s penetrating gaze swept over us. He switched to our tongue, although it was halting and heavily accented.

“Where are the other daēvas?” he asked.

“We were beset by Antimagi,” Victor said. “I am the only survivor.”

“Antimagi? Where?”

“On the Salt Plain, near to Persepolae.”

“That is ill news.” Eskander laid a fist against his heart. “I mourn your loss. Their sacrifice shall not be forgotten.”

I suddenly realized that I never asked Victor anything about them, let alone told him I was sorry, and felt ashamed.

“There is worse,” Victor said quietly. “The urn is in the hands of Neblis.”

Eskander stared at him for a moment. His eyes flashed dangerously, and I waited for him to erupt in a fury. Without the fire, he would be forced to face the Immortals. His army was large, but unless half of it was daēva, he’d be at a fatal disadvantage.

Of course, he had no guarantees if they were freed either. I supposed Eskander believed they would be grateful enough to him as a liberator that they would choose to fight with his army or simply flee the city, but not turn on
him
too. At least two of the Immortals had helped Delilah, so she must have some influence over them.

But I also knew that people could be unpredictable, and as much as I agreed that the daēvas deserved their freedom, the thought of those cuffs all shattering at once made me want to be far away when it happened.

“Gods curse her,” Eskander said at last. “This changes matters. But we are not unprepared for such a turn of events.” Eskander shared a look with the man next to him. He had tanned skin and eyes the color of an eggplant, black with hints of violet. He was also daēva, I was certain of it, although he wore no cuff.

“I intended to track the necromancers who took it all the way to Bactria, but I needed to see my wife first,” Victor said. “When I returned to Persepolae, the gates were barred with fire. I learned in the town that a Water Dog daēva had been arrested for treason, and that he and another had somehow escaped the dungeons. I guessed who it was. I did not wish to abandon these two,” Victor admitted, glancing at me at Darius. “They were being hunted by the King.”

So he hadn’t just been
passing by
after all. He did care about Darius, even if he was too proud to admit it.

“Who do you bring me then?” Eskander asked.

“My son and his bonded, along with two other former Water Dogs who renounce the empire.” Victor paused. “And this is Kayan Zaaykar, owner of the
Amestris
.”

Eskander nodded politely at the four us, and clapped the smuggler warmly on the back. “I’m glad to finally meet you. The Followers have been a true ally.”

Kayan Zaaykar bowed low and kissed Eskander’s hand. “An honor, my King,” he murmured.

“This is Hephaestion,” Eskander said, gesturing to a tall, handsome man with the same fair Macydonian looks. “He commands the cavalry of the Companions. And Lysandros. He leads my small force of free daēvas.”

“We already know each other,” Lysandros said. “Do we not, Victor?”

Victor met his gaze with defiance.

“A pity they sent you to Gorgon-e Gaz after such faithful service. I warned you that Xeros couldn’t be trusted.”

“I never
trusted
him,” Victor muttered. “I had no choice.”

“None at all? I think we always have a choice. But what a relief to know the infamous Victor has returned to the fold. I’m sure you’re perfectly trustworthy now. Even if you claim to have lost the urn, which was the sole purpose of helping you escape your prison.”