Voidhawk - Lost Soul (6 page)

“Captain, I’ll take her on as an apprentice,” Jenna offered. She stared directly at the Duke, a subtle curl of her lip daring him to challenge her.

The
duke’s eyes flared. “What? No! Celia, you must come back. You have responsibilities!”

Celia twisted her head around to look at Jenna. “The Soldarin Race is coming up and he needs me.”

Jenna’s lips parted in shock. She turned to glare at the duke. Dexter stepped forward, blocking her line of sight with the noble. “There you have it, she’s got a mentor and a promising trade lined up. What more could a good father can ask for? Now we’ve a long journey ahead of us and I can’t be sure how far or how long my wizard can keep that disc together.”

His own cheeks flaring red with anger, Duke Elnossgorian turned and climbed back onto the disk. His goons joined him. As Xander started to send it back he said, “I suppose you’re right, Captain. I should be thankful that my child has the opportunity to learn and excel.”

Dexter stiffened at the play on words. Did the duke know something about Jia? He stared, ignoring the gasp from Jenna. It was common knowledge what had happened to her – or at least that something had happened to her. Only a few hours had passed but word spread quickly, especially when no attempt to hide the assassination attempt had been made.

Still he waited until the disk was within a few feet of the elven ship. “That’s enough,” Dexter said. “Let’s get back under sail.”

“Captain?” Xander asked, confused. Did Dexter really want him to dispel the disk before they reached their ship?

“
Aye, save your strength. We’ve got work to do and I need you to figure out where we’re going.”

“But—”

“Drop that damned disk!” Dexter hissed, turning to glare at him.

Xander swallowed and made a motion with his hands,
sending the arcane energies back to the ether whence they’d come. Dexter turned back in time to see the three men plunging to the gravity plane that ran along the horizontal center of the ship. Once they fell through the invisible field gravity reversed, pulling them back towards it.

Their screams for help carried across the distance with ease. Dexter’s fury was replaced with a grin and then a chuckle. He turned, seeing the stunned expressions on the faces of his crew. Jenna shook her head and let loose a laugh as well, but none of them could match the excitement of Trilliana’s wide eyes.

Xander caught the elven witch’s gaze and felt himself stripped bare by it. There was an obvious hunger in her eyes. He broke away from it and snapped out orders to resume their course. Shaking his head in an attempt to convince himself he hadn’t seen the lust in Xander’s apprentice’s eyes, he hurried to the room he and Jenna shared to give himself some peace.

Chapter
4

Dexter was sitting at the small table in his cabin, toying with a cup half filled with elven ale. He sighed when he heard a knock at the door. He knew the conversation Jenna wanted to have and he wanted to put it off as long as possible. Finding Jianna was his top priority. His only priority, in fact. To the void with what others expected.

“Yeah,” he called out.

The door opened and Jenna entered, followed closely by Celia. “Captain, I figured you’d want another word with Miss Elnossgorian.”

“What is it with elves and all these damnable names?” Dexter mused.
“Mind if I just call you Celia?”

She blushed and nodded, looking everywhere but at him.

“She claimed she needed to talk to you too, Captain.”

Dexter drained the ale in his cup and stood up. “All right, out with it. You’ve flown that racing yacht of your father’s?”

She nodded. “I’ve always been good with sailing, sir.” Her voice had taken on a subdued quality. “If you’d like, I’ve been looking about your ship and found some things we can do to make it faster.”

Dexter looked at Jenna, noting he sly grin. He returned his attention to Celia. “That’s why you wanted to see me? To tell me the ‘Hawk’s not the fastest ship in the void?”

“No, sir. I mean yes, but no. I wanted to apologize. For my father, and for not telling you.” She rubbed her hands together nervously.

“That’s a start,” he said. He took a deep breath and let it go, trying to forcing his irritation out with it. “So you’re fast and you’re good with ships. Kind of young, don’t you think? The man who put this ship back together and made it what it is was four times your age, and a dwarf to boot. He was a master
shipwright, you’re a spoiled kid with a wealthy fop for a father.”

Celia backed away, her eyes going to Jenna for help. “Dex,” Jenna said, her tone promising more to come.

He held up his hands to stop her. “My daughter’s spoiled and I happen to think she’s pretty damn special. By the time she’s old enough to do what you’re doing, I expect she’ll be turning heads, too.” Dexter ran his hand down the wall. “Willa was younger than you. Human, but younger. She was a slave when we found her, dancing with death. Took a priest to bring her back and Kragor took to her, taught her what she needed to know with none of us being the wiser. I reckon if she could do that, then maybe you can, too.”

Celia’s eyes shimmered with unshed tears for a moment, then they overflowed and spilled down her cheeks. She stepped forward and threw her arms around Dexter, squeezing him tight. Dexter grunted and looked at Jenna, his eyes wide. Jenna bit her lip, struggling to hold back a laugh.

“I’m sorry, Captain,” she whispered into his shirt. He’d changed it since his last run in with a sobbing woman, but he worried he might run out of clothes soon.

“No need for that,” Dexter mumbled. “And there’s
no crying on my ship, get the ruffles out of your sails, we’ve got work to do.”

“No, I mean…I’m sorry about this,” she said.

“What?” Dexter felt that familiar twist in his stomach telling him something was about to go horribly wrong. It preceded a sharp prick in his back. His body gasped but he’d already been pulled into a tunnel of colors and lights.

* * * *

“Dex!” Jenna yelped when he collapsed to the floor, his greater mass pulling free of Celia’s arms. She rushed over to him and all but fell on top of him. She grabbed him and pulled him over so he leaned against the other door in their room that led to the bridge. “Dex, are you okay? What happened? Dexter? Dex? Dex!”

His face was slack and his mouth gaped open. His eyes stared past her, beyond the walls of their room. She back
ed away, letting go and watching as he slid over and collapsed on his side. Their bed hit her in the back of the legs, forcing her legs to buckle. She sat down on it, catching herself with her arms, then stared at her husband. Her mouth opened and closed but no words came out.

“He promised,” Celia whispered. “Just a message, that’s all.”

Jenna’s head snapped around, her braided hair whipping around and slapping against her chest. Celia was sitting on the floor against the door to the companionway, her knees pulled to her chest and her arms hugging them to her chest. “What?” Jenna snapped, finding the strength to stand.

Celia looked up at Jenna,
fresh tears streaming down her face. “He promised me he just wanted to talk to the Admiral.”

Jenna grabbed her under the arms and yanked the petite wom
an up. She slammed her into the door, then pinned her against it with one arm. The other pulled her dagger so she could press it against Celia’s throat. “What did you do?” Jenna demanded.

“I didn’t…I mean, I did but I didn’t know…I—”

The dagger pressed harder, the flat of the blade compressing Celia’s windpipe enough to make her gasp. “I’m not the Empress anymore,” she said. “I met Dexter in a prison cell. The arms master on the ‘Hawk was a wanted bandit. If you don’t tell me everything right now whatever happened to Dexter is going to seem like a holiday retreat!”

Before Celia could wheeze out a response the door behind her smashed inward. Celia and Jenna went flying back. Jenna scrambled, throwing the smaller woman off of her and jumped back to her feet. She reached for her sword but stopped when she saw Keshira standing in t
he open doorway, staring at where Dexter lay.

“Captain?” Keshira sounded like Celia, her voice small.

“Xander!” Jenna yelled.

Celia jerked, startled by how loud Jenna’s voice was. She rubbed her throat, her hand coming away with blood on it. Her eyes went to the floor, when Jenna’s dagger lay.

“Don’t,” Jenna snapped, seeing where she’d looked. “I promise you I’ll kill you before you can figure out which end to stab me with.”

Celia shook her head. “No!” She whimpered. “I don’t want to hurt anybody!”

Xander poked his head through the open doorway. “What happened? Captain!”

“She happened,” Jenna pointed at the sobbing girl. “Xander…I can’t…is he dead? There’s no blood!”

“It’s so quiet,” Keshira whispered. She looked around as though she couldn’t see anyone in the room. “I can’t hear him anymore.”

Jenna cursed. She stepped over and grabbed her dagger, then cast a withering glance at Celia.

“He’s alive,” Xander said a moment later. He rose from where he’d knelt next to Dexter’s body. “But he looks like your daughter. A heart that barely beats and breath that scarcely fills his chest.”

“Is his soul gone?”

Xander shrugged. He turned to Jenna and said, “I don’t know. I’m not a healer and I don’t study the necromantic arts. And this is necromancy!”

“What about the girl, Trilliana?”

Xander shook his head. “She barely knew divination when she came to me, let alone conjuration or enchanting. Necromancy is a lost knowledge amongst the elves and the elders were reluctant to share it. I never cared for it, so I never pursued it.”

“Now’s the time,” Jenna snapped. “I need to know what’s happened to him!”

“How’d this happen?”

Jenna turned to stare at Celia. “Tell him!”

Celia took a shuddering breath. She held up her hand, which held a ring on it. “This,” she rasped. She coughed and tried again. “He told me to flip it over and poke the Admiral with it. It would let him talk to him. He had a message, he said. It was something that would help his daughter.”

“When?” Xander asked.

“Who?” Jenna demanded at the same time.

She looked between the two of them. She shook her head. “I don’t know!” she whined. “He had a dark robe on, a hood hiding his face. He sounded like a man, but the way he talked was so weird. I heard him, but I could
n’t tell that it was him that was talking. His words, they didn’t seem to come from anywhere.”

“When was this?” Xander repeated.

“Less than an hour before the Voidhawk set sail.”

“After Jianna,” Xander stated for his own benefit. He turned, pacing a few steps in the small room, then turned back. “The ring, give it to me!”

Celia was tugging it off even before Jenna could turn to threaten her with her knife. She held it out to Xander, who eyed it warily. Celia placed it in the palm of her other hand and held it out to him again.

“Hold it,” he ordered. She nodded then waited as he whispered some arcane words. A moment later he stared at it, then nodded and reached out to take it. He studied it for a moment longer, turning it in his hands to view it from all angles. “I’ll need some time,” he muttered.

“There’s no time!” Jenna snapped. “We don’t have an elder handy to help Dexter the way he helped Jia.”

“I can’t just figure this out because you snapped your fingers!” Xander yelled back at her. He took a breath and let it out, then nodded.
“I’ll go as fast as I can. I won’t stop for food, sleep, or even to relieve myself. Jenna, I promise you, if I can figure this out I will do so.”

“Go,”
she snapped. Xander nodded and turned away, clutching the ring in his fingers and heading for his quarters.

Jenna turned to Celia. “Keshira.”

Keshira turned slowly to look at her. “I’m alone,” the golem whispered.

“No, Dexter’s just lost. We’ll get him back. I need your help. He needs your help.”

Keshira turned to look at Dexter’s relaxed body. “How can I help him?” Her voice was stronger, but far from normal.

“Take her to the cargo hold. Strip her and search her. Everywhere. Stay with her and make sure she doesn’t try anything.”

Keshira nodded, then turned to Celia. “This is your fault,” she stated, her flat voice somehow more disturbing than the tightly controlled anger in Jenna’s.

Celia nodded. “I didn’t know. I’m so sorry,” she whimpered.

Keshira stepped to her and grabbed her, then picked her up and carried the crying woman to the empty cargo hold.

Jenna turned to Dexter again. She took several breaths to steel her nerves, then she stepped to him and worked on dragging him over to their bed and placing him on it.
When she was finished she sat next to him on it and reached over to stroke her hand across his scruffy cheek. She sniffed back her own tears. “Don’t you dare leave me,” she whispered. “I can’t imagine a life without you. I won’t imagine it.”