“We’re going to die, aren’t we,” Jeff said, his voice barely heard over the thunder.
I glanced over my shoulder at the djinn storm and opened my mouth to agree. “Not if I can help it,” I found myself saying.
“No,” Javes said, “and certainly not here like trapped rats.” He pressed forward and lifted his quiz glass at the ghost. “Is there a way to get us around—her?” he asked.
Lightning flashed again, and this time the rumble of thunder was closer. Honor Ash Faena began to move once more, silently floating over the deck towards us. A swell hit the ship, causing it to creak and moan as it rocked from side to side.
I followed the captain, pulling away from Laurel Faena to stand facing Honor Ash’s shade, but she just went around me and the others. Another swell hit the windrider, this one bigger, lifting it up and then dropping it hard while thunder sounded with a sharp crack. I turned, tracking her until she stopped once more at the quarterdeck railing and pointed a finger at the djinn storm bearing down on us. As she did so, me stillness of the air was broken by a slight breeze that swirled around me.
As soon as Honor Ash floated by him, Captain Javes started towards the quarterdeck stairs, everyone else on his heels. But he stopped again as he saw that Laurel and I hadn’t moved. “Rabbit, Ambassador Laurel—” The breeze grew stronger, pulling at my tabard and braid. I resisted and it pressed against my back, pushing me towards the rail and the Faena’s haunt.
“Like calling to like,” Obruesk yelled over the noise of the approaching storm. “Leave them!”
I tried to step back and the breeze stiffened, pressing harder. Captain Suiden’s words about mages being consumed popped into my mind and I shook my head. “No!”
“Go down yourself then!” Captain Javes shouted back at Obruesk. Out of the corner of my eye I could see his hand reach for me.
“No, honored Javes!” Laurel said. “Don’t!”
The breeze turned into an eddy of wind, with me in the center, and Javes was thrown back by the force of it as lightning crackled and forked across the sky, followed by a boom, then another crackling flash, another boom. The wind-rider surged in sudden heavy seas and the others went reeling as the deck heaved beneath them, Jeff falling and sliding towards the railing until Groskin latched hold of him, and Esclaur grabbing onto the lieutenant. But I stayed upright, held by the wind, and was pushed closer to the railing.
“No!” I yelled and once more tried to move back, hunching my shoulders. The djinn storm was now almost upon the first windrider in our convoy and it was as if clawed fingers reached out for the ship.
“Rabbit,” Laurel said, his voice pitched under the rising fury. “Center yourself. And breathe!” Meditating while sitting in the warmth of the morning sun with no distractions is one thing. Trying to do so while caught in a windstorm, facing a murdered sprite’s ghost as certain doom bears down on one is another. But I closed my eyes and reached for the center as Laurel taught me, concentrating on my breathing, and to my surprise I felt the tension run out my fingertips and feet, calm filling the empty places. And I heard—Come, the wind belled, a deep ringing that resonated in my bones.
Why?
Live. Come.
Live? But in what form? Fear lanced through me that if I went, I’d not return. That the very thing why I fled from Magus Kareste would happen to me here, and I’d be devoured.
Trust, the wind belled, and images arose of the bridge of air, the arrows stopped midflight, the scorched side street with Slevoic. Live, it belled again, my entire body resounding.
Live, I echoed back. I opened my eyes just in time to see the storm boil over the first windrider, the faint cries from the ship swallowed whole. Greedy hands reached once more and I was vaguely aware of our ship’s violent pitching. Live as opposed to dying. Put like that, the choice was a little easier. I hesitated, then lowered my head, and let go.
“Rabbit!” I heard Javes shout—then he was gone.
Chapter Fifty-two
We moved over the water, flowing between the wind-riders. Before us was a dark mass and we met it as it reared over a ship, flinging ourselves against it.
No. Ours.
Glowing yellow eyes glared out from behind the dark clouds and lips pulled back showing sharp, jagged teeth, while lightning forked and crackled about it.
Impressive. But still ours.
A taloned, many-fingered hand swung, clawing at us. In the other it held breathing ones that it flung into the water. We shifted aside, plucked them out again, cradling them safe.
Ours too.
The dark one thundered and tried to roll over us, to press us down, to crush us.
Not wise.
We called, a deep singing peal, and as the air rushed to us, the dark clouds shrank, growing smaller and smaller. It howled its rage and we smiled.
Also ours.
The dark one now tried to flee and we caught it, holding it fast as the last of the clouds shredded into streamers, stars’ twinkling between them. It struck out at us again, but its blows were feeble. The sky cleared and the moon appeared, bright on the water, and we watched the yellow eyes dim, then fade away.
Chapter Fifty-three
I was walking in the cool darkness of the forest with Dragoness Moraina. Honor Ash strode ahead of us, bright as if the sun shone down on her as she paced through the trees, marking our path, Laurel an indistinct shadow beside her.
“Endings are foretold in beginnings, young human,” Moraina said, “and the seeds of destruction are sown at creation.” The dragoness smiled, a toothy sight. “But if you’re fortunate, you’re able to come around again to start anew.”
“Is it always the same, honored Moraina?” I asked, my child’s voice not yet broken by adolescence. I hopped from dragon print to dragon print, pressed deep in the leaf mold. “The same ending and beginning?”
“For some,” the dragoness admitted. “But for others, it is the spiraling song of the lark ascending.”
I awoke with a start, staring at the dim lamp gently swaying overhead in the lieutenants’ berth. I then sighed. Great, now even my dreams were cryptic. I rolled over in my hammock and came face to face with a midshipman. The boy backed up a step, then took off. As he ran up the ladder I could hear him yelling, “He’s awake! Captain, sir, he’s awake!”
I tracked him after the fact, turning my head to where his footsteps faded above decks, and met the gaze of Doyen Allwyn. “Welcome back, Lord Rabbit,” the clergyman said.
“What happened?” I asked, somewhat interested.
“You don’t remember?” Allwyn asked, moving towards me.
“Parts,” I said, looking back at him and trying to rise. I stopped as my muscles protested.
Doyen Allwyn gently laid his hand on my shoulder, and pressed me back. “The Faena left strict instructions, the first one being that you are to remain in bed—in the hammock until he’s able to look you over more thoroughly,” he said as he reached for a bowl.
“Where is he?” I asked, still mildly interested.
“He and the ship’s physician are with the wounded from last night.” The doyen dipped a cloth into the bowl and, wringing it out, placed it over my forehead.
I sighed at the astringent coolness against my brow. The doyen moved to a lit brazier, a teakettle resting upon a wire mesh above glowing coals. “Is Chaplain Obruesk there too?” I asked.
A crease appeared between the doyen’s brows. “No,” he said as he added leaves to the kettle. “He is not.”