Eighteen

The next morning, on the deck of Dax’s ship, Safire leaned against the taffrail and into the salt spray of the sea. After last night’s storm, the ocean was calm and glittering like a jewel.

With Dax at her side, Safire tilted her head back to watch the dragons above, their massive wings spread wide as they glided beneath the sails and around the stern of Dax and Roa’s ship, locked in a game of chase. Dax’s slender yellow mount—a gentle creature named Spark—was currently in the lead. The others belonged to various soldats aboard the ship—all except one, which hung back from the group.

This solitary dragon flew farther out, all alone. Safire watched the sunlight ripple across Sorrow’s white scales as she and the king filled each other in on everything that had happened since Darmoor.

Dax explained that Sorrow appeared on the horizon shortly after their ship left Darmoor’s port, surprising everyone. Roa worried about what they would do with him once they arrived in Axis. But Dax thought it could be good for Sorrow to be in the company of other mounts—dragons who were paired with riders. They might teach Sorrow how to play and fight and, most important, show him that not all humans were things to be feared. They might teach him how to be a dragon again.

Safire, studying the solitary creature, had her doubts.

“I don’t understand,” said Dax from beside her, watching the shoreline glide by as they followed the coastline of Axis Isle, heading for the harbor. He’d just informed her that it had been an off-duty soldat—one who often worried about his commandant’s lack of consideration for her own safety—who’d followed Safire to the Thirsty Craw. When she didn’t come out, he reported it to Dax, who’d been tracking her ever since. “What does a pirate like Jemsin want with Asha?”

“It could be a ransom,” said Safire, thinking of something Eris said. “Or he could be trying to get at you.” She squinted up at him in the sunlight. He wore a golden tunic today, embroidered with the royal crest, and his damp curls were even curlier than usual from the mist rolling off the sea. “Have you harassed any pirates lately?”

Dax tilted his head. “Not that I can think of.”

“Maybe it’s not Asha he wants,” came a voice from behind them.

Both Asha and Dax turned to find the dragon queen approaching. Roa wore a simple wool dress that came to her ankles, the elegant hood pushed back and falling loose around her shoulders. No golden circlet adorned her dark brow, where black curls were cropped close to her head, and there were shadows beneath her eyes. She’d grown so wan and thin since her last visit to the scrublands, like she was wasting away. Her worry and grief over the starvation of her people had sharpened Roa’s soft edges. And if it pained Safire to watch, it was certainly excruciating for Dax, who loved his wife more than life itself.

Safire hoped that whatever gift the empress intended to give them truly would alleviate the suffering in the scrublands.

Unconsciously, Roa touched her own shoulder. The one, Safire knew, bearing eight years of claw marks. Essie, Roa’s sister, had spent eight years trapped in the form of a hawk and in those eight years, she’d never left her sister’s side and could often be found perched on Roa’s shoulder. Roa, Safire had noticed in the months of Essie’s absence, had a frequent habit of running her fingers across the scars. Almost fondly.

Roa turned her dark brown eyes on Safire. “Asha and Torwin have the Skyweaver’s knife.”

Safire remembered it—the weapon Roa used to save her sister—in Torwin’s hands the day before they left. It was their sole reason for traveling to the scrin.

“It’s possible Jemsin wants the knife Asha carries, not Asha herself.” In her dark eyes, Safire could see the night Roa set her sister’s soul free. She remembered the corrupted thing Essie had become in the end. Roa would never have been able to save her without the Skyweaver’s knife.

“But what would Jemsin want with a knife that cuts souls?” Safire murmured.

No one had an answer to that.

“What about the Death Dancer?” Roa asked, hugging her thinning frame now against the chill of the wind. Seeing it, Dax reached for his wife, sliding his arms around Roa’s waist and drawing her against him. “What’s her part in all this?”

At the thought of Eris, Safire pulled the girl’s spindle out of her pocket. She’d lied to her about burying it so that Eris wouldn’t try to steal it back. “She seems to be some kind of indentured servant rather than a part of Jemsin’s crew. Jemsin gives an order, and she obeys.” She ran her thumb over the worn wood, examining the smooth curves, as she remembered something Kor said. “I think Jemsin may be hiding her, and in exchange for his protection, she does whatever he asks.”

“Hiding her from what?”

Safire looked up into Dax’s worried eyes. “From the empress.”

Safire hadn’t quite filled him in on this part of the story yet. So she told him and Roa everything she’d learned about Eris. That she wasn’t just an uncatchable thief. She was the empress’s fugitive.

“Apparently the empress has been hunting the murderer who burned down the scrin for years. She just didn’t know that person was also the Death Dancer.”

When she finished, Dax’s eyes were dark and Roa’s lips were pressed into a hard line.

“How did you capture her?” asked Roa from the circle of Dax’s arms as she watched Safire’s hands run over the spindle. “I thought the Death Dancer was uncatchable.”

“I thought so, too,” said Safire. Back in Firgaard, the girl seemed to be a ghost. Walking through walls. Disappearing right in front of her. But then Kor captured them and locked Eris’s wrists in those horrible manacles, and Eris’s strange abilities had just . . . stopped.

Why?

She shook her head. “The important thing is keeping her confined until we deliver her to the empress.”

“Well, it won’t be long now,” said Dax, resting his chin on the top of Roa’s head as he looked to the prow. “We’re almost in Axis’s harbor.”

“I’m sure Leandra will want to know that her waters are infested with pirates,” said Roa. “We should offer to help her eliminate them.”

It wasn’t until her thumb’s third time around the spindle that Safire noticed the symbols carved into the wood. Seven stars ringed the widest part, almost completely worn away. And there was something else, too.

Safire lifted it to her face, squinting at the carved word.

Skye, it read.

Safire frowned at the name. But why she was surprised, she didn’t know. Eris was a thief. Of course the spindle was stolen.

“And then you can fly to the southern tip of Axis Isle and make sure Asha’s safe,” said Dax.

Safire looked up, startled. “Is that where she is?”

“Torwin sent a message the night you went missing. I’ll show you the letter. It should be easy to find.”

Those words pricked her. If Asha was easy to find, then if Eris ever got free . . .

At that thought, Safire realized it had been a while since she’d checked on her prisoner.

Gripping the spindle hard in her hand, Safire pushed away from the taffrail. “Then as soon as Eris is safely locked away in the empress’s prison, I’ll find Asha and warn her about Jemsin.”

Safire was still thinking about the spindle as she headed for the cabin Dax had designated as hers. She remembered her first encounter with Eris. She’d bumped into her, disguised as a soldat, and the spindle had fallen to the floor. Safire picked it up and handed it back.

The second time, in Safire’s bedroom, the spindle was there again. Safire had seen it in Eris’s hand before she disappeared.

Clearly there was some connection between this spindle and Eris’s disappearances.

What is it?

As she stepped through the doorway and into her cabin, two soldats greeted her. In the center of the lavish room stood Eris.

Dax wanted to put her in the brig, where Kor and his crew were currently confined. Safire prevented it, remembering the look in Kor’s eyes that night on his ship. Criminal or no, she didn’t want that man anywhere near Eris.

Now, in an ironic swapping of places, Eris’s manacles were chained to one of the beams above her head. But the look of pain on her face made it difficult for Safire to gloat. She quickly glanced to find the girl’s wrists raw and bleeding.

Stardust steel would take three days to eat through human flesh, Eris had told her.

How many days had passed?

Almost two.

Safire’s stomach twisted at the realization. But they were nearly in Axis. As soon as they made port, she would make sure they found a metalsmith who could take them off. It would be safer and smarter to head straight for the empress, but those cuffs were a perverse kind of cruelty. And Safire didn’t abide cruelty. She would just have to keep a close eye on Eris while they made their detour.

“Leave us for a moment,” she told the soldats.

As they stepped out, Safire shut the door.

“You royals sure travel in style,” Eris said the moment they were gone. Her voice had a lazy, mocking edge as she looked around the room. “The upholstery in here alone could pay to feed a starving village.”

Safire looked around her. The cabin was decorated with lavish furniture made of dark wood and upholstered in rich blues and purples. Portraits hung from the walls, and on the table, silver goblets rested beside a decanter of wine.

Eris tilted her chin toward the bed. “And I bet those silk sheets—” The words died on her lips as her gaze fell on the object in Safire’s hand. Something desperate flashed across her face.

It was the confirmation Safire needed.

“First you say you burned it,” said Eris, her eyes meeting Safire’s. “Then you say you buried it. That’s twice you lied.” Her lips curved in a slow smile. “Looks like I’m starting to rub off on you.”

The comment rankled Safire. She didn’t respond. Just grabbed the chair from the desk and turned it around, sitting down before her captive.

“I have a theory,” she said as she tossed the spindle up and down. Taunting Eris in the same way Kor had. “The rumors say the Death Dancer is uncatchable.” Up and down went the spindle. Eris never took her eyes off it. “They say she can escape any cell. That she walks through walls. That she eludes even death.”

The next time the spindle landed, Safire’s fingers closed around it. She looked up to find Eris’s gaze intent on her face. “Not so long ago, I watched you disappear before my own eyes. And now, here you are. Caught. What’s the difference between that night and this one?”

When Eris didn’t answer, Safire lifted the wooden object by its slender end, holding it up.

“It’s the spindle,” she mused aloud. “It somehow allows you to disappear.”

Eris smiled with just one side of her mouth. “Why don’t you give it to me, and I’ll show you if you’re right.”

Leaning over the back of the chair, Safire smiled back. “I know I’m right. Without it, you’re nothing more than a common thief.”

Eris’s elegant jaw hardened. “So this is what you do with all your captives, right before you march them to their deaths? Taunt them? Gloat over them?” She shook her head, disgusted. “It’s beneath you.”

Safire smarted at those words. She sat back, her cheeks reddening with heat.

But what did she care about this lowlife’s good opinion?

She did care, though. She cared that Eris was right: taunting and gloating were beneath her.

I’ve been spending too much time in the company of criminals, she thought.

Still, Safire rose from the chair, unsettled, and walked to the small porthole. “I’m not marching you to your death,” she said softly, looking out to the harbor in the distance. She could just make out wharves and fishing sheds and boats moored to docks. Beyond it, the city sprawled out and up the mountain at its back. “The empress will give you a fair trial.”

Eris snorted. “You’re a fool if you think that’s true.”

Safire turned in surprise to face her. “What do you mean?” In Firgaard, every criminal had a right to a trial. Things hadn’t always been this way, but they were now, under Dax and Roa’s rule.

“If she puts me on trial, I’ll tell the truth. And Leandra doesn’t want me telling the truth.” Eris’s eyes were unnaturally bright. “Trust me, princess. I’ll get no trial. She’ll take me up to the immortal scarps and dispose of me—like she does with everyone she hates most.”

Safire crossed her arms, turning back to the porthole, watching the smoke from Axis’s chimneys curl into the distant sky. She needed to be careful here. She knew Eris was perfectly capable of manipulating her.

Hesitant, she asked, “And what’s the truth?”

“You’ve already decided what it is,” said Eris in a small voice.

Safire turned to face her. “Try me.”

So Eris told her.