69
Ash
I choke on the taste of my captor’s skin, spitting it out of my mouth as soon as I come to. My tongue burns, tar and fishy oil souring it. “Kaylin!” It’s a half shriek, half sob as I struggle to right myself.
He shakes his head, the only part of his body he can move. They have him chained to the wall in an X, arms over his head, legs spread eagle. I start to speak but he gives me another no, his head turning side to side.
“Are you shushing me?” I wince as I send the thought, my headache slicing deep as the words form in my mind.
“Don’t let them know we matter to each other.” His face contorts as well.
“A little late for that.” I gasp at the pain. “You called me by name, not to mention killing the crew to reach me.” I’m panting by the time I finish the sentence. There’s something very wrong with my head.
“You might have tipped them off when you threatened to boil them in demon blood if they touched me again.”
“I said that?”
“Aye. It’ll be hard for me to come off as a mercenary now.” The calmness in his eyes, the absence of fear in the face of what I’m thinking must be certain death after prolonged torture, clashes with my rising panic. How does he stay so calm?
I breathe in the rank air of the hold and let it out slowly. He does matter to me. Of course, he matters so much. And I’ve never told him so.
“Kaylin?” The only sound around us is the slosh of the sea and thumps and drag above. Are they clearing bodies? There had been a lot of fighting. “Kaylin?”
“Speak to my mind.”
“I can’t. It hurts too much.”
His brow wrinkles and fresh blood drips down his temples. “He thwacked you hard on the back of the head, and that goose egg—”
“I don’t remember.”
“I’m not surprised.” He sends me the kindest look, he who is chained to the wall and dripping blood. “Speak Palrion, then,” he suggests. “They won’t understand.”
I wipe tears out of my eyes, the iron manacles scraping my cheeks. “How did you get here? And the others? Is everyone safe? Tyche?” I close my eyes, not wanting to hear the answer, in case it’s worse news. The dragging sounds overhead continue. They can’t be happy with Kaylin, and the thought makes one word come to mind—retaliation.
Did they beat me again when I was passed out? I feel as if an eight-horse wagon train galloped over my back. I run my tongue around my mouth, making sure no teeth are missing. I swipe up blood but find no gaps in my smile, not that I’m smiling. Feels like I never will again. “Talk to me, Kaylin. While we can. Let me hear your voice.”
“You were easy to find, lass, and the others are safe. It’s just me, and you, in chains.” He tries to shrug but doesn’t have enough slack.
“Really?” He might be saying it in case our captors do speak Palrion and are hidden in the hold, listening. But would it be good for them to think there were more of us, or not? I don’t know. My head pounds and I can’t work it out.
Kaylin confirms it with a nod. Hair falls into his face, and he tries to shake it away. Blood trickles from his nose. He can’t reach a shoulder to wipe it.
This is so awful. “And you came here alone?”
“Aye, to rescue you.”
I give a furtive glance around the hold. “Thank you. Now what’s the plan?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Is there no hope?” I want to ask if there is a Tangeen warship boarding this vessel as we speak, but I already know there isn’t.
The walls and floor are thin enough to hear what’s going on, and it’s nothing resembling a rescue. The thumping above stops and the ship plows silently through the water. Occasionally overhead the sound of tin mop buckets clanking and wire brushes scrubbing back and forth echo in the background. Muffled commands ring out in the distance. Kaylin might have diminished the crew, but there seem to be enough left to sail on and do whatever it is they have a mind to. I don’t like our chances.
“There is hope, lass,” he says quietly.
I want very much to believe him, which might be the only reason why he says it—to keep our final moments on the path as peaceful as possible. They say how you leave the path has a bearing on how you walk back into your next life. Maybe he’s trying to be kind, and at that moment, with it all so hopeless and dark, I love him even more for it.
We are silent for some time and then I say, “They were already mad at me, Kaylin, but I think they’re very unhappy now, with you especially.”
“That is true, lass.”
How long we can live under these circumstances, I don’t know. My gut knots in despair, for myself, and even worse for Kaylin. He’s only here because of me. “Do you know where we’re headed?” I ask to keep from thinking about what happens when we get there.
“North.”
“On the Nulsea still?”
“Aye.”
“So maybe to South Sierrak?”
“It seems so.” His eyes are closed and his voice is only a whisper.
“Are you all right?”
“Reasonably fine.” His lips twitch. “You?”
“I’m thirsty.” My bucket is empty and there is no sign of them offering to refill it. Biting and kicking my guard might have been unwise, in retrospect.
“I agree. Water would be nice. When we are free from this voyage, and the whistle bones gathered, the Great Dying turned back, I will take you to my home isles of Tutapa. There, we can swim in the lagoons with creatures you’ve never seen the likes of.”
“What creatures?”
“Sea dragons, for one.”
Something deep within me brightens. “Sea dragons? Really?”
“Aye, lass.”
My heart pounds, knowing that we may never leave this hold alive, let alone survive if we do. I might be able to resign myself to it, but taking Kaylin off the path with me? Because of me? “What were you thinking, coming aboard and attacking a crew when you were ridiculously outnumbered,” I ask, heat rising to my head as it pounds, fit to burst. “Tell me what you were thinking, please, so I can understand.”
“That’s simple, lass. I was thinking of you.”