The Nurian captain’s cabin offered a distinct contrast to Bocrest’s quarters. Behind a desk painted with flowers and vines, lace curtains decorated a bank of windows. Velvet furniture and lush rugs covering the deck might have invited one to lounge, but the cannons booming in the distance suppressed the cozy parlor ambiance.
Tikaya and Rias slid inside, shutting the door behind them. For the moment, the Nurians were busy attacking—and defending against—Bocrest’s warship, but sooner or later someone would figure out “Jeela” had failed her mission.
“Check those trunks.” Rias jogged around the desk to the windows. “Let me know if you can tell if the captain is a wizard or not. If he is, he’ll likely have wards protecting his orders.”
Tikaya threw open the trunks and lifted a sword and a lacy brassiere. “I believe she’s a warrior.”
“Should be safe to search then.” Rias tore his gaze from the windows and cocked an eyebrow at the lingerie. “Unless you want to model that for me first?”
Startled, she dropped the sword. The hilt banged onto her sandaled foot.
Rias winced and lifted an apologetic hand. “Sorry, I, er, two years, you know.”
“It’s fine.” Cheeks warming, she threw the sword back in the trunk, relieved she had not cut off any toes. “I’ll just, uhm, find those orders now.”
Tikaya yanked open a desk drawer and rummaged through letters and supply receipts. Out of the corner of her eye, she caught Rias shaking his head, fingers splayed across his face, before he turned back to the window. A grin tugged at her lips.
A moment later, he found his fearless-soldier-in-charge tone and reported: “All four Nurian ships are even with the Emperor’s Fist now, two on each side. Bocrest is doing damage, but...if we’re going to help, it’ll have to be soon.”
Tikaya tried another drawer. She wanted those orders, and she wanted them to say something significant to justify detouring here. Rias helped her search, checking cupboards under the bunk, but she sensed restless energy emanating from him. He wanted to assist his people, though she could not imagine how he planned to take over the ship.
Under a pile of log books in the bottom drawer, she found a parchment displaying lines of gibberish. “Got it. Encrypted though.” She tapped the nonsensical Nurian letters. “Given enough time, I can work it out, but it’d be helpful to have the key. The captain ought to have it, right?”
“Yes.” Rias joined her at the desk and opened and closed all the drawers.
“I already looked in there.”
He paused at the lower one, yanked it clear, dumped the contents on the deck, and ripped out the bottom. His vandalism revealed a secret compartment from which he plucked another sheet of parchment.
“Guess my looking skills need improvement,” Tikaya murmured.
“I get suspicious when inside dimensions don’t match outside ones.”
“Ah.” She laid both sheets on the desk and quickly memorized the key.
The clanging of a bell echoed through the ship. More footsteps pounded, this time on their deck instead of above.
“Alarm,” Rias said. “They know we escaped. Take that with us. We’re out of time.”
“Wait, I’ve got it.”
“Already? How could you...”
She skipped the introduction and translated the meat of the orders: “‘Search and destroy the Emperor’s Fist before it reaches the Northern Frontier. If any artifacts with strange symbols are found, sink them in the ocean. Use extreme caution in handling them. Do not bring them home and do not try to destroy them.’”
“Honored ancestors,” Rias murmured. “What have my people uncovered?”
“’In addition,’” Tikaya finished grimly, “‘the Kyattese linguist allied with the Turgonians must be killed at all costs.’” Allied? She was no cursed Turgonian ally.
The windows exploded.
Rias tore Tikaya off her feet before she knew what was happening. Wood cracked louder than thunder. Rias came down on top of her, protecting her with his body. Glass and splinters rained about them, tinkling as they hit the deck.
“What was that?” Tikaya asked when her heart left throat. Wind whistled into the cabin.
Rias pulled her up. He nodded to a cannonball lodged in the bulkhead perpendicular to the broken window. “Friendly fire.”
She gulped and plucked a shard of glass out of the side of his neck. “Glad your reflexes are faster than mine. Thank you.”
“Welcome.” He shook more glass from his jacket, then headed for the door. “Still got my back?”
“Of course.” Tikaya grabbed her bow.
They had reached the captain’s cabin without trouble, but, with the alarm clanging, search parties clogged their deck. Fortunately, Rias seemed to know the layout of the Nurian vessel as well as the Turgonian ironclad. They hid in cabins and shadowy nooks to avoid men before slipping down a ladder to the deck below.
“How’re we taking over the ship from down here?” Tikaya whispered, neck bent to keep from clunking her head on the ceiling.
Rias’s shoulders brushed the walls as they crept single-file down a dim passageway. “This is a Nurian striker. Not a big vessel. I think I can handle the tiller by myself. It should be located...there.”
He pointed at a door marking the end of the corridor. He jogged past a ladder well and charged inside, cutlass leading.
As Tikaya passed the ladder, movement stirred the shadows. A woman dropped from above, legs swinging out to wrap around Tikaya.
“Rias!” she called.
Steel rang out in the tiller room. He was busy.
The Nurian tried to pull Tikaya into the ladder well with powerful legs. For a woman, she had surprising bulk and muscle. Tikaya spread her stance and braced herself against the wall. She tried to maneuver her bow to prod the woman loose from the rungs, but it proved too unwieldy for the tight passage.
The Nurian woman released the ladder and threw her arms around Tikaya. The momentum slammed Tikaya back into the wall. A second form dropped into view in the ladder well—a black-robed man.
“Who’s got my back?” Tikaya cried as the woman plucked a dagger from between her teeth.
She released the bow and tried to knock the blade away. Sharp steel bit into her arm.
The practitioner hanging on the ladder narrowed his eyes in concentration. The female fighter clung to Tikaya with one hand and raised the dagger again with the other.
Tikaya bit the arm wrapped around her shoulders. The woman hissed and her grip softened. Tikaya pushed off the wall and tried to shove her foe into the ladder well. The move jostled the practitioner. He cursed, his concentration disturbed, but the woman stuck to Tikaya like a tick. She raised her knife again.
A hand caught the Nurian’s wrist, and Rias yanked her away. Tikaya stumbled and went down. Arrows spilled from her quiver.
The practitioner leapt on top of her, a dagger held aloft. Tikaya grabbed an arrow and rammed it into his gut. Luckily, it was the pointy end.
Eyes bulging, the practitioner reeled back. He dropped the dagger and clutched the arrow in his belly.
Before Tikaya could decide if she was safe, Rias loomed behind the practitioner. He wound up and swept the cutlass through flesh, muscle, and bone. The Nurian’s head fell onto Tikaya.
“Errkt!” She shoved it off and scrambled away. Panting, she pressed a hand against the wall for support.
“I’ve got your back.” Rias raked her with his gaze. “Are you injured?”
“Not...severely,” she said numbly, staring at the decapitated practitioner. “How—why do you do that?” It came out more accusatory than she meant. Or maybe not. He had just saved her life—again—and she did not want to sound ungrateful, but, damn, it was chilling when the man on her side was more fearsome than those trying to murder her.
Rias turned her away from the decapitated practitioner and nodded toward the tiller room. “I’ve seen too many wizards I thought dead heal themselves and later come back after my men. As to how...” He ducked low to enter. “If you’re ever in the imperial capital’s war library, look up Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat. I wrote it for Lord General Micacrest during my final year of studies, and parts are now used by the military training academies. Not scintillating reading, I’ll admit, but it covers everything from breaking boards with a punch to—”
“Beheading people?” She trailed him inside, also ducking for the hatch.
“That’s not listed in the table of contents, but, essentially, yes.”
A pair of glowing orbs in sconces by the door illuminated the interior, though even without them Tikaya would have noticed the matching ragged holes adorning the exterior walls of the wedge-shaped compartment. A cannonball had gone straight through, leaving uneven gaps more than two feet in diameter. Wind shrieked, and water splattered the deck, pooling and running with the rocking of the ship.
“That doesn’t look good,” she muttered, before noticing a dead warrior on the deck, short sword still clutched in his grip.
“Actually...” Rias shut the door and peered out both gaps. He lingered on one side and kicked out a few broken boards to enlarge it. “It’s fortuitous since there aren’t portholes in here. There’s the other Nurian vessel on this flank, and I see the Fist’s smokestacks beyond it.”
He strode to one of the block and tackles stretched from either side of the long metal tiller. They allowed manual access, though control ropes disappeared through the ceiling to connect to the wheel on the upper deck.
Rias grabbed one of the ropes and readied his cutlass. “They’ll know right away they’ve lost wheel control, and half the crew will probably charge down here.”
“I see, and how will we stop them from killing us?”
“Let me know when you figure it out.” At odds with the seriousness of the situation, a mischievous glint warmed his eyes. “It’s going to take all my strength to man the tiller.”
He sliced through the control ropes even as she blurted, “You’re crazy!”
Rias unhooked the end of the rope on the starboard block and tackle, glanced at measurements on the wall above the tiller, and sank into a low stance to pull. Inch by inch the great lever shifted, and the ship leaned, cutting across the waves in a new direction.
Tikaya hunted for something to block the door that she would surely be defending in a moment. Alas, there was no convenient beam for barring it shut—probably so people could not do what they were attempting.
She pushed a trunk full of spare rope to the door. Forcing queasiness aside in favor of practicality, she muscled the dead Nurian’s body on top of it to add weight.
“Where exactly are you steering us?” she panted.
Rias was a statue, leaning back, arms extended, fingers wrapped around the rope, tendons taut with the strain, but he grinned at her nonetheless. “The closest Nurian ship.”
“Oh, dear.”
A fist hammered at the door.
“The Turgonians cut the ropes,” Tikaya yelled in Nurian. “We’re taking care of it. They ran to the hold!”
A long pause answered her, and, for a moment, she thought they might believe her. Then synchronized thuds struck the door.
“A nice try,” Rias said, and she wondered how much Nurian he understood.
The chest skidded with each strike. She shoved it back in between blows.
“Get a ram,” someone yelled.
“Better ready that bow,” Rias said.
“If we’re successful in crashing this ship, how are we getting out of here?” Tikaya asked.
Rias nodded toward the cannonball holes. “Hope you can swim.”
She groaned.
For a moment, the thumps at the door stopped. Tikaya abandoned the chest and looked out the hole. They had halved the distance between themselves and the other Nurian ship, where a fire burned on the deck. People were scurrying to put it out.
“Are they tacking?” Rias asked. “Do I need to make adjustments?”
“Not yet. You’re dead on, and they’re busy. Not sure they’ve figured things out yet.”
“Let’s hope.”
The hairs rose on the back of Tikaya’s neck. Before she could shout a warning, a wave of power surged at the door. The trunk and body were flung into the room.
While nocking an arrow, Tikaya tried to shut the door with her shoulder. Warped hinges kept it from closing fully, and someone thrust it wide.
She jumped around and fired the bow, point blank, into the lead man’s chest. Shocked eyes launched an accusation at her. She forced aside guilt and kicked him into others trying to surge forward. While they struggled to get around their dying comrade, she targeted a practitioner in the corridor behind them. Her arrow sailed over the heads of men shorter than she, but bounced harmlessly off an invisible shield. The practitioner never flinched.
The Nurians cleared the fallen man away, and their renewed push demanded Tikaya’s attention. The corridor and door were too narrow for more than one to attack at once, but the seconds it took to nock and aim arrows let them push her back.
“Rias! I can’t—”
Then he was there at her side, the slashing cutlass a wall of steel guarding the doorway. He had tied the rope to the other block and tackle. The lever wavered with the rocking of the ship, but hopefully they were close enough now that their course was inevitable.
“Get in there, you fools!” the practitioner shouted. “We’re on a crash course!”
An arrow clipped the doorjamb and whizzed past Tikaya’s head. Every time she found the opportunity, she shot around Rias, peppering their attackers. Her supply of arrows dwindled.
“This is madness,” she yelled over the clamor.
“Yes!” Rias grinned at her, as if he loved every second.
A gifted swordsman made it to the front. Blade a blur, he forced Rias back.
Metal screeched in Tikaya’s ears. She drew the bow, hoping for a clear shot. Two men slipped in behind the swordsman. Tikaya shot one, but more piled inside.
A thunderous crash buried the din, and the ship lurched and tilted on its side. Men scrambled and fell over each other, sliding toward the lower wall. Tikaya tumbled into Rias, but he grabbed the jamb and kept them from falling. Even in the stern of the ship, the cracks of wood breaking against wood were audible. Water gushed in from one of the cannonball holes, which was now submerged. Men flailed and floundered, struggling to get back to the door.
“I can’t swim!” someone yelled.
“Time to go,” Rias said.
Tikaya grabbed one of the glowing orbs from a sconce before he pushed her toward the upper wall. They had to pull their way along the block and tackle to reach the escape hole. Though the orb hampered her, she refused to release it.
Finally, with Rias’s help, she clawed her way through the hole. The ragged wood tore a new gash in her beleaguered dress, but she wriggled free and slid down the hull into frigid black water.
The icy shock stole her breath. Salt stung her wounds, and she almost dropped the orb.
Rias plunged in beside her, spraying water.
The Nurian striker had rammed into the side of its sister ship, and water gushed into a great hole in the hull. Fire still burned on the deck, lighting up the night. Timber, from splinters to broken beams, littered the water.
“This way.” Rias swam away from the ships, pushing the large pieces of wood out of the way.
“You sure you don’t want to stay?” She was already swimming, side-stroking with the orb clutched against her hip. “You seemed to enjoy having people trying to kill you.”
“You seemed to enjoy it less.”
“Probably—” she spit icy salt water out of her mouth, “—an acquired taste.”
They paddled away from the ships, rising and falling with the waves. Both vessels burned now and flames crawled up the sails of one. Neither would trouble the Turgonians again that night. As they swam out of the shadow of the Nurian vessels, the ironclad came into view. Only one of the two ships on its opposite flank remained, and both masts had been toppled, so it was falling behind. Tikaya and Rias, too, were falling behind. Her chest tightened at the idea of being left in the middle of the sea.
“Hope they see this.” Tikaya lifted the glowing orb overhead, waving it in the air.
“Me too,” Rias said.
The lookout in the crow’s nest shouted something down to the deck. Tikaya’s teeth chattered, and it felt as if hours, not minutes, passed before the warship dropped a boat.
“It’s fortunate you’re here,” Rias said, bumping her arm as they treaded water. “I doubt they would have bothered coming for me.”
“Not sure how fortunate I feel about going back to the Turgonians.” Tikaya swiped water out of her eyes and grimaced at the cold drops tunneling into her ears. “I guess it’s better being wanted than being wanted dead.”
“Prevailing opinions agree with that sentiment.”
Oars lifted and dipped as the craft neared. Lanterns at either end provided light, and Tikaya spotted Agarik leading the rowers. She smiled a bit, glad he had survived the chaos. He gazed at Rias with a wide-eyed, openmouthed stare of adulation and helped him out of the water first. She tried not to feel a twinge of envy. She had helped after all. At least Agarik managed to notice her second and gave her a hand into the boat. She collapsed on an empty bench between rows of burly, young oarsmen.
“Turn this dinghy around,” Agarik yelled, and the men set to work.
Tikaya wrapped her arms around herself. The breeze needled her soaking dress, cold water dripped from her hair, and she had lost her sandals in the fall so the puddles on the bottom chilled her feet.
Rias settled on the bench next to her, and she pressed closer than she normally would have. Shivers coursed through her body. He put his arm around her, though he must have been just as cold and miserable. Their proximity caused raised eyebrows and significant looks between the marines. Agarik’s jaw tensed.
“Here, sir.” A marine handed Rias a blanket.
The use of the honorific made Agarik give the man a sharp look, though Tikaya was not sure if it was quelling or curious. Rias draped the blanket over his and her shoulders.
On the short ride back, the marines peppered him with questions. How had he gotten out of his cell? How had he and Tikaya gotten aboard the Nurian craft? Had they seen the Nurians on board their ship? Did they know what they wanted? Apparently, the Turgonian chain of command meant nobody not commanding had a clue was happening.
Tikaya thought Rias might share the story, but, back in the presence of the marines, he grew reserved and quiet. Was this the real man or had she glimpsed that person on the Nurian ship? Or neither? She liked the amiable fellow she had chatted with while target shooting best, though she suspected she could grow accustomed to the soldier she had seen tonight too. Not that it mattered. Certainly, she appreciated his help, but it was not as if she was going to develop feelings for some ex-officer from the military that had tried to take over her islands.
Still, when their knuckles bumped beneath the blanket, she gripped his hand.
“Thank you,” she whispered, wanting to say more, but their hulking male onlookers stilled her tongue.
Rias smiled and squeezed her hand.
Back on the warship, Captain Bocrest waited, arms folded across his chest, a scowl accompanying his usual glare. Tikaya had not expected gratitude from the man, but the anger radiating from him surprised her.
As soon as Rias came over the railing behind her, that anger found an outlet.
“How could you make such an idiotic decision?” Bocrest snapped.
“He didn’t do anything wrong,” Tikaya said. “The Nurians teleported us to their ship. What was he supposed to do?”
The captain did not spare her a glance. His glare stayed pinned to Rias.
“What are you talking about, Bocrest?” Rias asked.
“You know what I’m talking about.” The captain jerked his hand at a squad of marines standing by with pistols. “Take him back to his cell.”
“Wait.” Rias lifted a hand. “Did you find the assassins?”
“The dead men in the brig? Yes.”
“No.” Rias gave Tikaya a concerned frown. “There are two others, at least, who can skulk about invisible.”
“They killed the man guarding my cabin,” she said.
“We’ll find them,” Bocrest said.
“I can help,” Rias said.
Bocrest scowled again. “You can go to your slagging cell and stay there this time.”
“Captain.” Rias stepped forward, staring down at Bocrest. “The Nurians want Tikaya dead and are making great sacrifices to ensure that happens.”
“I’m aware of that.” Bocrest did not back off, nor shrink away from Rias’s glare. “I have orders to keep her alive until she decodes the runes, and I’ll do that.”
“She’d be dead now if she hadn’t escaped on her own. You already botched your orders.”
Afraid he would land himself in irrevocable trouble for her sake, Tikaya grabbed Rias’s arm and tried to pull him away.
“I botched my orders?” Bocrest yelled, fists clenched. “If you hadn’t screwed up two years ago, you could—” He cut himself off with an audible snapping shut of his jaw, and Tikaya sensed the ‘idiotic decision’ he accused Rias of had less to do with this night and more to do with whatever had landed Rias on Krychek Island. Bocrest glared around at the watching marines. “You men have duties,” he roared. “Get this ship repaired. Now!”
Men sprinted from his wrath, leaving only Rias, Tikaya, Agarik, and the guards waiting to escort their prisoner below.
“Let me stay with her until the assassins are found,” Rias said, as if he had not heard the captain’s outburst. “Or stand guard outside her door. I’ve tangled with enough wizards to survive them.”
“You’re not her bodyguard, you’re our guide. I thought I explained that to you when you were taking swings at me.”
“A job for which you don’t need me until we arrive at the tunnels,” Rias said.
Tikaya’s ears perked. Tunnels? Was that where the rubbings had come from? She still needed Rias to explain his history with the runes.
“No,” Bocrest said. “You’re a prisoner. You don’t get your way.”
Tikaya still gripped Rias’s arm, and she could feel the tension in the knotted muscles beneath the damp sleeve. Though she hated seeing him angry, especially on her behalf, she had to wonder how much more might be revealed if she simply stood quiet and listened.
“Bocrest...” Rias tried again.
“Go. To. Your. Cell.” The captain jerked his arm to wave the guards forward.
Rias tensed and dropped into a fighting crouch. He had not noticed when she grabbed his arm, so Tikaya stepped in front of him and planted two hands on his chest.
“Don’t.” She gazed into his eyes and made herself smile, though, she would have preferred Rias stay by her side too. “I’ll be fine. You won’t accomplish anything by getting beaten up.”
He closed his eyes, seemed to struggle for his calm, and finally sighed, a deep long exhalation. “Be careful.”
“I will.”
Tikaya watched glumly as the guards surrounded him.
“This way, sir,” one said.
Bocrest’s head jerked up. “Don’t you ‘sir’ him. He’s Prisoner Five, and that’s it.”
The guard gulped. “Yes, captain.”
Head lowered, Rias offered no reaction to the terse conversation. Surrounded, he trooped belowdecks. Bocrest stalked in the opposite direction, grinding his teeth.
“Ready to go back to your cabin, ma’am?” Agarik asked.
She shook her head but followed him. “Who is he, Corporal?” She had asked the question before, and Agarik had not known, but that was the second time someone sir’d him that night. Maybe it was out respect for what they had done aboard the Nurian ship, but somehow she doubted it. She wagered that shave and haircut had made him recognizable, at least to some.
“I wish I knew.” Agarik led her down a ship’s ladder. “It seems like he must be an officer at least, someone who fought during the war. But I fought as well, and I don’t remember hearing about anyone court-martialed and exiled to Krychek.” They threaded through the wardroom, where furniture had toppled and slid against the wall, and stopped at her cabin. “He hasn’t told you?”
“Just to call him Rias. Does that mean anything to you?”
The corporal’s expression grew thoughtful, but eventually he shook his head. “No.”
Tikaya stepped into her cabin. Thankfully, the bodies had been cleared, though a few bloodstains smudged the deck.
Before Agarik could close the door, she leaned back out, remembering something. “He did say...”
Agarik paused, eyes questioning.
“If I was ever at the war library in your capital I should look up a book called Applications of the Kinetic Chain Principle in Close Combat, because he wrote it.”
Agarik froze. Utterly and completely. His mouth hung open, and he stared at her for a long moment before recovering. “I see. Thank you.”
“Wait.” Tikaya raised a hand as he started away. “You know, don’t you? Is he somebody I would have heard of?”
“I don’t—I can’t. I’m not sure. I—”
A lieutenant passed through the wardroom on the way to his cabin, and he frowned at Agarik.
“I have to go.” Agarik chopped a wave.
“Could you at least have someone bring me a towel?” Tikaya called to his receding back.
* * * * *
After dripping a puddle of water onto the cabin floor, Tikaya wondered if she should take off her dress and dry herself with the blanket on her bunk. What were the odds the Turgonians would supply her with a change of clothing at some point? She plucked at the damp dress. At least the sea had washed out most of the blood.
When she reached for the blanket, her gaze fell across the desk. It was empty.
The rubbings, her notes, and the reference books Bocrest had provided were missing. She searched the tiny cabin, thinking they might have been knocked off during the scramble, but no. They were gone.
A shiver ran through her that had nothing to do with the wet dress. The assassins must have returned and taken them.
Tikaya eyed the corners of the cabin, all too aware that they could be right in front of her and she would not know it.
She opened the door, wondering if a new guard had been posted or if she could leave and find the captain. Sergeant Ottotark leaned against the wall outside, and she did not manage to hide her groan.
Briefly, he met her eyes, offering a hostile glare, but his gaze inevitably drifted downward. She shifted to the side to stand in the shadow of the door.
“The rubbings are missing,” Tikaya said. “I think they stole them—the Nurians who attacked me in my cabin and killed the young man standing guard.”
Ottotark’s face frosted at the mention of the dead marine.
“Can you tell Bocrest?” she asked.
“The captain is busy directing repairs, cleanup, and funeral services, thanks to the flotilla of Nurian ships that showed up tonight looking for you.”
“While I’m sympathetic to your lost men—”
He snorted.
“—you people kidnapped me,” she continued. “I never wanted to be here, so don’t blame that attack on me. If you could just tell the captain I’m not able to continue my studies unless he finds—”
The sergeant stepped forward, shoving the door further open. “I’m not your messenger boy.”
She stumbled back, glancing around for something to use as a weapon if she needed to fend him off. The sparse cabin offered nothing.
“You’d do best to remember you’re a prisoner here. Prisoners have no right to the captain’s time, nor to an officer’s cabin with a busy sergeant as your guard, a busy sergeant who’s stuck on this duty because your presence here got one of his men killed.” His low voice was gravelly, and tendons strained against the skin of his thick neck. “You haven’t done anything useful since you got here.”
Tikaya wanted to defend herself—she had helped Rias crash the ship that had allowed the Turgonians to sail away, hadn’t she?—but Ottotark seemed to want her to argue, to incite his anger. He stepped closer, and she eased back until her calves bumped the bunk.
Rage boiled in the sergeant’s dark eyes, but lust too. He had not looked at her face since she first opened the door. “The captain ought to chain you to that bunk and let you be of some use to the crew.”
A throat cleared in the corridor.
The glare Ottotark snapped over his shoulder could have frozen lava, but Corporal Agarik merely lifted his arms, displaying boots, a parka, a stack of black uniforms, and a towel. Tikaya held her breath, aware the sergeant outranked Agarik, but hoping the corporal’s presence would keep Ottotark in line.
“The captain said to bring her these and relieve you as guard,” Agarik said.
Ottotark eyed the stack. “Now we’re pampering the bitch with extra clothes? Why don’t we invite her to dine in the officer’s mess next?”
“Gonna be cold up there, sergeant.” Agarik walked in, set the clothing on the bunk, and then stood outside the cabin, in full view of the door, which he left open.
Ottotark issued a low growl and a backward glance that promised “later” before striding out.
Even after the door banged shut, Tikaya could not relax. Her luck would not hold with that one. She would have to figure out how to abscond with a dagger from the exercise area and keep it on her at all times. And hope it was enough against the powerful marine. And that she could use it on him. But then that should not be a problem now. Her lip twisted bitterly. She had killed. When she thought of how easy it had been, how accurate she was with that cursed bow, she had to steady herself with a hand on the wall.
React later, Rias had said. Well, it was later.
Tikaya curled on her side on the bunk, her head in her hands, her eyes shut. Images of her deeds flashed in her mind, the terrified and pained faces of the people she shot. She let them flood over her again and again, feeling the need to punish herself. What would Parkonis think if he were alive? Would he be shocked—disgusted—that she could release an arrow into someone’s chest? He never would have killed a human being, probably not even in self-defense. He would have been horrified to see Rias beheading those practitioners.
She opened her eyes and stared at the polished wood floorboards. If she had been transported to that ship with Parkonis, she would have been dead in the first minute. She was no longer in his world, no longer in hers. She could adapt to this world—she had proved that to herself that night—but at what cost?
Tikaya wondered if she would ever see her family and her island again. More, she wondered if she would be someone her parents could still love if she did return.