“Not for long,” Nouli said, staring at the door, his tanned face wan and sallow in the clear light of day. Poor bastard had probably never seen so much blood up close before.
“It’ll be enough,” she said, not believing it, and then reached down to peel the baton and cutlass from a fallen guard’s body. After a second’s thought, she took the coat too.
“You cold?” Honey rasped, her voice all motherly concern.
“Hardly. Come on, we gotta hang this from the dock post so Honding can find us.”
“Won’t he see the battle?”
Ripka grimaced. “I’m hoping he’ll get here first.”
Thudding pounded below the trapdoor, crushing her hopes as soon as she’d spoken them.
Chapter Forty-Two
Dust-coated figures emerged from the wreckage. For a moment his skin prickled, thinking he’d made ghosts of them all. But they wiped their faces with the backs of their hands, clearing away the stone powder, and fumbled for weapons that he knew would soon be pointed his direction. Aella advanced, the hunched form of Callia shuffling along beside her.
I am going to fight. The realization shuddered through him, and he swallowed bile. Not really. Not in truth. Just a few misdirections, nothing to do anyone real harm. He hoped.
“Hold, Aella,” he said, trying to force some iron into his voice. Trying to remember he was a lord, for better or ill, and if it weren’t for the singular fact that he was a wanted man he would outrank this girl.
She paused, but appeared to have done so only to brush more debris from her clothing. “I’m happy to wait for the regular guards to come along and take you in hand, if that’s what you want, but I suspect they’ll be rougher with you than my people.”
He wiped sweat from his forehead and glanced over his shoulder. The guards weren’t far, a line of ants advancing on a freshly discovered carcass. Not much time to prepare. Not much time at all.
“We’re walking out of here, kiddo. Or did you miss the implication of my little demonstration?” He held his hand out, palm open, as if preparing to gesture her way and funnel his power into the sel hovering above the house. He felt ridiculous, like a clown capering for a bored noble, but he kept his face stern and his back straight. He’d playacted a lot of things in his time. Pretending he had control of himself was just another mask to don.
To his relief, Aella’s thin brows pinched and she squinted at him, looking genuinely consternated for a moment. “You expect me to believe you intended that?”
He resisted a nervous urge to lick his lips. “Wasn’t an accident I blew the wall no one was standing against, was it?” It was pure dumb luck, flailing in his panic, but he couldn’t let her know that. Couldn’t let her see how close he’d come to tearing them all to itty bits.
“I don’t believe you, Honding.”
“Ready,” Pelkaia said. He nearly jumped out of his skin when he saw her wearing Thratia’s face, just as pristine as it had been when they’d walked off the gangplank. She turned her back on Aella and marched toward the approaching guards, affecting all of Thratia’s confident swagger despite the dust and dirt clinging to her clothes. The side of her cheek began to smear. To twitch.
“Coss,” he prompted.
The first mate jumped and reached toward Aella and her cohort, condensing a sliver of selium out of the air near the ground, precisely in the middle of their two groups. Detan grit his teeth, struggling for all he was worth to ignore the layer floating above the house, and snapped his fingers.
The sliver went up in flames, throwing rocks and dirt in all directions. He grinned like a madman as Aella yelped and jumped backward. His power sapped away from him in an instant as Aella shifted her focus.
“You there,” Pelkaia yelled. Detan resisted an urge to look. He hated having a bunch of swords at his back, but he’d hate having Aella there even worse. “Assist me in humanely securing these prisoners. Obviously the Remnant is not capable of housing more dangerous threats.”
Blue skies, but he was lucky Pelkaia was a quick thinker. Disgrace Aella’s abilities and get them all off this horrible hunk of rock? He dared to hope the ploy just might work.
“I think not,” Aella said, taking a step forward. Detan held a threatening hand toward her and she rolled her eyes. “You’re shut down, Honding.”
“And you’re out of line,” Pelkaia snapped. “Guards, apprehend this child and her people as well. I expect a full inquiry to be performed upon this little project.”
“But, it’s your project, commodore,” one of the guards stammered.
Aella smirked. “That is not Commodore Ganal.”
Detan’s power rushed back to him, dizzying, but Tibs was there to prop him up as he swayed. Coss saw him stagger and reached out, condensing a walnut-sized chunk of sel from the air a bare three strides from Aella. Detan blew it without hesitation. The girl swore and stopped hard, jerking her skirt smooth. With a scowl she flicked a wrist at Detan and his power retreated once more. Tibs abandoned him to hold up Coss, who looked green about the throat and poured sweat like he was single-handedly attempting to drown out the desert.
“You cannot keep this up!” Aella shouted at him.
“Don’t push me then,” he growled, surprised by the raw anger in his own voice. She was right. He’d lose control, or Coss would faint dead away, and either way they were royally fucked. Pelkaia’s true face would be revealed. Those working for Aella would hem them in completely.
He shot a glare at one of Aella’s deviants, and the woman stopped hard in her slow encircling, but he knew it wouldn’t last. They were roped in. They had no idea what Aella’s cohort’s capabilities were.
They were going to die here, or be captured.
Detan spared a hopeful glance at the sky, and saw no familiar shadow bobbing toward him. He sighed. Not so lucky this time, then.
“Honding.” Pelkaia’s voice was a soft growl. “Remove these traitors.”
She turned back to him, the guards that’d spilled from the Remnant arrayed around her like a fading crescent moon, her false face stern and her borrowed chin tilted up in defiance. She knew it, too. She must know they were screwed – and this was the only option she saw. The only one he could see, too.
Eliminate the one who could reveal their lies to the guards. Eliminate those loyal to her. Eliminate every other soul who was hiding in that cracked-open yellow house, injured or otherwise cowering with fear. A few had trickled out from the broken building. He could see them only in silhouette, the sun setting behind the house’s back, hunched over in the scrub or sitting under trees. Their heads were collectively turned toward their leader and the half-dozen men and women who were, apparently, meant to be their protectors.
And that layer of sel hanging above them, soft as a cloud, called his name.
“Honding,” Pelkaia said again.
Coss swayed in Tibs’s grip, face gone white as a sheet. Too much strain. Coss had never trained for this. Detan wasn’t even sure if he could have been trained for it. The man would be bedridden for weeks as things stood, Detan knew what it was to use yourself up like that. Knew, too, how relieved he’d felt the first time he’d emptied all his power. The first time he’d burned the world just to spite it.
Worldbreaker.
He shuddered, feeling as nauseous as Coss looked. Blood dripped from Tibs’s chin, splashed across Coss’s bent forehead. Tibs’s ropey muscles strained, his eyes bloodshot and his wrists rubbed raw and angry. Tibs looked at him like he wanted him to do something, but Detan didn’t know what. Looked at him like he feared him – feared whatever he would do. Feared there’d be no coming back from it.