“Lucky,” Burch said.
Kandler shook his head at the shifter. “Why do you think I let you take so damn long cooking that meat?”
Xalt put a hand on Kandler’s shoulder. “You have my thanks,” he said.
“For your bravery in dismantling Ikar’s ship,” Sallah said, “you have ours.”
15
“You can’t leave me here,” Esprë said, “not bound like this. I can’t feel my arms.”
The changeling looked down at the young elf from the airship’s bridge. “I’m sorry about that. I truly am, but I can’t worry about that right now.”
Esprë sighed. “Honestly,” she said. “I can’t feel my arms at all anymore. I think they might fall off. I thought you were supposed to bring me to your employer in one piece.”
Te’oma glared down at the young elf. “Whatever made you think that?”
Esprë tried to shrug but only succeed in moving her chest up an inch. Her arms hung loosely from her bonds. “If you could take me in ‘dead or alive,’ I’m sure I’d be dead by now.”
Te’oma growled as she stormed off the bridge toward Esprë. “You’re not quite that annoying.” She stood over the girl and glared down at her. “Not quite. My employer isn’t as picky about your condition as you might think. She just wants you brought to her. If you’re dead, it’s just a bit more complicated is all.”
Esprë nodded. “I see, but can’t you at least tie me up someplace with my hands lower than this? It really hurts.”
“I thought you said you can’t feel anything.”
“What I can feel hurts really bad.”
The changeling looked down at Esprë, suspicion etched on her blank face in simple lines.
“Please?” Esprë did everything she could to look innocent, short of batting her eyes. She didn’t want to overdo it.
Te’oma snorted in annoyance. “Oh, all right,” she said, “but you have to promise to be good.”
Esprë flashed her sunniest smile. “You have my word.”
The changeling reached down with one hand and undid the knots that held Esprë’s arms fast to the ship’s rail. As the ropes came off, the young elf let her arms fall into her lap and breathed a grateful sigh.
“Thank you,” she said as she tried to rub some life into her limbs.
“Stand up,” Te’oma said. “Stretch your legs.”
As young as she was, Esprë’s joints creaked as she struggled to stand. Her arms had hurt so much she’d ignored how stiff her legs and back had become. She groaned as she stretched her arms up over her head and flexed to force the lethargy from her muscles.
She turned to look out over the railing to which she’d been attached. Grassy plains of amber stretched out before her as far as she could see. The mist-shrouded Mournland still lay off to the west, but she ignored it. There was nothing to see there, and she hoped never to enter the place again. Instead, she stared out toward the distant horizon, watching the wind thrum through the plain, ruffling its surface like the waters of a vast, open sea.
“What’s that?” she asked, stabbing a finger toward a dark block squatting on the horizon.
“Karrnath,” Te’oma said. The changeling stood farther along the railing, out of arm’s reach. “That’s one of the forts they established to keep the halflings who roam these plains from invading their land.”
“Do they work?”
Te’oma chuckled. “Not as well as Karrnath would like. The halflings do not covet any lands but their own. If they wished, they could run right past the forts and strike deep into their neighboring lands before anyone would be able to stop them. The forts only serve to remind the halflings where their boundaries lie—the nomads are notorious for not caring about such things—and what penalties there might be for crossing them.”
Esprë shuddered as she remembered the vampires that kidnapped her had hailed from Karrnath. “Is that where you’re taking me?”
“No,” Te’oma said. “Our destination is much farther north and east of here. We have no business in Fort Bones.”
Esprë gave the changeling a sideways look. “Why would they call it something so horrible?”
“The soldiers there are mostly Karrnathi skeletons, savage undead creatures that follow their master’s orders to the letter and need no sustenance or sleep.”
Esprë shuddered again. “It sounds dreadful.”
“It’s not an inn,” the changeling said. “It’s not meant to be inviting.”
Esprë’s arms tingled as the blood rushed back into them. The feeling in her fingers started coming back. It stung now, but she knew it would soon pass. Now that she could move her arms again, she had to take matters into her own recovering hands.
She concentrated as hard as she could and felt the dragonmark on her back begin to burn. She had only seen the thing once in the mirror in her home in Mardakine, and the angle kept her from getting a good look at it. Still, the intricate pattern it weaved over her skin leaped into her mind as if she could see it on a page. She traced the edges of it with her thoughts and watched them leap from her skin with the dark red glow of dying embers. As she ran over them again and again, the edges started brightening, growing hotter and hotter, as if a bellows forced the latent fire back to life.
Esprë felt the power creep down from between her shoulders and along her arms like an army of fire ants marching along her skin. It crawled past her elbows and into her hands, where it pooled like a dammed river, pressing against the tips of her fingers, begging for permission to burst out.
She peered at Te’oma out of the corner of her eye. The changeling seemed lost in thought, as if the vast expanse of land that stretched out before them absorbed her whole.
Esprë rubbed her hands together. The heat from the friction forced away the tingling, but the invisible power still seemed to crackle between her fingers.
“No,” Te’oma said, her voice distant, “my employer’s home is far from here yet, across the frigid waters of the Bitter Sea. I’ve only been there once, but it is a nasty place suited only to the dead. You—” The changeling noticed Esprë staring at her now, holding her hands out in front of her.
“I’m sorry.” Esprë reached out toward her captor with her right hand.
“No,” Te’oma said, trying to move away, “wait.”
Before the last word left the changeling’s lips, the palm of Esprë’s hand landed on her thin, pale cheek. She had more to say, but the words froze in her throat.
With a tender caress from Esprë’s hand, Te’oma’s body locked up as if every joint froze at once, a sort of instant rigor mortis. The young elf felt the power within her dive into the changeling’s skin, devouring her life force and leaving nothing in its wake. The pressure in her hands, her arms, her back flooded from her, whom it could not hurt, and left Te’oma struggling near death.
The changeling held her awkward pose for a moment, her face frozen in surprise and terror. Then she collapsed to the deck in a heap, every muscle in her gone limp.
The airship started to pitch immediately, but Esprë reached out and grabbed the wheel with one hand. As she did, she stared down at the changeling for a moment, watching a line of saliva drool out of her mouth and onto the deck. She’d expected something more terrifying, screams perhaps, but this silent sloughing off this mortal coil disturbed her even more. To have it be so easy, as if she’d simply and kindly put an end to a suffering creature’s every trouble—that scared her.
She wanted to do it again. That scared her even more.
Esprë reached down with her free hand and rearranged Te’oma’s body into a more restful pose, straightening her head and limbs and folding her hands across her chest. The changeling looked like she was just sleeping, although Esprë knew it would be a rest from which she would never awaken.