Nothing about this was fair. He looked over his shoulder and saw Sabyna. The ache in his heart worsened.
"Not a curse, young warrior. I sense this is part of your birthright. You must believe me."
Captain Tarnar shouted across the distance, clearly heard in the still air as he demanded to know what was happening.
A sudden banshee shriek ripped through the air above them, filling the sails hard enough to rip canvas free in places. Azure Dagger rocked violently, scattering men across the deck.
"What is going on?" Sabyna demanded as she joined them.
Glawinn looked at her and said, "Lady, he can't stay with us. His path lies in another direction."
Panic touched Sabyna's face for just a moment, but she got control of herself. "If that is true," she said, "I'm going with him."
The banshee wind shrieked again, ripping more canvas free.
"You can't go," Glawinn gasped. "I can't go. No one can go with the young warrior. We each have our parts to play in this tangling of threads."
"No," Sabyna denied quietly. "You have to be wrong."
"My friend, I wish that I was wrong." Glawinn took Jherek's hand tight in his. "Look inside your heart. Tell me if you feel that I am wrong."
Cold and adrift inside himself, Jherek found it hard to concentrate. He closed his eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, searching within. No voice gave him direction, but he felt a tug eastward, a wanderlust that pushed him to go in that direction.
"There is no place for me here," he croaked as he stared into the paladin's eyes.
"How can you speak so surely?" Sabyna demanded.
Jherek looked up at her, trying not to see the tears that tracked her cheeks. "I can't say, lady."
"You don't have to go," Azla said defiantly. "This is my ship. I say who comes and goes."
Another powerful gust of wind slammed into Azure Dagger. Half her canvas ripped free and cracked in the wind. Pirates immediately worked the rigging, dropping the canvas.
"I have no choice," Jherek said. He forced himself to his feet. "What am I supposed to do?"
Glawinn shook his head. "I don't know. Trust the love inside you, Jherek. It is your strength and your belief. You must hold tight to that till you find your anchor and your forgiveness."
"There is no one to forgive me."
The paladin was silent for a moment. "There is one."
"Who?"
"It's not for me to say. When the time is right, you will know. Come. I will help you pack."
"No," Jherek said. "I'll take what I have with me."
"You have gear here," Azla said, "and we have supplies we can spare."
"Nothing." Jherek looked at the still water between the two ships.
"You're going then?" Sabyna asked.
Jherek looked at her, the pain in his heart almost too much to bear. "Lady, perhaps it is better. All I seem capable of doing is bringing you pain, and I am sorry for that. I'm sorry that you are so far from home."
"I am where I need to be," Sabyna said. "I have charted this course as much as you have."
Jherek started to shake his head.
"Ill not tolerate a pig-headed argument," Sabyna warned in a hoarse voice, "and you've no other to offer in this matter."
Before he could stop himself, Jherek took her hand in his and knelt. He pulled her hand gently to his chest above his heart.
"Lady," he said, "I swear that should you ever need me, should there be a way made that I can help you, I will be there."
She tightened her fingers in his shirt. "I know," she whispered.
Jherek turned and hugged Glawinn fiercely.
"Go with Lathander's mercies, young warrior."
Holding tightly onto his control, Jherek stepped in front of Azla. "Captain, requesting permission to disembark."
"Granted," the half-elf pirate captain responded. "May you know nothing but safe waters. If ever you need berth on a ship, my men will know of you."
"Thank you."
Jherek kept himself from looking back at Sabyna. He stepped to the railing and threw himself overboard. Only the certain knowledge that the ship and all aboard her would be sacrificed if he stayed gave him the strength.
He hit the water cleanly, completely submerging. The sea plumed white around him as he passed through it. For a moment he considered diving as deep as he could, until his lungs ran out of air and he couldn't make the surface again, but he didn't.
Whatever drove him from Velen and buried him with the ill luck that pursued him from the time he was born stayed with him. Whatever god, whatever demon, maybe it could make him leave his friends, but it couldn't control him completely.
In Athkatla, he'd given in to that force and to the voice that commanded him and made the trip to Baldur's Gate. After the Ship of the Gods exploded, he gave up. Now, he decided, he would fight that force until he was free of it or it destroyed him.
He surfaced and swam across to Steadfast. When he arrived, he pounded on the hull and called, "I need a ladder."
Captain Tarnar gazed down at him with suspicion. "I don't need to be berthing a curse," he shouted down.
Jherek gazed back up at the man, fanning the hurt and anger inside himself until it glowed white-hot. "If you don't take me aboard," Jherek said, "I'm willing to bet you don't make it out of here."
"We'll see about that."
Before Tarnar's words faded away, the water-figure spun quickly and winds whipped the ship, tearing rigging free.
Jherek pushed away from Steadfast, treading water until the ship settled again. The coiled rope ladder plopped into the water near the young sailor, and he wasted no time clambering up it. He stood on Steadfast deck totally drenched, water cascading around his feet.
"What manner of hell chases you, boy?" Tarnar demanded.
"I don't know," Jherek answered, "but there will be an accounting."
No sooner had the young sailor come aboard than the water-figure sank into the ocean and the wind returned, filling Steadfast's sails and shoving them forward again. Tarnar gazed upward, a wary look on his sun-browned features. "You think you can fight that?"
"Whoever I see at the other end of this trip," Jherek said, "who is in any way responsible for this will regret ever laying eyes on me."
Glawinn and Sabyna stood at the railing, looking out after him. He stared at them even after they were gone from sight, certain he would never see them again.
The wind flowed over him, bringing the sea's chill to his wet clothes. He ignored the cold, focusing on the hate that he'd finally allowed to take root in his heart.
XIV
21 Flamerule, the Year of the Gauntlet
The ixitxachitl swooped through the sea at Laaqueel with a suddenness that belied its great size. It resembled a manta ray, solid black across the top of its thin body and purple-white underneath. The wing membrane was fully eight feet across, not the largest of its kind the malenti priestess had seen, but close.
She kicked her feet, powering through the water and pulling her trident between her breasts. The lateral lines running through her body echoed the disturbance in the ocean around her. Spinning, one hand flaring out and catching the water in the webbing between her fingers, she avoided the demon ray's barbed tail. One of the Serosian ixitxachitls' tactics was to snare an intended victim's neck or torso and hold it captive.
Laaqueel popped her retractable finger claws from hiding, raked them across the ixitxachitl's tail, and lopped off a two-foot section.
Blood streamed from the creature's tail stub as it curled its wing membrane and rolled over with deceptive ease.
"Hateful elf!" it cried in its gravelly voice. It sped at her again.
Leveling her trident, Laaqueel sprang at her opponent. The ixitxachitl's mouth opened, over a foot wide and filled with serrated teeth.
She shoved the trident forward, burying the tines in the hard, rubbery flesh between the ixitxachitl's malevolent eyes. The creature's greater bulk propelled her backward, but she swung at the end of the trident safely out of reach of its hungry jaws.