Thecla actually laughed out loud.
“Now you’re not even trying. We were watching you the whole time. When did Orin manage to get this message off—before or after the yrthak ran him through?”
Sabira looked over at Elix, drawing him into her game. “I’m really surprised Arach hired someone so slow,” she said, shaking her head. “Aren’t you?”
Elix had been following the conversation and didn’t need any coaching to play his part.
“As you say.” He looked disdainfully at Thecla. “Orin was still conscious when I loaded him onto the life ring. He used one of his rings to contact his uncle. Then he whispered the new destination to me before he passed out.” That was a stroke of genius—Elix had leaned over Mountainheart at one point during the trip up from the Inheritance, but it had been to make sure the dwarf was still breathing, not to hear any whispered message. At Sabira’s curious look, he’d mouthed to her that Mountainheart was still alive—but there was no way anyone looking down from the Dust Dancer could know that was what he’d said.
Of course, Elix’s quick thinking would get them all killed if Thecla happened to have his own means of communicating with Arach. Since Sharn was only a three-day trip from Stormreach, Sabira was betting the dwarf hadn’t bothered with the expense.
A bet that turned out to be correct as Thecla looked over at the warforged, who nodded after a moment.
“The rings do indeed emit magical energies. I believe the male Marshal speaks truly.”
Sabira looked back at the first mate, not bothering to hide her smugness.
“So, what’s it going to be, Thecla? Trust me, or trust your own towering intellect? It’s only your life at stake—possibly your sanity. Nothing too terribly important. But you’d better decide quickly. I don’t think Orin, here, has much time left.”
The dwarf was clearly still suspicious, but despite Sabira’s taunting, he was no fool. He knew when to hedge his bets.
“Hotch! Get that healing kit up here.”
As the kobold scrambled off to do his bidding, Thecla looked over at Elix.
“So, tell me, Captain. What’s a Marshal like you doing working for the Aurum and protecting the interests of a drug runner like Arach?” He jerked his bald head in Sabira’s direction. “Her, I can understand; she has a reputation. But you? You don’t get to be a captain of the Sentinel Marshals by flaunting the law.”
Elix shrugged, that same apologetic shrug Sabira knew so well.
“What can I say? Men are fools when they’re in love.”
Thecla grunted.
“Isn’t that the truth?” he muttered. Then, seemingly satisfied, he motioned for his men to stand down. Hotch returned with a chest full of healing potions and other medicines, and Sabira knelt down to hold Mountainheart’s head while the kobold popped corks and poured. But her mind wasn’t on the dwarf; it was on Elix’s words. Try as she might, she just couldn’t tell. Had he meant what he said, or had he still been playing the game?
Once some color had returned to Mountainheart’s face and his breathing was somewhat less labored, Sabira allowed the crew members from the Inheritance to take him down to what was supposed to have been her cabin to rest, giving them strict instructions to take turns sleeping and not to leave him alone, even for a moment. Thecla might have bought her story for now, but she didn’t trust the dwarf not to try something, and she couldn’t be everywhere at once.
“So,” Irlen said, walking back up toward the wheel. “Where to?”
Sabira favored him with a pitying smile.
“What, tell you now so Thecla can just kill us all and claim some ‘unfortunate but unpreventable’ calamity? I don’t think so. For now, just head toward Taer Valaestas.”
“Valenar? There’s no market for dreamlily there!”
“Exactly.”
The next few days passed in a blur of paranoid exhaustion. Either she or Elix was always with Irlen at the helm, making sure the half-elf didn’t decide to take some unauthorized detour. They traded off in six-hour shifts, sleeping in the crowded cabin with Mountainheart and the others when they weren’t on deck. They ate out of their own stores, only supplementing with communal food and water that they’d seen the Dust Dancer’s crew consuming. It was a tense, boring trip, with no opportunity for anything resembling a real conversation between them, a fact that both relieved and vexed Sabira. Part of her wanted to question Elix about the truth of what he’d said to Thecla, and part of her just didn’t want to know.
When they were still a little less than a day out from the capital of Valenar, Sabira told Irlen to start bearing northward.
“Atur?” he guessed. “Krona Peak? You’re going to run out of viable cities sooner or later, and then we won’t have to guess where we’re headed. Then what?”
She just smiled in reply and shrugged.
“Wait and see.”
But the truth was that she had no idea.
That is, until Hotch handed her one on a wooden platter the very next day.
They’d been skirting the edge of the dead-gray mist that rose up from the Mournland and had just started out over the open water of Lake Cyre when Elix relieved her at the helm. She headed down to the galley in search of some food before trying to squeeze in a few hours of sleep. The kobold was there, serving up some sort of pungent soup to the crew. As she got closer, she recognized the distinctive aroma of ironspice.
“Give me four bowls,” she said. “And don’t spit in them this time, if you know what’s good for you.”
It was impossible to tell if the kobold blanched under that sickly green skin, but he hurried to comply, dishing up four bowls with nary a slosh and placing them on an ornate darkwood tray.
“As Lady say! Friend of Arach is friend of Hotch!”
Sabira just rolled her eyes. She took the platter and walked carefully back to the too-small cabin she shared with the others. By the time she got there, her eyes were watering from the strength of the spice and she had the glimmerings of an idea.
She passed out the bowls to the crewmen of the ill-fated Inheritance—Demos, the Deneith ballista operator, and Ari, a new recruit fresh out of Rekkenmark—then gulped down a few quick spoonfuls herself before setting her bowl aside and tending to Mountainheart.
The dwarf had yet to regain consciousness, though his color was good and his breathing even. Probably a good thing, considering what Sabira was about to do to him.
She held his head up with one arm and carefully spooned the ironspice soup into his mouth, stroking his throat after each bite to stimulate the swallowing reflex. She fed him about half the bowl that way, then laid him carefully back down on the cot and returned to her own soup, waiting.
She’d just finished the last mouthful when the spots began to appear, first around his mouth and then spreading rapidly to the rest of his body. His skin turned flush and he began to sweat profusely. She said nothing, waiting for one of the others to notice.
Ari was the first to see it.
“What’s wrong with Orin?” he asked in alarm, setting down his bowl and hurrying over to the dwarf’s side.
Sabira made a show of coming over to examine him then turned to look at the others gravely.
“You’d better go get Thecla. Tell him Mountainheart’s been poisoned.”
The first mate was, predictably, not happy about being summoned away from his own meal.