I once more raise my sword, which had fallen loosely to my side, to his throat. “Did you kill any of them?”
“I—I don’t know,” Dazz says. “Maybe. I can’t be sure. We were protecting ourselves.”
“Sadie,” Gard says. “I was there. It was chaos, Icer guardsmen streaming from every nook and cranny in the castle. It’s very unlikely any of these ones had anything to do with your mother’s death.”
My fingers are sore from their firm grip on my sword. My teeth begin to ache from the grinding. I shake the Evil off my back, drop my sword once more. I know Gard’s right.
“Your mother was a Rider?” the skinny girl says.
“Yes,” I say. “She died from wounds inflicted during the raid on Goff’s castle.”
“I’m…sorry,” she says. “So searin’ sorry.” It’s not an empty apology—there’s real sadness behind it—and I remember her saying how her mother died from the Plague.
“What now?” Feve growls. “Must I die? Because the anticipation is killing me.” His tone doesn’t match his words and I realize he’s being sarcastic. This is not a man who fears death.
“You killed our guards. They had families.” Gard’s words are unforgiving.
“He didn’t want to,” Dazz says. “We just wanted to talk to you.”
“I am not a tyrant,” Gard says. “I know your experiences with tribe leaders have been…severe…but I’m not like them. What would you have me do?”
I’m surprised he’s asking for suggestions from his prisoners. I’m about to object when the unmarked Heater guy says, “A life for a life is the only choice. But not Feve’s life. The lives of the Soakers. They’re the ones who deserve to be punished, who have brought terror and sadness upon all of us. We will stand with you and risk our lives alongside you; we will fight with you.”
My heart races as I watch Gard absorb the offer. What will he do? My father’s prophecies roar through me.
There will be a great battle with the Soakers.
“Thank you for your honesty,” Gard says.
You will fight magnificently, maybe more so than your mother.
“I believe that you’ve been through a lot, that you’ve been harmed by the Soakers as much as we have.”
You will see him, the high-ranking Soaker boy in the blue uniform.
“And you shall fight, for war is upon us.”
You will kill him, the voice says, but this time it’s not the memory of my father’s words. It’s the whispered shadow-voice in my ear. The Evil has spoken.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Huck
I awake to a foot on my chest, pushing the air out of my lungs. I can’t breathe—I can’t.
I gasp, clawing at the foot, feeling only dead air and embarrassment.
No one’s there.
I expel a hot and angry breath, rolling over onto my stomach. I pound the pillow, once, twice, three times.
Darkness pours through the portal window, which makes me sigh with relief. Light means day. Day means punishment.
Can I do it?
Can I really do it?
There will be no blood in the water, for which I am thankful, but there will be blood; reflected in my eyes with each snap of my wrist.
I rise to my feet, ignoring my boots lying on their side on the floor and my uniform hanging neatly on the wall. Tonight I’m ashamed to be Lieutenant Jones, not for my past actions, but for my future ones.
Hastily, I exit and climb the stairs. The ship is asleep, its monstrous belly rising and falling on the Deep Blue’s breaths. Starlight rains down upon me, the beauty of which is only dwarfed by the full moon that hangs big and bright and low in the sky, casting a white pathway across the dark ocean, all the way to the land, which unrolls itself to the edge of the forest.
I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t see her, not when I’ll have to hurt her in just a few hours. But like Soakers to the sea, I’m drawn to her, as if my every step toward her is as vital as breathing, as drinking fresh water, as the very beating of my shadowed heart, which cries bloody tears.
Be strong. Be strong for her.
Chained to one of the lesser, unbroken masts, she watches me descend to the main deck, her eyes as wide and awake as mine. Despite the situation, the memory of the first time I saw her springs to mind—her glare, the anger rising off of her in waves, almost taking physical form. Unwanted laughter bubbles from my throat, defeated only when I clamp my jaw tight, allowing only an animal groan to escape my lips.
The look she gives me now almost seems impossible considering where we’ve come from.
“I was hoping you would come,” she says, sounding much older than she looks.
“How could I not?” I say.
“But I’m—I’m nothing.” Her words are defeatist, but they don’t match the position of her chin, which is held high. She doesn’t mean nothing at all, just nothing to the Soakers. Nothing to my people.
“You’re something to me,” I say, but even that sounds pitifully like nothing. “Not something,” I say, “someone. Someone important. Someone that matters.”
“You risked your life,” she says. It’s not the risk of dying on the storm-angry ocean waters that I think she’s referring to, but my life as a Soaker, as a lieutenant, as a somebody.
“All of that is nothing,” I say. That word again: so absolute, so final. And yet…I mean it with every part of my being.
“You can’t do this—not for me,” she says.
Do what? Then it hits me like a blast of icy ocean water. Why I’m here. Why I awoke and came above. Not to see her. Well, not just to see her. I’m here to run away with her. The realization fills me with more emotions than I can decipher in the moment. There’s exhilaration, a long-held desire for adventure and for change that fills me to joy overflowing. But the fear and the dread are every bit as powerful, grabbing my heart, squeezing it so tightly I begin to worry it might burst, leaving me shaking and useless on the wooden deck.
I drop to a knee, trying to catch my breath.
“I have to,” I say after a few minutes of silence and breathing. “I want to.”
“I won’t ask you to,” she says, lifting a hand toward me, rattling her chain. She won’t ask me to throw my life away. But would I be throwing it away or reclaiming it?
“You don’t have to,” I say, inching toward her. I need to hold her hand, to draw strength from her seemingly endless store.
She reaches for me, and I for her, my fingers buzzing with excitement, a hair’s breadth from hers.
“Son?” my father says.
I jerk back, shuddering, clutching my hand to my gut as if it’s been stung. I turn to face him, expecting the worst.
Instead, he says only, “Walk with me.”
Everything in me wants to deny him, to cast away the lifelong respect and admiration I’ve held for the man who raised me, who taught me, who groomed me to be a leader, but I can’t. His simple request holds power over me, cutting the tethers that link me to Jade. I cast an apologetic glance back at her as I fall into step beside the admiral. Her eyes are flat and noncommittal.
Together, father and son, we climb the steps to the quarterdeck. Silent, we walk to the bow, my father’s fingers grazing the unused wheel as we pass.
He rests his hands on the railing when we reach it, stretching his gaze out over the endless waters. Naturally, I do the same, mimicking his movements, like I’ve always done. When I realize it, I pull my hands away from the wooden barrier, lean a hip into it, cross one leg over the other. Anything to look different than him.