One left. Can I finish it with a broken heart?
My eyes finally snap down when I feel him striding toward me. I want to look to the side, to see what’s happening, to prepare myself for whatever’s coming, but I can’t pull my gaze away from her.
She’s dangling from her wrists, which remain tied tightly to the pole, her wrists red and raw and chafed. Her knees drag on the deck, scraped and bleeding. Her once beautiful, brown skin is slick with a sheet of red, darkened and clotting in stripes of torn skin, like a battleground after a war, its trenches filled with the blood and bodies of the dead.
I’ll never be able to touch her again.
And then he’s there, my father, muscling me out of the way, ripping the whip from my gnarled grasp, raising it over his head like a scythe—
—bringing it down hard, at least ten times harder than my own strokes—
—Jade’s final cry, a horrible howl of pain and surrender—
—and then my father is raising the whip again, even though it’s been eighteen blows, and
the crowd’s screaming for more blood, more blood
and I can’t believe these are my people,
these are who I belong to.
I grab the whip as it dangles behind my father, just before he snaps it forward for the nineteenth blow. His eyes widen in surprise and he drops it, whirls at me, swings a heavy fist at my face.
I duck, lower my head, barrel into him, pushing him back with all my might, not stopping until he crashes into the crowd behind him.
We both go down in a tangle.
And though I’m ready to do this, ready to fight him, ready to do whatever it takes to stop him (even kill him?), something changes in the attitude of the crowd. I push to my feet expecting the stares of hundreds of men and women on me, but they’re looking away from us, toward land.
Toward land where…
…where in the distance…
…hundreds of black-clad Riders gallop across the plains. There’s no doubt where they’re headed, and no doubt why they’re here.
The Riders at the front of the column are carrying the black flags of war, flashing with shards of light from the bolts of lightning slashing from the sky above them.
A storm is coming.
Chapter Thirty-Six
Sadie
The heavy cloud cover grows darker as we gallop across the plains, the thunder from the horses’ hooves matching the thunder in the sky above.
When the ships appear in the distance my heart skips a beat, but then races onwards, double time, matching Passion’s speed.
Siena grips me tighter from behind.
Trusting Passion to run us in a straight line, I gaze over the thin stretch of ocean that separates the Soakers from us. Something’s happening. Hundreds of Soakers are assembled on one ship, so tightly packed they almost look like ants, crawling over each other to get into their hole.
The crowded ship looks strange compared to the others, like something’s missing. Like there’s a huge gap in the middle of it. Where the other ships have a thick, wooden pole in the center, stretching higher than any of the other totems, this ship has nothing, making it appear weaker. It’s not by design—of that I’m certain. Something happened to this ship, crippling it. Is the assembly related to whatever disaster overcame the ship’s wind-catcher?
The ants have spotted us. The barks of loud shouts can be heard over the crash of the waves on the sand. Soakers are pointing our way, gesturing wildly.
Someone must give them their orders, because the people of the sea begin swarming across thick wooden planks, returning to each and every ship in the fleet. Boats begin dropping into the water with white, frothy splashes. Men clamber down ropes, swords gleaming from their belts, filling the boats to overflowing.
Someone ordered them to go to war. Was it the blue-clad boy I saw atop the hill, the one in my father’s vision? Am I approaching the moment predicted by my father, where destiny will meet vengeance?
Yesss, the Evil whispers in my ear, once more clutching my shoulder. This time, whether real or fantasy, I don’t shake it off.
Huck
My father’s clutching the back of his head, where he must’ve hit it when I tackled him onto the deck, but that doesn’t stop him from shouting orders over the heavy murmurs of the crowd. “To arms! To the boats! To war!”
The men charge back to their ships, grabbing weapons and preparing the boats, while the women scamper below deck seeking shelter.
I’m in an ocean of activity, swarming and cresting and crashing about me, but I can’t take my eyes off of her.
Jade hangs awkwardly from her wrists, swinging slightly in the breeze. With her shirt completely torn away in the back, exposing her ripped and shredded skin, she almost doesn’t look human. Just a piece of meat, drying in the wind.
My heart sits in my throat and I can’t manage to choke down the sob that suddenly convulses in my chest. “Jade,” I whisper. “Oh no, Jade. What have I done?” Other than the slight swinging motion, she’s not moving.
As I take a step forward, the rains begin, swept onto the ships by an offshore wind. I barely feel the cold of the drops, which pelt Jade’s exposed flesh, mingling with the blood, washing it away in streams of red.
Beneath the thin layer of blood, her brown skin is almost indistinguishable as that of a Heater, slashed to ribbons and pocked with bulging welts from those of the leather straps that didn’t manage to break the skin.
“Oh no, Jade,” I say again as I go to her, oblivious to the war cries erupting all around me.
Right now, in this moment, she is the only person on earth.
My fault my fault my fault.
If I hadn’t taught her to repair sails would she have tried to save us in the storm? If I hadn’t taken her to the crow’s nest, would she have climbed up there in fear? If if if if…
…if I hadn’t raised my hand and struck her, would she be broken now?
At least I know the answer to that question is yes. Given the vicious manner in which my father delivered the final blow, it’s clear he would’ve brutally issued the punishment on his own if I had refused.
I reach her, withdraw a knife from my belt, grab her under the arms being careful not to touch the rawness of her wounds, and cut her down. Her body is limp and lifeless as it falls against me, her shredded shirt clinging to her front because of the rain.
Slowly, slowly, I lower myself to the wet deck, letting her lie on top of me, her head resting on my chest. I can’t put my arms around her, because then they’ll touch her back, so they stick out awkwardly at my sides.
Her eyes are closed, but her lips are open, breathing. Exhaustion and shock from the pain have rendered her unconscious. For that I’m thankful.
And now, while the rest of the seamen go to war, I’m content to just hold her until she awakes, drinking in the rainwater streaming down my face, quenching my burning throat.
“Oh, Jade, I’m so sorry,” I say, although I know she can’t hear me and that it’s not enough, that my words are but a drop in the oceans of forgiveness.
I raise my head as heavy footsteps clomp across the deck. My father stands above me, his shadow falling over my face. Water drips from his admiral’s cap, obscuring parts of his face like I’m looking at him through a rain-drizzled glass portal.
“Not as sorry as you’ll be if you don’t board the officer’s landing boat,” he says.
“I’m staying with her,” I say between clenched teeth. The time for listening to my father’s orders is long past. First my mother, and now Jade. Enough.
He has the sword at Jade’s neck before I even see him draw it.
“You’ll fight or she dies.”
Sadie
The first of the boats rides a long wave onto shore, allowing the heavily armed Soakers to leap out without trudging through knee-high water.