Lir prowled around them, his heels clacking on the deck. He was making her nervous. “Stop pussyfooting around each other,” he barked.
She gritted her teeth. Lir wanted blood. She’d just have to go for it. She lunged, aiming to graze Rohan’s side, but he shifted to the right. Into her sword.
She pierced flesh—right below his ribs. Her mouth went dry. Her blade was in his chest, and his eyes bulged. She pulled the sword from him, her hands shaking. “Rohan?” she shrieked.
“It’s okay, Fiona.” Lir’s hand was on her shoulder, trying to calm her. “He’s going to heal right—”
But he didn’t finish his sentence, because Rohan wasn’t healing. It was supposed to be instant. Blood poured from the wound, spreading through his white shirt, and he crumpled to the deck.
“Rohan!” Fiona screamed, kneeling.
“Hold him still,” said Lir. “I can heal him.”
Fiona grasped Rohan’s shoulders, watching in horror as blood trickled from his lips. The blood was everywhere, and her mind raced. Lir held a hand over Rohan’s chest, muttering in Angelic, but Fiona wasn’t listening.
Her body shook. So much blood on her hands. A murderer’s hands. She’d stabbed him right in the chest.
All the air had left her lungs.
Lir shook his head. “It’s not working.”
Rohan’s eyes were closing, and Fiona couldn’t remember how to speak. She wanted to say something comforting to him. He was about to die, and she needed to say some words. But she couldn’t think of any.
She could only think of the blood—covering her hands, pounding in her ears, the murderer’s blood running through her veins, the blood pouring from her mom’s head. Death was all around her.
She watched as Rohan’s breathing slowed, and her head swam. This couldn’t be real. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry,” she breathed, finally latching on to the only words she could think of.
Lir was shouting something about poison.
Rohan’s eyes bulged, and he made a garbled sound, choking and clutching his chest. His body convulsed. Fiona felt as though she were watching her last vestige of humanity seep away with every twitch.
When Rohan went still, his eyelids slack, she looked at Lir. Tears burned her eyes.
“He’s gone,” said Lir. A small crowd had formed around them.
“You said the swords were safe.”
His mouth opened and closed again, and his eyes glistened. “It was poisoned. Someone wanted him dead. I didn’t know.”
She smoothed the collar of Rohan’s shirt, gently, like she’d used to dress her porcelain dolls in their cribs. She almost wanted to cover him with a blanket and fix his hair, but his mouth hung open, and she couldn’t look at him that way.
For some reason, she couldn’t stop the shaking in her hands. She stood, pointing to Lir. “You gave me the sword.”
He rose, and there was a look of hurt in his eyes. “I didn’t poison it.”
She lifted her bloodied hands, staring at them. A few raindrops fell, running clear trails through the red.
Lir grabbed her hands and chanted in Angelic. As he spoke, the crimson stains disappeared from her arms and shirt, but she still couldn’t stop the swell of rage that flooded her veins.
“You told me the sword couldn’t hurt him.”
For a moment Lir looked genuinely pained, and then he schooled his face into an emotionless mask. He stepped closer, speaking in a clipped tone. “I told you that most of you would die. That you’d be among murderers. I told you not to come. I told you Dagon claims more and more each year, and that this was a ship of death. You failed to listen, for reasons that still escape me.”
She was tempted to smack him hard. Instead, she swallowed her rage and crossed the deck to hide in her room before she got herself a death sentence for mutiny.
39
Tobias
He stood by the window, gazing out at the darkening common. Sweet-smelling cedar burned on the hearth, and warm light flickered over the room.
Still, Tobias couldn’t relax. Images of burning flesh scorched his mind. When you knew you were destined for eternal burning, it was a little hard to enjoy a fireplace.
Estelle padded down the stairs, and his heart sped up. According to Oswald, she knew more than she was letting on, and Tobias wanted to find out everything she could tell him.
She glided into the room, dressed in an amber gown, her hair piled messily on her head. Bronze earrings dangled by her sharp cheekbones. She smiled faintly. “I really enjoy the sight of you.”
If the threat of eternal hellfire hadn’t hung over his head, maybe he would have enjoyed the sight of a beautiful wolf queen a bit more.
She stepped closer to him, brushing the hair off his face. “Still hung up on your bat friend?”
He glanced away. The thought of Fiona pierced him with sadness, and he definitely didn’t want to talk about her with Estelle. “Do you know something more about my fate that you haven’t told me?”