She shrugged off my sympathy, but the pain in her eyes was unmistakable.
I turned to Kai. “Give the purse back to her.” He looked at me quizzically for a moment, then shrugged and offered it up.
Kaitryn’s eyes went wide. “Really?”
“You need it more than I do,” I said.
Her hand flashed out, and the purse disappeared quickly into some hidden pocket in her patched and baggy vest.
“This will keep us fed for weeks,” she said, eyes bright. “Months.”
“Listen, Kaitryn,” I said impulsively, “I’m about to go on a voyage and I’m thinking life aboard a ship would be better than life on the streets. Why don’t you come with me?”
She looked up at me, her eyes narrowed thoughtfully, but then a chorus of young voices came from the street and her eyes widened again. “One of the gangs. They don’t like me poaching here. Time to go.”
“Kaitryn, wait, I’d like to help you if—”
But she was as slippery as the nickname Kai had given her, a little fish that slid from his grasp and disappeared into the crowd. I rushed into the street, but she was gone.
“A friend of yours?” Kai asked as he followed me. I scanned the forest of heads, but Kaitryn was nowhere to be seen.
As we walked toward the wharf, I told him the barest details of my first meeting with Kaitryn, lengthening my strides to keep up with his.
“Ah, the little fish has had a hard time of it.” I was surprised at his regretful tone, which made me like this arrogant stranger just a little bit more. “I would have offered her a place on the ship if she’d stayed.”
“Really?”
He shrugged. “Why not? Either way, she’s gone. Along with your purse.” He looked at me askance. “Did no one teach you to guard your gold?”
“I’m not used to having anything to steal. Speaking of, I believe this is yours.” I slid the ring off my finger and he took it, our fingers brushing briefly. Though his skin was hot, I shivered slightly. It was still so strange to feel skin the same temperature as mine.
We turned a corner and suddenly we were on the timber-floored wharf set against a sparkling blue-green harbor.
I followed Kai through a moving maze of seafaring folk. They marched past carrying barrels or crates, sold fresh fish from rickety stalls, and played noisy games of dice. Here and there, families and sweethearts said good-bye before boarding ships. A young couple embraced, looking as if they never wanted to let each other go. I swallowed and turned away. I didn’t need to witness anyone else’s good-byes. I’d just endured one of my own.
We stopped at a scarred wooden door with a faded sign bearing what appeared to be a rotund weasel smoking a pipe.
“The Fat Badger,” Kai said with a flourish. “Where no one asks questions as long as your pockets are deep. Lucky for you, I didn’t give my money away.”
“And how did you get your hands on Tempesian money?”
His brow twitched up. “Does it really matter?”
It didn’t. He could be a thief or a charlatan, but he was still my ticket to Sudesia.
There were only a few quiet patrons in the tavern—a man and woman talking over a meal at a small round table, a few people at a long wooden bar. A pulse of cold air signaled that at least one of the patrons might be a Frostblood.
A strange feeling came over me—dizziness and a prickling on the back of my neck. “Not now,” I muttered. This was no time to be thrust into a vision. But none came. Only an unsettled feeling, as if unseen bees hummed their way around the room, waiting for a chance to sting.
A stocky barmaid wearing a dirty smock over a heavily patched dress brought two bowls of stew to our table.
“Extra pepper, just how you like it,” she said to Kai. “Do you need anything else, love? Anything at all?”
Kai grinned. “Not now, thanks, Inge.” He gave her a wink, making her cheeks redden. I wondered if she knew he was a Fireblood. And whether it would matter to her either way, considering the strength of that blush.
“Tempesian food is so bland,” Kai muttered as she left, poking at his stew with his spoon.
My mouth was too full to reply. A hot meal was welcome after the hard cheese, dried meat, and stale bread I’d eaten for the past three days.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught the man at the small table staring at me. But when I lifted my head to meet his gaze, he wasn’t looking at me at all. Then from my left, I saw heads from the bar angle toward me. But when I turned toward them, they were hunched over their tankards or chatting with the barmaid.
As I looked back at Kai, I saw that he held a knife, the serrated blade pointing toward me. I reared back.
But then I blinked, and it wasn’t a knife. It was a spoon, frozen halfway to his lips. One of his brows lifted in inquiry. “Something wrong?”
The buzz in the back of my mind rose to a roar. It was joined by dark, tinny laughter that I knew, I knew, I knew.
Nonononono.
“We have to get out of here,” I said. Or I tried to, but my tongue felt thick in my mouth, the muscles too tight.
“What?” Kai asked. “What did you say?”
“True vessel,” said the resonant, bell-like voice that had once echoed from the throne. It was bigger now, stronger. But smoother, too. More controlled. More convincing as it chimed with soft words I longed to hear.
“Ah, how you hurt inside,” it crooned. “Pain. Loneliness. Grief. Tearing you apart. So unnecessary. So wrong for you. For us.”
I shook my head, breathing shakily. The Minax’s mind touched mine, stirring up all my sadness and loss and siphoning it away. Replacing it with heady relief. When I glanced at the people at the bar again, they were all looking at me.
They all hated me. They wanted to kill me. They were rising from their seats, drawing knives from sleeves or pockets or boots. Moving closer.
“Ruby,” a voice said, the accent pronounced. “Ruby! What’s wrong?”
I turned to see Kai, and two images phased in and out, first a look of concern on his face, then a look of killing fury. His hand held a knife, then it didn’t. Knife, no knife. Concern, hatred. Danger, safety.
And it was the arena all over again, the sense of life or death, the longing to live, the relief that darkness was taking over. Feelings no longer mattered. All the pain I’d felt over leaving Arcus conveniently faded away.
“They will kill you,” said the voice in my head. “They are all against you. They will plunge their knives into your flesh and rejoice in your blood spilling on the floor.”
Joyous darkness pulsed. How breathtaking, how enticing, how irresistible. Lost in its caress, I let it flow over me and envelop me like a sweetly clinging fog.
“We will destroy them. Trust only me.”
The world lost color and I was filled with stark power. I could see my opponents’ beating hearts. I fought against the impulse to cease that beating, grasping at sanity as I might grasp at the edge of a cliff to avoid plummeting to my death. But my enemies were all rushing at me now and it was live or die. Them or me.
“Ruby!” Kai yelled. “What are you—”
My hand, which no longer belonged to me, threw out fire. A man convulsed as heat filled his chest, his eyes rolling to show the whites. He fell and landed on his back, his head hitting the floor. His fingers twitched, his head turned to the side, and he was still.
Screams and chaos. A strobe of sunlight as the door opened. People rushing out. Someone’s hands on my wrists, holding my arms to my sides. A voice shouting at me in another language. And all the while the whisper in my head told me I’d done well, filled me with light-headed glee. Softened the edges of everything. And laughed.
I laughed, too. I couldn’t stop.
Harsh swearing in my ear and hands on my upper arms, shoving me toward the door. I whipped around, gathered my heat, and focused on the beating heart of my captor. The Fireblood, his center pulsing white with heat.