The ominous drizzle suddenly turns into a torrent of rain. It is a blanket that whips across the deck, stunning me with icy pellets. I shield myself with my arms; beside me, Violetta does the same. Enormous waves rock the ship. Somewhere, the mercenary shouts for Magiano to seek cover for us.
“Happy to oblige,” Magiano mutters. He guides us to the stern, where we huddle beneath a cloth canopy draped over crates. Once we’re settled, Magiano darts away again to the mercenary’s side. We look on as the crew rushes to make sure the ropes latching us to our baliras are firmly in place.
The mercenary concentrates on the sky as it turns steadily blacker, until the harbor looks like it has been swallowed whole by midnight. The soldiers’ ships seem to hesitate by the piers. There is no doubt that if they try to sail out into such a tempest, the ocean would splinter the boats to pieces. Still, one of them gives chase. Violetta and I hang grimly on to the canopy’s ropes.
But the mercenary seems unconcerned. He focuses his attention on the oncoming ship, then looks up at the sky, as if searching for something. Rain pelts his face.
A bolt of lightning strikes the approaching ship. I jump. There is an earsplitting crack as the ship’s mast splits in two, then erupts in flames. Shouts and screams come from on board, carried over to us by the wind even from our distance—and then the sheets of rain blanket the seascape again, obscuring the wrecked ship from view. I blink water out of my eye in shock.
The mercenary smiles a little, then sighs in relief.
As I watch him, a memory slowly emerges. It’s of the day Raffaele first tested me, when he told me the story of an Elite who failed to prove himself worthy of the Daggers …
The storm rages on, until my sister and I have to flatten ourselves against the deck, still gripping the soaked sides of the canopy. I play the memory over again and again. I’d thought that the Daggers killed the Elite that Raffaele talked about, because he was unable to control his powers. And maybe I’m still right. Maybe this boy isn’t who I think he is. But now, as we sail farther from Merroutas and the harbor behind us is lost within the storm, I wonder if Raffaele’s story was about this boy.
The boy who could control the rain.
They tell me that you have been crying in your sleep. Do not grieve our separation, my love, for our reunion will come just as swiftly.
—Letter from unknown prisoner, convicted of treason, to fiancée
Adelina Amouteru
The worst of the storm dies down soon after we reach the open ocean. But the rain continues on, falling and falling until I start to wonder whether the clouds will ever go away. Violetta and I stay belowdecks, in a small but private cabin that the captain offers us, and dry off with clean towels.
Both of us are quiet. The only sounds we hear are the crash of waves outside the porthole, and the distant shouts of the crew overhead. In one corner of the cabin, a mirror sits on a vanity desk, and I can catch a glimpse of my unadorned features, my mask gone, my hair wraps removed and revealing my short silver locks. Right after Enzo’s death, I’d cut off my hair with a knife—Violetta helped me trim the strands as neatly as she could, but my hair will stay short for a long time. I’m still not used to seeing it.
A sharp clap of thunder shakes the ship. From the corner of my eye, I see Violetta jump, then settle down, embarrassed. Her eyes stay uneasily on the stormy seas outside our porthole. She wrings her hands unconsciously in her lap, as if trying to stop the shaking.
She catches me looking. “I’m fine,” she says, but there is a tremor in her voice.
I realize how exhausted we both are. Where are we headed? Are this mercenary and his crew really trying to help us? When Violetta and I were little, I comforted her through thunderstorms by squeezing her shoulders and humming to her. I do that now, sitting beside her, wrapping my arms around her and picking a tune I remember our mother singing to me before Violetta was even born.
Violetta doesn’t say anything. Gradually, her trembling lessens, though it doesn’t go away entirely. She leans into my touch, and we sit together in silence.
“Adelina,” Violetta finally says. Her voice startles me. She turns so that she can see me. “What happened to you out there in the city? When we were on the canal?”
I shake my head. The memory seems fuzzy now. I’ve always been plagued by illusions of our father’s ghost, but what happened today was something new and frightening. I’d seen him so clearly that I believed he was there. I saw Enzo, engulfing the streets in flames.
Violetta’s tone grows firm. “Tell me,” she says. “I know you’ll keep it bottled up if you don’t, and that might be even more dangerous for all of us.”
I take a deep breath. “I think I created an illusion by accident,” I reply. “Something that I couldn’t control. I woke up this morning feeling a strange pressure against my head, and when we reached the canal, I …” I frown. “I don’t know. I can’t even remember creating the illusions. But I thought what I was seeing was real.”