“You were a failed experiment. Bacchus will see to your salvation, and the Vicar will reward me for doing what you could not.” She jerked her chin. “Pick him up.”
Sebastian felt rough hands grab him under his arms; men he hadn’t known were there. Pain assaulted him from a thousand places, but his head throbbed murderously. He retched. From pain. From failure.
Just like Mina. You couldn’t save her either.
Jude’s voice sounded sour. “Unbecoming. You’re such a beautiful creature, Sebastian Vaas. Or you were.” Now that he was safely bound with rope at his wrists, she drew near, and ran her fingers over the burnt skin of his neck that Niven hadn’t been able to heal. “I’ll take care of you, love.”
The men dragged him, and Sebastian watched the ground skim from surf, to sand, to planking. He was tossed onto a dinghy. Thank the gods, he thought. If they were taking him to the Bazira ship, they were taking him to Selena.
Wait. Rest. Bide your time until you see the opportunity to strike.
He almost laughed. In his current state he couldn’t strike a match.
And besides, said Mina, who seemed to have taken permanent residence in his mind, Jude will tell Selena everything, and then what will you do?
It didn’t matter, he realized. Selena could live long years hating him, so long as she lived.
He wondered about Ilior left on the sand to die. Or perhaps he was already dead. Good, came the thought from the ugly part of him that hurt so badly. Another voice reminded him of Selena’s grief should the dragonman perish. Then let him live. Get the crew and the natives and the Storm and come find her.
Bazira adherents pulled across wind-tossed water as the sun broke fully in the east and he saw how foolish an attack from his little ship would be. The Bazira ship was a black, winged beast in the orange light behind it. It boiled with sailors, Bazira, and enough cannon to blow the Black Storm to kindling in one blast.
Sebastian’s eyes wanted to close, to block out the sight and sleep, but he forced them open. The deep pain in his head warned him that if he fell asleep, he might not wake up again. The dinghy scraped against the black hull and Sebastian looked up. They had arrived at the frigate. Silver lettering at the prow named her the Fast Lady.
Under the tinny ringing in his ears he heard Jude say, “Put him in the hold with the others.” Two large men hauled him aboard the Bazira ship. He closed his eyes and slipped away for a bit, only half-conscious of hatches opening, footsteps stomping, and the smell of oakum, hemp, and the sound of snapping canvas.
When he opened his eyes to total darkness a few moments later, Sebastian felt a shard of fear slip into his heart. I’ve gone blind… But then shapes resolved themselves as he was forced to kneel on planked wood. He was aboard the ship, belowdecks, in the hold as Jude had commanded. A light flared and he winced as pain in his head flared with it. Rough rope bit his skin at the wrists and was pulled tight.
Selena was there in the small hold, and Accora too, both bound. Both gagged. The old woman sat slumped, defeated, staring at nothing. Selena’s eyes were shining and she shook her head, despairing to see him there.
Jude Gracus climbed down into the hold and knelt beside Sebastian. “Have you two met? I think the answer to that is yes and no. Lovers and strangers, both. Marvelous. And I think, the gracious hostess that I am, I should make the proper introductions.”
She tapped her lip with a finger, a slow smile spreading across her face. “On second thought, I think she should hear it from you. I want you to do two things for me,” she said to Sebastian. “The first is that I want you tell Selena Koren your name. Your true name.”
Sebastian raised his head that felt as if it weighed a thousand stones. He met Selena’s gaze that still, for a precious few more seconds, regarded him with affection.
With love, he thought dully. She loves me.
“The second thing I wish for you to tell her is what, precisely, you were hired to do and by whom.” Jude stroked his hair; it felt like hammers bashing his skull but paled in comparison to the pain that was to come.
“Tell her, sweeting. Tell her everything.”
Dangerous Games
Niven raced through the jungle with the crew of the Black Storm, leaping over stands of greenery and ducking under boughs of moss-covered trees. The dawn had come but the interior of the rain forest was still dark. Shapes loomed out at him, and while the insect cacophony went quiet at their passage, he could hear the squawking calls of birds heralding the morning, and—much closer—slithering, hissing noises that sent his skin to crawling. He gripped his borrowed sword tighter, sometimes using it to hack awkwardly at a leafy obstacle. His heart hammered in his chest, but he told himself it was from the mad run. Isle Saliz’s heat was intense within the jungle; sweat poured off his brow and trickled down his back, under his linen shirt. He felt naked without his Aluren overtunic but was glad it wasn’t there to snag on branches or stifle him further.
But if I have to fight, I wouldn’t mind a full suit of armor, heat or no heat.
The other crewmen ran with him in a loose group, some ranging ahead, some fanning to the side. Niven hoped one of them—Grunt perhaps—knew where they were going. But even to his untrained eye, he saw the signs of passage from others: bent and broken plant stalks, muddy footprints, and freshly cut wounds on plants or branches.
He ran on, harder, endeavoring not to cut himself with the curved Bazira sword in his hand. But shame burned his face as much as the heat of the jungle as a small voice told him he ran because if he stopped the jungle would eat him alive. Going on was the only option.
No! This time I will not fail her. I won’t.
“This way!” Grunt, from somewhere ahead. Niven still couldn’t believe the man could speak but there was no time to ponder the why of it. He did as the old sea dog—who was as spry and fleet as Whistle—had commanded.
Niven could hear ocean crashing on shore, like some distant mirage, and ran harder. Something seemed to jump up and bite him on the back of the thigh. Needle-sharp pain flared, and he nearly fell. But whatever had bit him—and he wasn’t about to turn around and look—couldn’t hold on, and his leg was released. The pain faded to a mild annoyance and he breathed a grateful prayer to the Shining face. Ahead, the jungle ended, and beyond that, there was the sea.
Dawn had come, brightly here in the open air, and Niven saw a Bazira ship, like a bruise on the horizon, sailing away. No…