Or is this the punishment for breaking the edict? I slept with a man who is not Aluren? Is the Shining face so wrathful…?
“No!” Accora seethed. “Do not give up! I can read your eyes that your will is dying. It’s not over yet. We are not done.” And as if to emphasize her words, the rope that had bound her wrist cracked and shattered, frozen by her ice. She smiled triumphantly, holding up her bloodied wrists, scratched raw. “You see?”
She crawled across the hold; her gray robes now torn and grimy. “We will yet prevail.” Accora loosened Selena’s gag. Selena worked it down to her chin and sucked in deep drafts of air.
“How?” she croaked. “How will healing block Bacchus’s visions?”
Accora tugged on Selena’s ropes. “I’m too weak,” she muttered. “They don’t feed an old woman? Krystak.” Selena winced as ice lanced over her wrists. “Draw it in,” Accora said, “hold it, and when the terrors come at you, use the magic to undo them.”
“But how?” Selena asked. “I can channel the magic to a wound. How can I channel it to something that only exists in my mind?”
Accora took Selena’s chin in her hands, hands that felt dry like old paper. “You are stronger than you believe. Stronger, surely, than the Alliance or Skye or your precious Ilior know. That is why they fear you. That is why the first two sent you to die, and the third seeks to keep you from knowing your true self.”
A thumping came from overheard and both women jumped. “They’re loose,” she whispered, and Selena could feel a little bit of give in the ropes on her wrists. Accora replaced Selena’s gag, also looser now. She patted her cheek. “We’re not done yet.”
Sebastian snorted. “We.”
“Yes,” Accora hissed. “The we of she and I. You? You’re dead, Sebastian Vaas. I can smell it on you already.” She quickly returned to her place, adjusted her gag, and clasped her hands behind her back.
Jude Gracus slipped into the hold and surveyed her captives. “We’ve arrived.” She turned her dark-eyed gaze on Selena, and said with a mocking smile, “Welcome back.”
The sun was setting as Jude took them in a skiff from the Bazira ship to the tiny little island where Bacchus lived. Four men rowed, four others sat with hands on the hilts of their curved blades, eyeing the prisoners who sat huddled in the middle. Selena watched the island draw near. She had never been this close. During the war, she’d been leagues away, safe on a ship while her spell destroyed the Zak’reth and the villagers alike.
Isle Calinda.
Then we came at it from the southeast, Selena thought trying to keep her thoughts occupied. Her heart was racing. Judging from the setting sun, we’re now sailing from the northwest. We are coming to dock on the other side of the island from where I…From where I…
Her thoughts tapered off to nothing. It was useless to keep the horror at bay when the water was littered with bodies.
Hundreds upon hundreds of bodies.
Men and women, human and merkind; the waters off the shores of Isle Calinda were a floating graveyard. Glazed-eyed corpses, their mouths agape, bobbed and bumped into the skiff. Their skin was a ghastly yellow-gray, their eyes milky and staring. Dead merkind floated past, leaving trails of scales, like little flecks of copper or ash, behind them. By the looks of their clothing, the humans were pirates and peasants alike, most of the Farendii. Selena saw a woman bob off the starboard, her tattered apron billowing around her. But every dead body shared the same sickly appearance, as if they had been hollowed out by some unknown force and then filled to bursting with the pus and ichor of rot. The stench was overpowering.
This is the power of the darkpool, Selena thought, which was quickly followed by another: Accora said a darkpool forms where there has been terrible pain and death. I made this, then. Ten years ago.
She looked to Accora and the old woman’s optimism in the ship’s hold had been muted by the bobbing corpses that surrounded them.
“What you are seeing,” Jude told her prisoners from the prow of the boat, like a tour guide, “is the might of our great Reverent. These,” she waved her hand to indicate the dead, “are his experiments. They did not displease him. Their greatest crime was that they outlived their usefulness to him. Accora can tell you what he does when you displease Bacchus.”
Accora turned away and watched the dead float by.
Jude cocked her head, a thought occurring to her. “Is that what you’re up to? Revenge? Is that why an old Bazira has allied herself with a young Aluren? You need Selena’s light magic and quick sword to kill our mighty priest?” She laughed, full and throaty, and looked to Selena. “And what did she promise you, Paladin? We know your Alliance gave you two targets and yet Accora still lives. Is that out for the mercy of your shining little heart, or is it something else? What has Accora bartered her life for? What could she possibly have promised you?”
Jude didn’t wait for an answer but turned next to Sebastian who sat with his head bowed.
“And here you keep company with Lunos’ most notorious assassin. What, did you fuck him? Yes? Of course you did, never knowing that the handsome rogue you spread your legs for was sent to kill you. He spared you because he’s rife with frailty, but he took the job, didn’t he?” She laughed again. “Ah, sweeting. You’ve surrounded yourself with liars and betrayers. Meeting Bacchus will be something of a relief, I think. He will make it very clear what he wants from you. You won’t like it, I promise, but at least it will be an honest pain.” She settled herself in the prow. “Take comfort in that, if you can.”
Twilight came on, its gold and purple hues muted by fat storm clouds that rolled in from the east. They passed three other hulking ships, all unmanned and at anchor. The ships were big but not so large as the frigate; four-masted barques with black hulls and black sails.
Three ships that size could hold fifty men or more, Selena thought, and shivered. This mission was hopeless from the start.
The skiff ran aground at dusk. The party came ashore hurriedly, none wanting to touch the befouled water that surrounded Isle Calinda. The prisoners marched across the grainy sand beach that was dotted with stands of dried grass, and into the forest of birch trees that made up most of the island’s interior.
Selena trudged behind Sebastian. Now that they were out of the dark hold, she could see how badly he was injured. Blood caked his neck and his thick black hair was matted at the back of his head. A burn on his left shoulder had eaten away at part of black long coat. The skin beneath looked angry and red. But it was the head wound that worried Selena. Where he’d once been graceful he now stumbled every third step and she heard him mutter to himself.
The Trickster. Sent to kill me. He was there to kill me.