The following morning, Cat was on her watch and would be until nightfall. Selena knelt in their windowless cabin and prayed to the Two-Faced God for guidance. Her emotions were at war: joy and hope battled fear and dread that she would be forced to take Accora’s life without provocation. The wound breathed against her chest, challenging her to feel anything but gladness that once Bazira blood was spilled, she’d be free.
The wound. It was the answer to every question.
There was a long mirror nailed to the back of the cabin door. Selena rose to her feet and faced it. It showed her reflection from the knees up. It was enough. She locked the cabin door and then disrobed. She did it fast, before her fear stilled her trembling hands.
The black crescent, like an obscene smile, was stark on her pale skin. She didn’t consciously raise her hand; it would do that on its own, she knew. Until it did, she stared, was drawn in, and then lost.
She was drunk. Head-spinning, stomach-roiling drunk. She took another gulp. It stuck in her throat, burning, while her body decided to accept it or not. By the sour bile that suddenly welled up under her tongue, the decision had been made. She staggered outside and heaved in the corner of the alley just in time. The rum burned on the way out as much as it had on the way in. She wiped her sleeve over her mouth. It was the only kind of burn she would ever know. She was certain of that.
She half-laughed, half-sobbed and blearily examined the bulbous white blister that rose from the center of her palm like a boil. The pain was bad—she had stifled a grimace at the table while the others watched her hold her hand over the candle and cheered her on. But it wasn’t a burning pain. Instead, it ached like stab wound and tingled with a thousand tiny pinpricks.
“But it doesn’t burn,” she muttered into the empty alley. “Illuria.” The blister receded and then vanished, and she slumped against the wall, fatigue now helping to steal her warrior’s grace as much as the night of drinking.
The door banged open and a man stumbled out, peering around. He spotted her and a grin spread over his face; a fissure of browned and missing teeth.
“There you are, lass. I thought you might’ve come this way. Need a bit o’ fresh air, eh? Or perhaps the candle hurt you worse than you let on?” he added with a knowing wink.
She held up her unblemished hand; the moonlight was bright enough. The man—Timon or Damon, she thought his name was—stared, aghast. Then he laughed and moved closer.
“So you’re invincible after all?”
“No,” she said, her thoughts going again to that horrible moment at Isle Calinda—six months gone and still as fresh in her mind as if it happened yesterday. She shivered. “No.”
“A wee chill?” The man loomed over her, a blurry dark shape to her rum-drowned vision. “Let old Tamon keep you warm.” He nuzzled her neck with bristly stubble. “I’ll take care of you, lass. Right here…”
She started to push him away but it was half-hearted. Why not? No man I could care about would ever want me, she thought. Another part of her whispered a warning that once the rum was flushed out of her, this would be a new kind of pain to remember. Then I’ll stay close to the rum, she replied. And nothing hurts worse than the wound. Nothing.
A shadow fell over them both and Tamon was torn off her. He staggered backwards and struck his head on the tavern wall. His eyes fluttered and then he sat on his rump, head lolling, as if he’d come out here to sleep it off.
“What are you doing here?” Ilior demanded.
She waved him off. “Go ‘way.”
“Drunk? And where’s your Aluren dress?”
She peered up at him. “You know,” she said, “I see two of everything.” She laughed while some small part of her listened with horror at the words that came out of her mouth. “Even you, Ilior. I see two of you. Two heads, two shoulders, and two…wings.”
Ilior lifted her up. She gave no protest but let her spinning head rest against his fur vest.
“We’re going home now,” he said.
“Don’t take me back there,” she protested weakly. “It’s not my home.”
“You’re drunk and you smell like that man.” Ilior’s voice was the rumble of stones down a hill. “The Temple is your home. You’ll be safe there.”
She tried to protest but couldn’t keep her eyes open any longer. “Home was where my father lived.”
She wanted to add that nowhere was safe from the god’s wrath but cold darkness claimed her first.
Selena staggered backward and crashed into the cabin wall. She looked down at herself in horror, at her wound that was swallowing her own arm up to the elbow, as if she’d been fishing around in her own chest cavity for some misplaced item.
She screamed and tore her arm free. It was rimed in ice.
Bazira ice, she thought. The icy magic Accora has wielded against innocents, no matter what she might say now. She has frozen the air in the lungs of her victims, she had stilled their heart with shards. I asked the god if killing Accora was the right thing to do, and it has answered.
Selena’s legs felt strangely weak, and the muscles in her shoulders were stiff from standing still, for what number of hours she couldn’t guess. She dressed without the aid of the mirror. Only after she wore her Aluren blue and silver, and with her paladin’s sword was strapped to her waist, did she regard herself once again. The god’s answer didn’t bring her peace despite all the reasoning in the world. She knew the truth.
Accora falls on your sword…or you do.
She went to her cabin door, ready to watch Isle Saliz draw closer. Her hand was on the handle when it turned. Selena gave a start as Cat came in.
“Oh,” Selena said. “I thought you had watch until nightfall.”
Cat nodded that she did, and covered her yawn with a gloved hand. She stretched out on her bunk and slept immediately.
Selena’s heart thudded dully in her chest. She went out, shutting the door behind her. Ilior met her in the dim passageway, coming to find her.
“Are you all right? You’ve kept to your cabin since this morning…”
“I’m fine,” she said, forcing a smile. “Only hungry.”
They went to the galley where Niven had left dinner for the crew in the oven to take whenever their watch ended. The last time she had been here was mere minutes ago, it seemed, and it had been breakfast in the oven.
Another day lost.
Her hunger died. Ilior was watching her closely. For his sake, she forced herself to eat, each bite turning to dust in her mouth.
After a time, Julian came in. He stopped when he saw them. He said nothing, took his share of the dinner from the oven and retreated, presumably to his cabin. Selena watched him go and then resumed picking at her food.
“He is silent to you,” Ilior said. “Since the merkind storm. Why?”
“I don’t know,” Selena said, keeping her gaze on her plate. “I’m not surprised. He’s always been taciturn.”
“What happened?”
She looked up at him. “What do you mean?”
“What happened when he took you to his cabin? He said it was to warm you but how could he do better than the oven here?” He gestured at the wrought iron stove beside them.