“Is that so?” Yaellin said. “Then perhaps you’ll share your view with the new castellan. She comes this morning to question you.”
Paltry blanched. “What… how… why…?”
“Yes, I’m sure they’ll be asking you the very same.”
Dart took comfort from Paltry’s sick look, the fear in his eyes.
“Now all we have to do is wait for our new guests.” Yaellin nodded to one of the cots. “If you’d be so kind. We might as well be comfortable.”
Yaellin backed Paltry upon the point of his sword. “Laurelle, will you also bar the door back there? We don’t want to be disturbed while we wait.”
Laurelle nodded and hurried to obey.
Yaellin dropped Paltry to the cot, then motioned Dart forward. He kept his sword at the healer’s throat, but turned his attention to Dart. He reached a hand out. A dagger rested in his palm. “Take it.”
Dart stared. The black blade could not be mistaken. It was the cursed dagger. She shook her head.
“Take it,” he repeated, more commanding.
She obeyed, fingering its hilt with care.
“Here is its sheath.” He passed her a belt.
She accepted it, confused, feeling as empty as the leather sheath.
“Some call this blade cursed, impure, vile, but it is only a dagger. It is only steel. How it is employed is the true character of a blade.” He stared deep into Dart’s eyes. “Remember that. What was done to your flesh does not soil you or defile you. Your heart is still yours. It is still innocent and pure.”
Dart listened, but his words fell on stony soil. She could not.. did not believe them.
Yaellin seemed to understand. He sighed and nodded to the dagger. “It is yours. Wear it well.”
Dart backed up a few steps. She set the dagger down and tied the belt under her robe, over her nightclothes. She worked without looking down. Her gaze remained hard upon Paltry. He watched her. She retrieved the dagger. Its blade ate the light.
Slowly… very slowly she sheathed it.
If not comforted by Yaellin’s words, she was a tiny bit less empty.
She snugged the dagger tight, fingers on the bone hilt.
Cursed or not, she would wear it well.
She still had promises to keep.
21
Tylarclung to Kathryn as the flippercraft plum meted. Smoke filled the cabin, steaming from the slagged mekanicals as the blood alchemies burned. Beneath the floorboards, the grind and scream of strained iron and steel shook through the ship. Shouts and cries echoed to them from the forward sections.
Slowly the steep cant of the deck rolled slightly more even. The ship turned, attempting a slow spiral. The captain and his helmsman must be wresting the craft by sheer muscle and will.
But it was Tylar’s chance to move.
He clutched Kathryn’s elbow.“We must get to the others… to the captain’s deck!” he yelled to be heard above the howl of the winds through the broken stern window. He had no plan, but they could do nothing here.
She nodded.
He helped haul her to her feet-and she helped him. The freeing of the naethryn daemon had healed his wounds, but it hadn’t replaced the blood he’d lost. He found his vision narrowing.
“The daemon…” Kathryn glanced back to the smoky deck.
Earlier, Tylar had explained about the naether-spawn. Kathryn had studied the black palm print with interest. But to see the naethryn rip from his body, shattering its way out, had transformed mere words into true horror.
“What it did to you…” she said as they reached the door.
Tylar grabbed the door’s locking bar. “That broken man you saw was not the work of the daemon, but the slave pits and circuses.” He could not keep the bitterness from his words, even when he caught the wounded look in Kathryn’s eyes. “The daemon keeps me whole.”
Tylar freed the bar that Darjon had set. The door fell open under him. They tumbled through into the main passage… into chaos. Smoke wafted here, a pall lit by fires licking up from cracks in the floorboards. The lower ship, the mekanical spaces, must be on fire.
Travelers crowded the passage, abandoning cabins. They tangled and fought in panic. Orders were shouted, prayers raised, cries echoed.
“There!” Kathryn pointed.
Tylar spotted the flash of bronze. It was Master Gerrod, brilliant in his armor. He stood braced in a doorway a few spaces down the tilted passageway. One metal hand gripped Rogger by the shirt collar, keeping him in place.
Across the passage, Eylan shoved several folks out of her way with the handle of a long ax. The Wyr- mistress’s dark eyes found Tylar and narrowed. Her efforts grew fiercer. Her duty had been to act as his bodyguard, to keep his valuable seed safe from harm. She seemed furious at how difficult he was making her chore.
Tylar and Kathryn hurried to the others.
He turned to Rogger and Gerrod. “We must get to the captain’s deck.”
Another explosion bucked the ship savagely. It rolled to port, throwing everyone to the wall. Cries grew sharper in alarm. Tylar snatched Kathryn around the waist. He felt her heartbeat pounding. He stared through the open door of a passenger’s cabin and out its window.
With the ship rolled over, the city appeared beneath the flippercraft. Tall towers stretched close. He spotted townsmen on the streets, near enough to see their faces staring up. He knew what they were seeing. A flippercraft, trailing a tail of smoke and fire, about to strike the city.
Then the ship swung back even, taking away the view below-only now the craft’s nose dipped more steeply.
A hand grabbed his elbow, as hard as any shackle.
He turned to find Eylan hauling him up.
Tylar attempted to shake free. “My seed will have to wait.”
She scowled at him. Using her free arm, she stopped one of the crewmen with the butt of her ax handle, pinning the young man to the wall. “Take us to the foredeck,” she demanded in a voice that offered no mercy.
The crewman balked, near blind with panic.
Not a good sign.
“I may be able to help the captain.” Tylar grabbed the man by the shoulder, shoving the ax handle away. “I have Grace that may serve to save the ship.”
The man’s eyes fixed to him, to any hope, then nodded.
Gerrod and Rogger joined them. With Eylan in the lead, roughly knocking folks aside with the flat of her ax, they forced their way forward.
The crewman unlocked the hatch of the captain’s deck. “We’ve lost all aeroskimmers. We’re riding on the dregs of Grace. If you can do anything…”
Tylar led the others into a mirror of the stern common room. A deck overlooked a curved wall of glass, the captain’s eye. But instead of open decking, the space was occupied by an arc of control seats. To the right and left, men fought to wield the starboard and port aeroskimmers. Smoke poured from one side, flames lapped on the other.
In the center, directly ahead, the helmsman sat, strapped to a chair that protruded out over the window, like the bowsprit of a ship. The position gave the man a full view of the city hurtling toward them. His feet worked a set of pedals, his hands a vast wheel. Smoke framed his form. A spat of flames danced under his toes.
