thief kept one hand on the tall fin cresting along the back of the craft, riding the swells.
Tylar shook his head as he peered out of the hatch. “Both moons already rise. The night will be clear.”
Delia agreed from below. She watched from the Fin’s window as the tiny vessel rolled in the gentle waves. “And the greater moon is full faced this night. The entire sea will be burnished silver under her glow.”
Tylar scowled at their situation.
As the sun had set, all they could do was watch as the fleet spread out in a furious search, scribing a path along the fringes of the floating mat of tangleweed. Captain Grayl must have told Darjon ser Hightower where he had taken the godslayer before being hanged. Or more likely, one of his crew had spilled all. Tylar refused to think ill of the good captain.
Either way, they were doomed. Even now the corsairs swung out in a wider sweep, aiming for where the trio still foundered in the tiny Fin. They lacked even a paddle to maneuver out of the way.
“We have no choice,” Delia said. “We must try.”
Rogger turned to Tylar. “She’s determined to kill us as much as that bloody Shadowknight.”
Tylar dropped back into the Fin’s cabin. Delia crouched between the two front seats, staring at the glass sphere, now empty of its alchemy. She unscrewed a silver plug from atop the sphere. “I’ve studied the mekanicals. I think we should risk it.”
“Use my own blood to fuel the Fin?”
She pointed the stopper at him. “You carry Meeryn’s Grace in you. The Grace of water. Like Fyla. Why shouldn’t it power the Fin?”
Rogger spoke as he reentered the cabin. “Because it is not pure blood that runs a Fin. It’s an alchemical mixture. A blend of humours known to those trained in their manipulations. And as I recall, alchemists live very short lives. Blown up by their own miscalculations.”
Delia dismissed his concern. “The mica tubing still contains residual alchemy, the last dregs. All we need is a bit of fresh blood to ignite the Grace inside the mekanicals for a brief time. Enough to flee out of reach. It’ll take just a little blood.”
“A little?” Rogger repeated. “We’ve had this discussion already. If you’re wrong… if the explosion doesn’t kill us all, any fiery blast will draw the corsairs down upon us.”
“They’re already upon us, if you hadn’t noticed.” Delia cocked a thumb toward the window.
Tylar glanced from the lamplit sails back to the open cylinder. She did make a good argument. But it was his blood that would slay them if the works exploded. He found himself staring at his hands, unsure. Was it any better to take their chances with Darjon’s corsairs? He had only to think of Captain Grayl to know how his companions would fare. He pictured Delia and Rogger swinging from their necks.
He would not let that happen.
Earlier, Tylar had hoped the corsairs would dock at Tangle Reef and remain unaware of their presence, giving time for the current to drift them out of harm’s reach. Yet even that choice had its own difficulties. Adrift at sea-no food, little water-was only a slower form of death. But something had sent the corsairs searching wider. With Fyla distracted by the Gloom, word must have reached Darjon: The godslayer was loose.
Now, as the corsairs bore down on them, hard choices had to be made.
Tylar held out his hand to Rogger. “Your dagger.”
The thief backed up a step, the only space left to him. “You’re both as bad as blood witches… fooling with Grace that you know nothing about.”
Delia snapped at him. “I’m a Hand, not a skagging witch.”
Rogger lifted a brow at her cursing.
Tylar noted how tired she looked… and young. It was easy to forget. She had lost her god, seen her life turned inside out, and for what? To be hunted. He recognized the exhausted fear in her eyes, a haunting desperation.
He continued to hold his palm up toward Rogger. He had his own sword sheathed at his belt, but the long weapon was unwieldy in the cramped space, ungainly for the work needed here.
Finally, the thief slipped a tiny steel dagger from a sheath at the small of his back and placed it in Tylar’s palm.
This calmed Delia. She nodded, wiping back a stray lock of hair from her eyes. “We’ll just try with a few drops. See how the mekanicals hold.”
Tylar moved next to her. “Do I need to concentrate? Direct some will into the blood?” He thought back to the curse of ice he cast upon the jelly shark.
“No,” Delia said after a moment’s hesitation, sounding unsure. “Raw Grace is needed here, pure force.”
Tylar poised the dagger across his palm.
“Let me,” Delia said softly, touching his hand. “It is my duty.”
Tylar opened his fingers gladly.
She took the knife and, with her other hand, turned his palm down, then up again, seeming to study the length of his fingers, the hairs along the back of his hand, the architecture of his bones. Finally, she pointed the tip of the blade at a ropy vein on the side of his wrist. Her other hand latched above it, causing the vessel to bulge. “Hold steady.”
Tylar was surprised by the iron hold of her fingers. She had wicked strength. Her middle finger dug into a painful point behind a wristbone.
“Take a deep breath.”
He’d just begun to suck in air when she stabbed the dagger’s tip into the vein. Caught by surprise, he coughed with the bite of the knife-but there was no pain. She pressed her thumb over the wound before it even bled and stepped back, passing the knife back to Rogger.
Delia drew him by the arm to the glass sphere. She positioned the wound over the hole in the tank and released her thumb.
Blood flowed thickly down the inside of the glass.
Tylar watched. With the release of Delia’s fingers, he felt a dull ache bloom from the wound. “How did you… I hardly felt-?”
“Training,” she cut him off and knelt, studying the flow of his humour into the jar, watching it pool at the bottom.
“I thought you needed only a little blood?” Rogger commented.
“It is only a little. The bleeding will slow on its own.”
Tylar saw she was right. Already the seep of blood thinned to rolling drops.
“A true draining requires a slice deep to wrist, throat, or back of knee. This should be enough.” She stood and slipped a silk kerchief from a pocket. She tied a knot in it, placed it over the wound, snugged the ends tight around his wrist, and tied it in place with deft fingers. “Do not remove it for half a day.”
Tylar had watched the seas through the window as she worked. “Here they come,” he mumbled.
A quarter reach away, the sweep of high prows could now be seen, cutting through the black seas. Men moved in the rigging. Screened fire lamps shone out over the rails, lighting the waters, searching. Off to the left, the greater moon crested the waves, casting a swath of silver over the seas, pointing a finger directly at them. As Delia had noted earlier, there would be no hiding this night.
“If you’re going to blow us up,” Rogger said, “let’s be quick about it.”
Tylar made out the swinging form of Captain Grayl from the lead vessel. He felt the accusing eyes of the dead upon him. Then a fierce brightness enveloped the Fin. The path of one of the fire lamps had glanced over the craft- darkness descended again as the blaze swept away.
Had they been spotted?
Everyone held their breath. Even Delia halted her ministrations of the mekanicals.
The blaze swung back, skittered over them again, then fixed in place, lighting the seas around them as bright as the midday sun.
They had been found.
The lead corsair turned, digging deep as it swung about. The macabre decoration swayed from the prow, the dead captain’s feet brushing the waves. Shouts echoed across the water, ghostly yet urgent.
“I’m becoming more and more resolved to the blowing up part now,” Rogger said as he looked on, one hand raised against the glare.
