Turning to Mia, the Vaanian finally bowed low. “My queen.”
And turning on his heel, he set about his work.
Mia watched the man retreat, eyes narrowed. She’d been keeping close tabs on him over the last two turns, and she knew Sigursson had no fondness for her. Knew the razor she danced along keeping him at heel. And still, she couldn’t help but admire him.
Bastards and brutes they might be, but Banshee’s crew knew their ship, and more importantly, they knew Mia would soon be off it. They were afraid of her, aye—she kept Eclipse in plain view at her side along with Tric to foster that fear. But they actually liked Sigursson. He was intense. Intelligent. Not a braggart or a buffoon. A lesser man might’ve lost himself in foolish pride when his captain was killed. But Ulfr knew there was little to gain by opposing Mia, and everything to lose. And so he’d swallowed that pride, biding his time and dreaming of the throne awaiting him when all this was done.
“He’ll make a fine king when he returns to Amai,” Mia mused.
“IF HE RETURNS TO AMAI,” Tric replied.
Mia turned to the boy, a soft chill in her belly.
“You know what’s coming, don’t you?”
Tric nodded, his eyes on the burning horizon. “THESE O, SO PLEASANT WINDS SERVE ONLY TO DRIVE US DEEPER INTO THE OCEAN. FARTHER AWAY FROM THE SAFETY OF LAND. THE LADIES ARE GATHERING THEIR STRENGTH. I CAN FEEL IT.”
Mia felt her shadow shiver, the shape of a wolf stretched out dark on the timbers before her. “… I FEEL IT, TOO, MIA. THEY ARE COMING FOR US…”
Mia looked toward the edge of the world, wind blowing her hair across her eyes.
“DO YOU BELIEVE YET?” Tric asked. “WHAT YOU ARE? WHAT YOU MUST BECOME?”
Mia licked her lips. Tasted salt.
Truth was, she could feel it, too. Sure as she could feel the dark inside her, swelling as those suns sank ever lower. Sure as she could see the new blush in Tric’s skin, feel the new strength inside herself. At the time, the tale he’d told beneath Godsgrave had seemed madness. Fantasy. Talk of slaughtered gods and fractured souls. But the malice she could sense in the sky about her, the waters below, the memory of those flames reaching out across the furs toward her, the dreams that plagued her sleep … all of it was becoming harder and harder to deny.
There was something grand at work here. She knew it now. Something bigger than any of them. Fire, Storm, Sea. Light and Dark. All of it. Mia could sense it, like a weight growing on her back. Like a shadow rising to meet her.
“THE ONLY WEAPON IN THIS WAR IS FAITH.”
She’d set aside her faith years ago. Stopped praying to Aa the turn she realized that all the devotion in the world wouldn’t bring her familia back. Even in service of the Dark Mother, even in the belly of the Quiet Mountain, she’d not truly held any belief for the divinities—not for divinities who might actually care, at least. Who knew who she was, who thought she mattered, who were more than empty words and hollow names.
And now? Moons and crowns and mothers and fathers and all of it?
Do I truly believe?
Mia shook her head, pushing thoughts of gods and goddesses away. Whatever Tric and Eclipse might feel, whatever awareness might be budding in her own chest, truth was she had more earthly concerns for now.
Mercurio needed her.
He was in danger because of her. He’d been a father when the world took her own away. When she’d prayed for Aa to help her, it had been Mercurio who saved her. But more than the debt she owed him, the simple fact was that she loved the grumpy old bastard. She missed the smell of his cigarillos. His gallows humor and foul mouth. Those pale blue eyes that seemed born to scowl, seeing right through her bullshit and into her heart.
Scaeva had claimed to have made her all she was. But in truth, if Mia owed anyone for the person she’d become, the things about herself she actually liked, it was Mercurio. And so she stared at the ocean between them. The hundreds of miles of blue above and below, soon to turn black with fury. At this point, it didn’t matter what she believed in. Gods and goddesses. Fathers and daughters. What matter, this talk of divinities and destinies? What she might be or what she could