ME, THEY SENSE YOU, THEY KNOW WHAT YOU ARE AND WHERE YOU GO!”
“But why do they care?” she shouted over the thunder.
“THEY ARE THEIR FATHER’S DAUGHTERS! IF THE LADY OF STORMS BREAKS OUR MASTS, WE’LL BE AT THE MERCY OF THE SEA!” He turned, fixed her with those dead, black eyes. “AND THE LADY OF OCEANS HAS NO MERCY, MIA!”
He waved her off.
“GO BELOW!” he roared. “A SHARP BLADE AND A SHARPER TONGUE ARE NO USE HERE! THE ONLY WEAPON IN THIS WAR IS FAITH, AND YOU’VE NONE IN YOU TO FIGHT IT!”
“Are you—”
“GO!”
Mia backed away, all the confidence Corleone had instilled in her dissolved under that abyssal stare. Tric turned back to the sea, black hands spread wide again. Another wave smashed down upon the bow, and Mia stepped forward with a cry. But once the spray had cleared, he still stood there, rooted to the spot as if by some dark magik, sodden robes hanging on him like weeds wrapped about a floating corpse. She looked around them, the tiny collection of twigs and canvas that was the Maid; all that stood between her and death. She suddenly felt a small and frightened thing, caught up in something vaster than she could imagine. The image of that pawn on Scaeva’s palm flashed unbidden in her thoughts, his words echoing in her mind.
“If you start down this road, daughter mine, you are going to die.”
Blue fingernails clawing the wood, she dragged herself through the crash and the howl and the bone-deep cold, back across the deck, finally stumbling down the steps to the decks below.
“Maw’s teeth,” she whispered, teeth chattering.
The ship groaned in reply, her timbers in agony. She could hear Cloud roaring to BigJon, and BigJon to the crew, voices almost swallowed in the tempest. Mia made her way back down the corridor toward her cabin, sopping wet, wishing she knew where Mister Kindly was. Wondering in what dark corner or nook he might be hiding. Wanting him back to take this feeling away.
“Fear is what keeps the dark from devouring you. Fear is what stops you joining a game you cannot hope to win.”
Stopping outside her cabin, she looked at the door opposite—Jonnen’s room, closed and locked. She could see a faint light beneath, hear soft sounds under the deafening song of the thunder. Suddenly realizing what she was hearing.
Crying.
She swallowed hard. Remembering her bitter words from earlier, regret swelling in her chest. He was a hateful little shit. A spoiled brat. A rude, ungrateful snob. But he was just a little boy. He was her brother. Her blood.
A few moments’ precarious work with the lockpicks in the heel of her wolfskin boots and the lock was open, the door quickly following. She dragged her sodden hair from her eyes, peered into the room. She saw her brother huddled in the corner, jammed between a heavy chest and the wall, knees up under his chin. Eclipse was sat before him, speaking softly, but it seemed even the shadowwolf wasn’t enough to calm the boy’s fears. Jonnen’s cheeks were wet with tears, his eyes wide and afraid.
“Brother?” Mia said.
He looked up at her, jaw clenched, eyes flashing.
“Go away, Kingmaker,” he snapped.
Mia sighed and stepped into the room, dripping seawater. Padding across the floorboards, she sat down in front of him. After an awkward pause, she tossed her hair from her face and reached out with chilled hands to take his. Amazingly, he didn’t immediately snatch them away.
“Still frightened of storms?”
“… I AM SORRY, MIA, HE WOULD NOT LET ME RIDE HIS SHADOW, BUT DID NOT WISH ME TO TELL YOU…”
Mia ran a hand over Eclipse’s flanks, grateful the shadowwolf had formed so swift a bond with her brother. Though Mia herself was clearly one of Jonnen’s least favorite people under the suns, the boy and the daemon were thick as thieves after only a few weeks together. Thinking about it here in the roaring storm, Mia understood why.
Eclipse misses Cassius.
And Jonnen reminds her of him.
Mia looked at her brother and nodded. He was an exceptional boy, she had to admit, no matter what enmity lay between them. She felt admiration swelling in her, that he’d chosen to face the storm without the daemon to eat his fear.
“A man has to stand on his own two feet, neh?”
The boy glared with those dark eyes of his. So like his father’s. So like hers.
“But you don’t have to stand alone, you know that, aye?” Mia squeezed his little hands in