bonded all their lives until now, freedom—true freedom of mind and thought and soul—was too big, too…too everything for them to cope with. Some couldn’t. A few of his new crew sat below decks, not speaking or moving, unable to take it in. Others had taken their own lives or, drunk on freedom and a newfound rage they didn’t know how to control, killed each other in knife and pistol fights.
“There were several Remorian ships in Estovan’s docks when that happened, and others in the area,” Guld said. “They…well. Chaos, like I said. There’s been at least two riots, and the Yelen guards have been hard put to control everything. That’s not all though. There’s a price on your head.”
Van Gast preened. “When isn’t there? It’ll do them no good, they’ve never managed to catch me. They don’t even know what I really look like.”
“Yes, but still—”
“Still nothing.” All this talk was making Van Gast fidgety. He’d had enough of being cooped up, enough of these gray Remorian clothes, enough of Holden being sensible. “Is she here?”
Guld blushed at the question everyone had danced around all this time. “I don’t know yet, Van.”
“Well, sodding well find out.” Van Gast started pacing again. “In the meantime, chaos, you said. Guards overworked. Riots. Perfect for what I have in mind. Come on, Holden. I feel a powerful need to steal something.”
* * *
Van Gast watched the delta islands slide closer as the ship scudded toward Estovan under a clear sky. The glass dagger was back in his hands—one reason for playing bones, it kept that dagger and all its reminders off him. He stroked the hilt with his thumb and held it up to the light. The etchings on it were intricate, delicate as spider webs and more impressive when shared with a pair. Olar wedding daggers—to prove you married for love not gain. Each new bride and groom drank the oil and stabbed each other in the heart. If they married true, they lived. If not, a short and unexpectedly chaste wedding night followed.
This dagger no longer had a pair, yet it was empty of the oil it should have held. Josie had left it for him, weeks ago now. A sign, and almost all he had of her.
Holden’s wife, Ilsa, stepped up to the rail beside him and he shoved the dagger away. Ilsa leaned against the rail. Not long ago, on the day her mage-bond had come off, she’d leaned over the rail and laughed at her newfound freedom, at seagulls and salt spray and the wind in her hair. Since then… They’d all found it hard, all the ex-slaves, but Van Gast thought it was worst for Ilsa. Before that day, she’d never met anyone who hadn’t been bonded, a slave to their Master’s will. Never left Remoria, never seen the ports that bustled and hustled and shouted their way into your blood like wine. She seemed to have shrunk, bit by bit, since the bond had gone.
She watched the first of the islands slide past, little more than sandbanks that the lookout called to the helmsmen. Never in the same place twice, not in this stretch of the delta. They could have gone along the main course of the river, but that would be more stupid than even Van Gast was willing to risk.
Ilsa’s soft voice made Van Gast jump, startled out of his own thoughts. “What’s it like, Estovan?”
They passed the dead skeleton of a fishing boat caught on a bank, and the smell of brackish water and too many people crammed into too small a space wafted their way.
“What was Remoria like, really?” Van Gast watched her carefully, noted the nostalgic twist of a lip.
“Peaceful. Clean, beautiful. Soulless. But my home.” She turned dark eyes on him, and the sadness there made him wish, just for a heartbeat, that she could have been left there to her life. But there was nothing in Remoria for her now. “I wish—I wish sometimes I had my bond back on, and so did Holden. At least then I knew. Who I was, who he was, what we had together. Now I don’t know anything, except that I know nothing. I feel so alone. Before I always had a link, to Holden, to everyone else through the bond. And now he’s so—so—”
She broke off and wiped a shaky hand over her eyes.
Van Gast floundered at this part, out of his depth. Crying women always made him feel guilty, even