reckless smile that he remembered. It was the hint of fear, the vulnerability in her brown eyes, that convinced her that it was really her and not an Elder husk in her skin.
There was another difference between now and the last time he’d seen her: the shining emerald that she had once worn in her ear was now embedded into the crown of her forehead.
A few of the worms slithered past him and he remembered himself enough to slash at them, but he found that they didn’t attack him. Or anyone. They slithered around him and…stopped.
Jerri gave a wave to the others. “Hey everybody. Sorry about meeting you like…this.”
“Nakothi take your corpse,” Foster said. He spat on the deck.
Andel jerked a thumb at him. “What he said.”
Petal gave a hesitant look at the two of them, but she waved back.
Jerri sighed. “Thank you, Petal. Why don’t you all head below? I’d like a moment with my…uh, the Captain.”
The worms had left a clear path for them to leave, but all three looked to Calder.
Petal looked fearful, Foster defiant, and Andel…Calder couldn’t call the expression on his face anything but sympathetic.
“Head below,” he said. “If anything happens to you, I’ll come down there immediately.”
“You think we were worried about something happening to us?” Foster grumbled.
But he went.
Which left Calder alone on a deck with Jerri and about a thousand squirming Elder worms.
Neither of them knew what to say.
She gazed upward, flinching when another heavenly blow lit up the void. “You know, I didn’t want anything to happen the way it did.”
“You’ve said that before. You could have avoided it all by telling me the truth.”
“Not too late for that.” She spread her hands. “We know each other now. No secrets. And this is the truth: if no one stops the Outsider, he’s going to destroy everything.”
The Outsider. She didn’t know Ozriel’s name.
Well, if she didn’t know him, he wasn’t going to tell her. It may have been petty revenge, but he would take what he could get.
“The Elders don’t want to destroy us, they just want to escape. He is the real threat.” She reached out to him in sympathy, and he allowed her to rest a hand on his arm. “You know Kelarac needs you.”
…and that was as long as he could stomach her touch.
He pulled away, taking three steps back and crushing a worm beneath his heel. “You’re telling me to let him possess me?”
“I didn’t want that,” she said softly. “I wanted you on the throne as his peer. Now, it’s the only move left. But!” She brightened. “It’s not just possession! He showed me what happened with Urg’naut. It’s more like a…mixing of two people. A blend. Equal parts you and Kelarac.”
“I’d say I’ll believe Kelarac taking an equal deal when the sky falls,” Calder said, “but the sky has fallen and I still don’t believe it.”
“The division depends on the strength of your Intent. If you’re strong enough, you could possess Kelarac.” Her eyes glimmered at the thought.
“I’ll decline. I don’t know if you noticed, but we’re winning.”
She looked at him with pity. “No, you’re not.”
Jerri gestured, and a worm slithered into their cabin. A moment later, it emerged carrying a spyglass. Calder’s invested spyglass.
With its head, it tilted the spyglass to him. He shuddered with disgust and took it.
She pointed to a spot on the horizon, and he looked.
The sight almost brought up his breakfast.
A pale, bald, bloated corpse waded through the ocean as though through a puddle. Its ribs were bent open and exposed, a network of organs and tendons stretching from the gaping wound. Much of its pink flesh was gray-green and diseased, and its head was tilted so far back that he could see nothing of its face.
Nonetheless, he knew what it was.
Nakothi’s body had risen.
The Dead Mother was coming.
“How long do you think it will take her to get here?” Jerri mused. “An hour?”
“I get it,” Calder said hoarsely.
His mind whirled. Jerri likely didn’t know what he was capable of, so he could lunge and probably kill her. He wasn’t sure how he felt about the idea, and how would it help? As far as he knew, he would only be getting rid of one Soulbound. The situation wouldn’t change.
There was only one way he could help.
The emptiness of death yawned in his memory and he shuddered. He couldn’t give in to Kelarac yet anyway. He didn’t know where the Consultants were.
No sooner had he thought of them than silver mist