Of Kings and Killers (Elder Empire Sea #3) - WIll Wight Page 0,134

once: the silence.

There was no battle overhead.

The cracks in the sky, which had once shone onto a void filled with multi-colored lights, now showed pure darkness.

With trembling fear in his heart, Calder extended his Reader’s senses.

“Urg’naut won,” Shera said, looking into the sky.

Calder shook his head. This was not the pure nonexistence Urg’naut sought. It was ocean-deep, all-consuming Intent to destroy.

The will of an executioner.

“No,” Calder said. “He lost. And now it’s over anyway.”

In the wake of his words, a song began to drift over the battlefield.

Come, my children…come to me…rise once more and taste perfection.

The pieces of worm scattered over the deck began to scoot together. Their flesh knotted back into one. The water boiled as pieces of Elderspawn and human corpses started stitching themselves together in horrific configurations.

Shera waved to the pieces, and orbs of green light drifted up to hang in midair over them. The same thing that had happened when she’d killed Urzaia.

At least the pieces were still.

Calder swallowed his nausea at the sight. “Thank you.”

“Don’t…thank me…yet…”

Shera spoke through a tight jaw, and Calder thought he saw lime-green light leaking through her teeth.

Nakothi was wading toward them, looking even more gruesome than she had through the spyglass. “Can you help with her?” Calder asked.

Shera nodded.

“Then I think…” He looked up, tasting the deadly Intent in the air. If no one did anything, all of existence was going to be erased. “…I think there’s one last thing I can do.”

Though it was clearly difficult for her, Shera spoke again. “One…last…thing.”

Reaching deep into the ship, Calder asked the Lyathatan for a final favor.

Candle Bay was close. They reached it in minutes.

The Elder practically flung them into the docks, then tore the shackles from its wrists. It did not wait around or waste a second; it was free. It swam out to sea without delay, and Calder found himself reaching through the mark of Kelarac, feeling it leave.

He had hoped to sense something like fondness or regret, but all he felt was the Elder equivalent of joy. Satisfaction, fading rage, and a resolve to follow its own instincts. By the time its fin disappeared beneath the waves, it never looked back.

Once on the dock, Calder gave The Testament a once-over.

The ship was, charitably, half a wreck. Its mast was destroyed, its sales missing, much of its hull splintered. The words on the side were closer to spelling “The Test,” which he supposed might have been an even more accurate name.

With love and care and attention, he’d be able to repair his Soulbound Vessel.

But he would never get the chance.

“Do you think there’s a world out there where everything worked out perfectly?” Calder asked. Petal and Andel stood at his sides; the last of his crew. “Where we just…kept sailing. All seven of us.”

Petal nodded furiously, her cheeks tracked with tears.

“Seven?” Andel asked.

Shuffles hopped up onto Calder’s shoulder. “SEVEN!” he shouted into Calder’s ear.

Andel nodded and returned his gaze to The Testament. “My mistake.”

Calder wanted to stay a little longer. He didn’t want to move at all.

But the darkness above was crackling with sapphire lightning. He knew nothing about the lives of worlds or what their ends looked like, but he knew blue lightning in a broken sky couldn’t be good.

“Let’s go,” he ordered.

The march to the Imperial Palace had never passed so quickly.

The people all cowered inside. Some of them huddled under boxes in the middle of the street.

No one recognized him on the street, with his charred clothes and his wounds. Or if they did, they said nothing.

Most of the Imperial Guards would be on one of the Navigator vessels out there fighting, but the gate was still guarded. At least they recognized him, saluting on sight.

Now came the moment he had been dreading the most. Even more than the end.

“Guards,” Calder said, “one last request from me: take these two into custody.”

Petal gasped, but Andel showed as little reaction on his face as ever. He held out a hand.

“It’s been an honor sailing with you, Captain.”

Calder shook his hand firmly and then turned to Petal. She threw her arms around him.

“I worked…really hard to keep you alive,” she said into his chest.

“Yes, you did.” She had gone further than he had any right to expect.

“Now it’s my turn,” he said.

Then he pried Petal off and walked deeper into the Palace, Shuffles on his shoulder.

He had prepared all sorts of excuses to talk him past the Guards and to the Optasia, but none were necessary. The battle with