Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,36

nobody was standing on his feet. Dak’s shoulder was mashed into his ear, and Lakeo’s hair kept tickling his nose.

A second clank sounded. The inner hatch creaked as the wheel finally turned. A crack of light appeared, and Yanko, still pressed against the hatch, stumbled into a corridor. Half blinded after being in the darkness, he would have fallen if someone had not gripped his shoulder.

“Arayevo?” he asked, squinting. The light pouring from the ceiling came from Made lamps, rather than lanterns. It brightened the entire corridor to almost a daylight level.

“Yes, it’s me.” She patted his shoulder and guided him out of the way so Lakeo and Dak could step out.

“I thought you left with Minark.” Yanko glanced at Lakeo. She had implied that.

Lakeo shrugged, only meeting his eyes for a moment before looking up and down the corridor in bewilderment.

“No,” Arayevo said. “He left without me. The bastard. I said we weren’t leaving you three on an island full of death. He said he wasn’t spending the night on an island full of death. I tried to, uhm, divert his attention, but he’s superstitious. He was so nervous, it was like—never mind. It got three times harder to convince him to stay after it got dark. When the pirate fleet showed up on the horizon, he piddled himself and ran back to his ship faster than a spanked dog.”

“Save the reunion for later,” Dak said. “Those pirates may figure out we’re down here.”

Chapter 9

Dak removed his helmet, pushed Yanko, Arayevo, and Lakeo out of the way, and headed past bunks and equipment stations toward the front of the craft. Yanko could just make out a room with two chairs, wall-to-wall controls, and a large viewing porthole.

“Do you want us to do anything?” Arayevo asked.

Unlike Lakeo and Yanko, who were soaked through and dripping water onto the grid-like metal decking, she was dry and didn’t look like she had been wet all night. Dak was dripping as much as they were, but he wore a strangely textured water-repellent outfit and boots. He removed the helmet and clunked it down on the deck before perching on one of the two seats up there. He did not bother to remove the brass tank strapped to his back, and it clanged against the back of the metal chair, forcing him to sit on the edge as he pushed levers and checked gauges.

Not knowing what else he should do—it wasn’t as if he had dry clothes to change into—Yanko went up to the control room and sat in the other chair. Dak glanced at him, but did not say anything. He seemed to be concentrating, both on the gauges and on what lay outside the large viewing porthole. An exterior lamp formed a cone of light on the sand and rocks in front of them.

Dak pushed a lever up, and a hiss came from somewhere within the bulkheads. Bubbles drifted upward, visible through the porthole. The craft rose a few inches from the bottom with a faint shudder.

“It’s supposed to do that, right?” Yanko whispered.

“It’s within operational parameters.” Dak flicked his fingers toward a gauge with a needle in it.

Considering Yanko could not read the numbers or any of the other labels in the control room, it wasn’t that helpful. “I’m glad you know what you’re doing.” He slid Dak a sidelong gaze. He didn’t know how much concentration was required, so he didn’t want to interrupt, but the curious part of him couldn’t help but ask, “Do all Turgonian soldiers learn to operate underwater boats?”

“No.”

Yanko lifted his eyebrows, hoping Dak would expand on his answer. He did not.

“So Dak stole the Kyattese underwater boat,” Lakeo said from behind them. She leaned her hands on the back of Yanko’s seat. “Yanko, are you not going to frown disapprovingly at him the way you did at me when I suggested it?”

“I don’t think the Kyattese have any further need of it,” Yanko said. He was not in the mood for humor after the meeting with his mother. “How did you get it out of that pool?”

“I piloted it down the river and out to sea.” Dak frowned over at Yanko. “What happened to the Kyattese?”

“Before or after the soul construct almost killed us all?” Lakeo asked.

“After.” Dak’s gaze remained on Yanko’s face.

“I didn’t see it, but I believe Captain Pey Lu—” Yanko still couldn’t bring himself to say my mother, “—shot the Kyattese man and woman who survived the attack. I don’t know if