Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,65

the piece of driftwood floating behind the ship before extinguishing itself, smothered in the dampness. The log wasn’t so much as charred. Yanko sighed at it. He had been somewhat impressed with the size of his fireball, but flinging one through the air did not do much good if it failed to affect the target. Granted, a target soaked from years floating around in the ocean tended to repel fire.

“You believed it would go out as soon as it struck the water, so it did,” Pey Lu said from behind his shoulder.

Yanko grimaced.

She had been chatting with her Turgonian lover, who spent more time on this ship— the Prey Stalker, as Yanko had learned—than on the one he supposedly captained. He had been hoping she hadn’t seen his failures. At least her voice remained calm and instructional; she did not sound irritated or impatient. After she had confessed to having a temper, he’d been worried she would find his abilities disappointingly substandard. He kept telling himself that her opinion did not matter, but it was hard not to want to impress a parent, even a parent he’d had no memory of before meeting her on the island. He wished there were some rocks so he could cause an earthquake—surely as impressive a feat as lighting a log on fire—but the floor of the ocean and the nearest rock lay a mile below. Even if he could affect earth that far away, he doubted anything would be felt up here.

Now and then, a whale or another large sea creature swam past. He could have communicated with them, but to what end? Sending a kraken to crush the ship he was on wouldn’t be a good idea. Besides, four other ships sailed to the side of this one, the two that had been at the battle and two more that had joined Pey Lu en route.

“Should I not have believed that?” he asked. “Wasn’t it inevitable?”

“You burn hydrogen molecules floating in the air to create fire. You have even more fuel down there.” She gestured at the ocean, and a wave in the distance caught on fire, the flames dancing on the surface.

Yanko shifted uncomfortably, sensing fish being burned alive. Whether intentionally or not, she had caught a school floating near the surface. At least in the air, one rarely had to worry about more than the occasional insect being caught by flame.

“Don’t think,” she reminded him. “Just do what you’ve already trained your body to do.” She pointed at the driftwood log, which she had left for him to practice on.

Feeling frustrated, and annoyed by the needless killing, even if only fish had died, Yanko scowled as he concentrated. First, he warned nearby creatures away from that log, then he did his best to create a fireball, one that wouldn’t be doused by the water. He gripped the railing with both hands and launched it with his mind.

A startlingly large fireball formed in the air and hurtled toward the log. It lost its spherical shape when it struck the water, but it was as if oil lay atop the waves. It spread out, burning with great enthusiasm, flames leaping ten feet and more into the air. A surge of alarm went through Yanko as he imagined a chain reaction spreading across the ocean. The thought of losing control made his concentration lapse, and the flames died out. Not oil, he told himself. Something that would only burn with the help of magic.

“That never stops looking odd,” Gramon said.

Pey Lu laid her hand on the back of Yanko’s shoulder for a second. “That’s one log thwarted. Good.”

The log? He’d almost forgotten about it. It had been charred down to half its size and still smoldered, its blackened surface less visible against the dark water.

“Why—” Yanko paused, glancing back at Gramon. The Turgonian wasn’t as loathsome as a lot of the other pirates—even now, two shirtless brutes were engaged in a knife fight farther up the deck, and it did not look like practice. Still, Yanko felt uncomfortable asking questions about magic around him. He did not want to be mocked by strangers.

Pey Lu must have guessed at his reticence—or maybe she read his thoughts—for she waved Gramon away and stepped closer. “Yes?”

“I’ve noticed lately that it’s when I’m angry or frustrated that things come more easily. That’s the opposite of what I’d always been told, and the opposite of what I experienced most of the time when I was growing up.” Yanko