Snake Heart (Chains of Honor #2) -Lindsay Buroker Page 0,68

he truly be rooting for that? His people needed the lodestone. But, if he failed and that couldn’t happen, it would be better for the Kyattese to find it than the Turgonians.

“Where’s my kelp?” Pey Lu asked, her voice disapproving.

Yanko jumped. He had been concentrating so hard that he hadn’t noticed her returning. He also hadn’t noticed that the kelp bed had fallen too far behind the ship to see.

“Ah, it seems my telekinetics skills need even more work than my pyrotechnics.”

Her eyes narrowed, and he reminded himself that even if his mother was helping him, he could not forget that they were not allies in this. They could never be allies, not as long as she chose this life.

“We’ll find another target,” she said eventually. “I’ll give you some tips.”

Yanko smiled bleakly, fighting back the natural urge to thank her. She was the enemy. He had to keep reminding himself of that, even if she was teaching him. That did not change anything. It couldn’t.

He looked toward the sea behind them, thinking of his comrades. What would happen if they tried to rescue him, and he found himself in the middle?

“I’m ready,” he said, aware of Pey Lu watching him, but he feared that he was anything but ready.

Chapter 16

On the third night aboard the Prey Stalker, Yanko woke in the darkness, his heart hammering in his chest. He lay on his back, under a thin, coarse blanket, staring up at the dark ceiling of the cabin he had been given, the cabin of a man that Dak had killed, as Yanko had later learned. He didn’t hear anything except the creaking of the rigging and the spray of the water against the hull below his porthole, but something definitely felt off. His first thought was that the dead man’s spirit was here to haunt him.

A faint beam of moonlight slanted through the porthole. Kei slept on the back of the chair, his beak buried in his feathers. Whatever had woken Yanko had not disturbed the bird. Of course not. Why would a dead pirate haunt a parrot?

His second thought was that Dak, Arayevo, and Lakeo might have sneaked aboard the Prey Stalker. Perhaps not Dak, since he would need to pilot the underwater boat—the pirates had no battle to distract them this time, so the craft would not simply be able to clamp on and cut a hole in the hull. But Arayevo and Lakeo? Might they be sneaking around in the passageway right now, trying to find him? If so, they would be looking in the brig, not in the officers’ cabins.

Yanko reached out with his mind, trying to sense them. But he sensed something much closer than the brig, a presence alone with him in the room. And it wasn’t a ghost.

With his instincts screaming in his mind, he hurled himself out of his bunk. A shadow leaped through the air, landing on the spot he had vacated. A dagger slashed down, ripping into the pillow. Tiny goose feathers flew into the air, and Kei woke with a screech.

Yanko rolled across the floor, trying to put space between him and his silent assailant, but he soon crashed into the built-in wardrobe on the far side of the cabin. The shadow sprang toward him, having no trouble telling where he was in the dark room.

With the techniques he had been working on that day, Yanko used his mind to hurl the only piece of furniture that wasn’t bolted down. The chair flew upward, blocking his assailant’s path. Kei’s wings flapped uproariously as he was forced off his perch, and Yanko heard the smack of wood striking flesh. He used the distraction to jump to his feet.

For a second, the figure stood within the moonlight shining through the porthole, revealing white clothing and a wicked bone dagger in a gloved hand. Sensing another attack coming, Yanko hurled a wall of air, trying to knock the person back onto the bunk. The figure braced himself—no, herself. This was the mage hunter he had encountered on Kyatt. He couldn’t imagine how she had gotten here, but there was no time to ponder it. The air attack glanced off her, barely stirring her clothing. She leaped at Yanko, leading with that knife.

If he’d had his sword, he might have parried the attack, but he could only dodge. His foot caught on the fallen chair. He tried to fling himself over it and away from her, rolling across the floor, crashing against