Chapter 9

  Pain

  Pain. That was the first thing. Not a sharp stab or a clean throb, but a heavy, all-encompassing ache that felt like it had sunk its claws deep into him and refused to let go.

  Sabo couldn’t open his eyes. Not yet. Every muscle in his body screamed at him to stay still, to lie there and take the pain. To embrace it. His skin felt raw, as if he’d spent hours too close to the forge back at Frane’s, the heat licking at his arms, his chest, his face, leaving him tender and blistered.

  Frane’s. He hadn’t thought of that place in . . . how long? He could almost hear the rhythmic clang of the hammer against iron, smell the sharp tang of burning coal, feel the ache in his arms after a long day at the anvil. Life had been simple then. Hard, yes, but simple.

  Solstice had been a little scrap of nowhere in the Far Country. Isolated, quiet, full of wide-eyed fools who thought their troubles mattered. Sure, they’d had to deal with the Blackfire Company, a band of brutes who styled themselves as the petty lords of Solstice. Small tyrants with big swords and bigger egos. But tyrants, Sabo had learned, came in all shapes and sizes. Tyrants were everywhere. And some were easier to stomach than others.

  Back then, his biggest concerns had been keeping the forge running alongside Frane and helping Vitomir manage the other orphans. Long days at the anvil shaping horseshoes, hinges, tools, and the occasional blade. Long evenings chopping vegetables, stirring soup, and making sure the youngest kids didn’t burn the bread.

  And afterward? Sparring matches with Mags in the yard. Wooden swords in hand, swinging like fools under Vitomir’s watchful eye and gentle guidance. Practicing for the day they’d be heroes. Joining the Crown Coalition Forces. Fighting the Maldrath horde from beyond the Green Sea. What a joke, he thought sadly.

  Sabo winced internally, the memory cutting sharper than the pain in his body. They’d been so damn young. So damn stupid.

  The sound of voices pulled him back to the present. A sea of murmurs, a low, indistinct hum that seemed to rise and fall in waves. He stirred, the ache in his body flaring as he tried to move. The pain threatened to drag him back under, but then came another sound—a long, mournful cry, distant but chilling.

  It wasn’t manmade, or from any animal he’d expect to encounter in the wild. Sabo was sure of that. It was something else entirely. Something unnatural. He thought of the sounds he and the other prisoners would hear on occasional nights in the Green Sea. The Maldrath.

  His eyes opened. Slowly. Blinking once, twice against the harsh glow of burning torches. The light stung, and his vision swam for a moment before settling. Above him, between a broken canopy of treetops, the night sky stretched out in hazy blacks and purples, the stars smudged like ink stains.

  Sabo tried to push himself up, his arms trembling beneath him. But he managed, teeth gritted, breath shallow. Every inch of him protested. He didn’t even want to imagine what he looked like—his burns pulling tight against his skin, his body covered in countless cuts.

  The voices grew louder. He turned his head, trying to make sense of the shapes moving in the flickering torchlight. Prisoners. Dozens of them, their faces drawn with exhaustion and fear. Some whispered urgently to one another, others cast wary glances around the deck. I’m lying on the deck of the ship, he realized.

  His mind finally caught up to his body, memories of the crash flooding back in disjointed flashes. The fire. The skyfin and its lifeblood filling the air. The two Morduin Knights. The maul.

  The maul. He glanced around and couldn’t see the weapon anywhere. Might have lost it in the crash, he thought. Did the warden retake control of the ship after the crash? Did he have the prisoners working to fix the damage? No, that was a foolish thought. Without a skyfin it didn’t matter in how good of shape the ship was, it was as useless as a sea vessel dropped into the middle of land. They weren’t getting airborne again.

  A faint pulsing in the palm of his hand drew his attention. He looked down at his hand, half-expecting to see a monstrous grin smiling back up at him. But it was gone. No, not gone—buried back in his flesh, lying in wait like some coiled predator. He could still feel its presence, faint and pulsing, as if it were a part of him now. Whatever that thing is. He realized that the maul was probably within him too. Images of his skin parting and that ungodly weapon emerging from his body flashed through his mind.

  The thought sent a wave of nausea through him.

  And yet, he couldn’t think about that now. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand, unsteady but determined.

  Sabo gritted his teeth as he forced his legs to cooperate, the effort sending fresh waves of pain up his spine. His limbs felt like lead, and his knees threatened to buckle before he could fully straighten. He pressed a hand to his ribs, panting, the sound of the murmuring prisoners and the mournful horn still ringing in his ears.

  “Need a hand?”

  The voice was husky, low and dry, carrying a faint edge of humor.

  Sabo froze, blinking down at the speaker. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected.

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  The woman standing before him barely came up to his chest. She was short—short enough that calling her five feet tall would have been generous. Her boyish features were sharp and angular, a face that might have been mistaken for a teenager’s were it not for the glint in her deep red eyes, a look far too knowing for someone young. Even in the uneven flicker of torchlight, her eyes stood out—dark and crimson, sharp as rubies.

  Her hair was white, though not from age. It looked like it had been hacked at carelessly, some strands hanging just past her ears while the rest of the straight white locks fell around her face at other varying lengths. She wore the same tattered clothing as the rest of them, singed and dirtied. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her posture loose but confident, and there was a faint smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

  Sabo straightened, wincing, and frowned at her. “I’m fine,” he grunted, though the tremble in his legs betrayed him.

  She raised an eyebrow, her smirk growing. “Sure you are. You just went toe-to-toe with two knights from Mordua. Though, you look to be in better shape than the last time I saw you.”

  Sabo was about to snap something back when his gaze drifted lower, catching on the glint of something around her neck. The firelight reflected off the smooth, black material of the voidstone collar clasped tightly around her throat. It was unmistakable—like the ones he’d seen on a few of the other prisoners. A Soulsinger.

  His mouth went dry.

  She noticed his gaze and tilted her head, the smirk softening into something more neutral. Her fingers brushed against the collar absently, as if she’d forgotten it was there until his stare reminded her.

  “Yeah, some of us weren’t as lucky as you,” she said, her voice quieter now, though no less steady. “How’d you do it? Avoid getting a collar.”

  Sabo didn’t respond right away. He didn’t know what to tell her. He’d seen plenty of these collars, both during his time in the camps and on the ship. Despite knowing the collars killed their ability to do magic entirely while equipped, he couldn’t help but be cautious around the sorcerers. Especially after now having first-hand experience of the kind of power they wielded.

  Her red eyes studied him, and she let out a soft huff, her hands dropping to her sides. “You’re staring,” she said, her tone light but pointed.

  “Sorry,” Sabo muttered, forcing himself to look away. He shook his head, trying to clear the fog of pain and exhaustion clouding his thoughts. “Just wasn’t expecting. . .”

  “And you didn’t answer my question. How did you avoid getting a collar? With enough power to kill to Knights.”

  “I . . . I’m not a Soulsinger.”

  “And I’m not a prisoner. I’m actually a runaway prince, trying to hide my identity and escape an arranged marriage waiting for me in my homeland. Cut the garuda shit! Did you find a way to remove your collar?”

  Frustration burned behind his eyes. He ground his teeth. “I didn’t have a fucking collar!” He threw his hands up. “I don’t know what to tell you.”

  “Fair,” she said with a shrug. The way she casually abandoned the interrogation was somehow ever more frustrating to Sabo. The prisoner took a step closer, her movements quick and purposeful, like someone who was used to making the most of her size. “Too bad we’ve survived those two church-sanctioned sociopaths, the crash, only…”

  Sabo’s eyes flicked back to her face, his frown deepening. “Did you happen to see an older man? He was injured by the knights. Should have been in the cockpit? I guess the warden would have thrown him below deck, if not overboard.”

  “The warden was . . . disposed of,” she replied. “I think the old man is still there. Alongside some of the other injured but still living.”

  “He is?” he exclaimed, whipping around to gather his bearings in the darkness of the night. He spotted the cockpit doorway and made a beeline towards it.

  “Wait, I don’t think now is the time for…!” the woman said, her voice trailing off as Sabo pushed through the thrum of prisoners moving back-and-forth across the deck.

  The deck was a mess of chaos and desperation. Prisoners moved in frantic clusters, some tending to the wounded, others hauling buckets of water to douse the stubborn flames still licking at the remains of the ship. Others carried lumber, barrels, and other objects to-and-fro.

  Sabo barely noticed any of it. His focus was singular: Vitomir.

  He shoved his way through the crowded deck, ignoring the questioning looks and murmurs of the prisoners around him. The cockpit loomed ahead, its reinforced door hanging half off its hinges. The magical glass, once clear and unyielding, was now fractured and blackened from the crash, the edges shimmering faintly in the torchlight.

  He stepped inside, and the stench hit him immediately. Blood, smoke, and the sickly-sweet tang of charred flesh. The air was thick and suffocating, the small space lit only by the faint glow of the fires outside.

  Bodies were strewn across the floor, crumpled and lifeless. Men and women, their faces pale and slick with sweat, their clothes stained dark with blood. Sabo’s chest tightened as he stepped over them, his feet squelching against the slick wood. Some of the wounded were still alive, their breaths shallow, their limbs twitching weakly.

  “Vitomir,” Sabo muttered under his breath, his voice tight with fear. His eyes scanned the room frantically, darting from one prone figure to the next. He crouched beside one body, a man with a deep gash across his chest, but it wasn’t him. He moved to the next, then another, the panic rising in his throat like bile.

  Finally, in the far corner, near the ship’s steering wheel, he saw him.

  Vitomir was slumped against the wall, his head lolling to one side, his chest wrapped in blood-soaked cloth. The makeshift bandages were haphazardly tied, the fabric frayed and discolored. It was clear whoever had wrapped him up had done so with whatever scraps they could find.

  Sabo’s heart dropped. The older man’s chest wasn’t rising or falling.

  “Vitomir!” he called, rushing to his side. He fell to his knees, grabbing the older man by the shoulders and shaking him gently. “Vitomir, wake up! Come on, wake up!”

  The silence stretched, unbearable and heavy. Sabo felt a lump rise in his throat, his hands trembling as he gripped the man’s frail frame. He wasn’t ready to lose the old man, not again, not so soon.

  Then, a sound—a low, ragged groan.

  Vitomir’s eyes fluttered open, their once-bright gaze dulled and heavy-lidded. His head lolled toward Sabo, his breath escaping in shallow, pained gasps.

  “You’re alive,” Sabo whispered, his voice breaking with relief. He closed his eyes for a brief moment, silently thanking every god he could think of.

  Vitomir’s lips moved, but no sound came out. Sabo leaned closer, his hand still resting on the older man’s shoulder. “Don’t try to talk. Just . . . just stay with me, okay?”

  The older man’s gaze was unfocused, his face twisted in pain, but his breathing steadied—if only slightly. Sabo sat back on his heels, his mind racing. The cloth wrapped around Vitomir’s chest was damp with blood, its crude folds barely holding the wound together.

  “We’ll fix this,” Sabo said, his voice firmer now. “I’ll find something. I’ll figure it out.”

  Vitomir’s head tilted slightly, his eyes narrowing in a faint expression of doubt.

  “Don’t give me that look,” Sabo muttered, half a laugh, half a sob. “You’re too stubborn to die here. Too stubborn by far.”

  He pressed a hand against the bandages, trying to slow the bleeding as he scanned the room for anything useful. For now, Vitomir was alive, and that was enough.

  The old man’s lips parted again, ever so slightly. “Boro,” he breathed. “Where’s Boro?”