81
~ LINNA ~
Consciousness returned to Linna all at once, harsh and uncomfortable, like being woken from a peaceful dream through someone dropping her into an icy lake.
She gasped for breath at the same time that her eyes flew open. Megs’s face came into focus above her.
“Thank Mother Moon,” Meg said. “It was an antidote.” She glanced at someone beside her, someone out of Linna’s view.
“What…” Linna started, but she didn’t know what she wanted to ask. The coppery scent of blood filled her nostrils, but whose was it? Hers? Megs’s? The Adessians’?
“Their sorcery left them – all at once,” Megs said by way of an answer, even though Linna hadn’t asked anything. “One moment I was sure we were all going to die, the next moment…” She shrugged. “They all cried out at the same time, the air filled with smoke, and the ones that didn’t turn into dust were just ordinary old women. We made short work of those.”
“Akella…?”
“I’m here, seagull,” a weak voice answered, “though I don’t know for how much longer.” The pirate captain’s face came into view from the side. Paler than even before the battle, Akella half-sat, half-lay against the wall, looking as though she would finish sliding to the floor at any moment.
“You look…” Linna swallowed. Her throat was so impossibly dry, as if she hadn’t had anything to drink in days. “You look like shite.”
Akella laughed, but the laughter quickly collapsed into spasmodic coughing. She spat a wad of phlegm to the floor. It was flecked with blood. “I feel like shite, too.”
“She saved you,” Megs said, glancing from Akella back to Linna. “After the dart hit your neck, you went down fast. You went so stiff – I thought we’d lost you. But Akella guessed the antidote would be close at hand.” Megs held up an empty glass vial. “She was right.”
“To be perfectly honest,” Akella said, “there were two vials in the bitch’s cloak. One was the antidote. I figure the other one was poison.” She shrugged. “Lucky you, we made a good guess.”
“Lucky me,” Linna repeated drily.
Megs cuffed Akella lightly on the back of the head.
“Oi!” Akella barked, rubbing her head. “Injured to the brink of death, woman, remember?”
“Why do you do that?” Megs demanded.
“Do what?”
“Act like you didn’t taste both vials yourself, waited to see how they affected you, and then still agonized that we might have chosen the wrong one or been too late?” Megs said. “Act like you didn’t hover with tears in your eyes over your friend for the past ten minutes?”
Akella winced sheepishly.
“Tears in your eyes, huh?” Linna said. She turned to Megs. “Help me up?”
With Megs’s help, Linna struggled into a sitting position. Bodies littered the floor all around them, some Adessian sailors, some dead witches. They looked so harmless now, the witches. Just grandmotherly women who’d laid down for a nap. It was surreal.
Linna’s head spun. She squeezed her eyes tightly for a moment, waiting for the vertigo to pass. When her eyes opened again, she found Akella’s worried face.
“Thank you,” Linna said sincerely. Her voice was still raspy, but her throat already felt better than it had before. She looked at Megs. “Both of you.”
“You’ve saved my arse more than once,” Megs said. “I was just paying you back.”
“Same. You saved me, too, little seagull,” Akella said. She winked and gave Linna her trademark grin. Except there was a much larger gap between her teeth now, because one front tooth was completely missing.
Linna hadn’t ever saved Akella’s life and they both knew it. But maybe Akella meant Linna had saved her in some other way, some way she wasn’t going to say out loud.
With effort, and batting away Megs’s outstretched hand, Linna got to her feet. Another wave of vertigo struck her, and she swayed on her feet. Then it passed.
“How many of the sailors live?” Linna asked.
Megs shot Akella a worried glance.
“A few,” Akella said, suddenly sounding as battered as she looked. “Raffin, Dez, Tarlan, Alfret … and Fayzo may yet pull through.”
“Five?” Linna said.
Grief filled Akella’s face.
“Five who wouldn’t have left here at all if Akella hadn’t come for them,” Megs said quickly. She squeezed Akella’s hand. Those who died, died as themselves, not as shadow-possessed. They died fighting under their rizalt. Fighting for their children.”
But Akella didn’t seem to have even heard Megs’s words.
“Speaking of the children,” Linna asked, “did they survive?”
“Yes,” Akella said, finally sounding relieved. “Every single one, down to the smallest babe.”
“I still don’t understand why they’re all girls,” Megs said. “It doesn’t make sense, only having girls.”
“They didn’t only have girls,” said a deep voice behind Linna. She turned – without any dizziness, she noted – and saw that Dez had come up to stand by them. His clothes were bloodied, he had a gash across his forearm, and one eye was swollen shut, but he looked otherwise whole. “When they had boys, they had us drown them within an hour of their birth.”
Raffin joined them. He, too, looked only mildly battered, which seemed miraculous to Linna, given their opponents. “Sometimes, we could watch our own bodies as though through fogged glass,” he said with characteristic slowness. “Mostly, we wandered alone in an empty wasteland, a purgatory well away from this world.”
“A hell, more like,” Dez said. “Waterless.”
“Waterless,” Raffin repeated. He nodded thoughtfully. “Preyla’s punishment for all our sins.”
But Linna had stopped listening. “I need to get to the palace.”
She glanced at the faces around her, lingering longest on Akella, who looked to be in the worst shape. These sailors had held their own – and survived – against the toughest fighters Linna had ever crossed, with only broken bedposts for weapons. And Akella had fought those sailors first, using the rune-marked blade to sever the shadows from their bodies one by one, and then she’d faced the Order of Targhan.
If it was a miracle that any of the fourteen sailors had lived, it was twice the miracle that Akella had.
“You should all stay here,” Linna added. “Care for the wounded. And for the children. I can go on my own.”
“Well, that’s only about the second stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life, right after the notion that the Empire has a ‘navy,’” Akella said. “Or did you already forget that we came for my sailors first so that we might actually stand a chance at surviving once we got into the creepy duplicate of the Imperial palace?”
“I didn’t forget,” Linna said. “But this isn’t their fight. Or yours. It’s mine. And you’ve already done enough – all of you. Stay. Look after the children. I will go to the palace on my own.”
Dez and Raffin glanced at their rizalt, waiting for Akella’s decision. Linna had a feeling they’d march straight into a fire for her, if that was what she asked. Especially now, after she’d saved them from spending the rest of their lives trapped in the Shadowlands, nearly getting herself killed in the process.
“Raffin,” Akella said, “stay here. Keep an eye on the children and those too wounded to walk. Wait exactly two hours. If we aren’t back, take everyone north. There’s a fishing boat docked in a cove just outside an abandoned city. It’s not big, but it’s seaworthy. You’ll find the provisions I scraped together onboard. It should be enough to get you back into Imperial waters.”
“Aye, Rizalt,” Raffin said gruffly.
“Akella –” Linna started.
“Dez, gather up anyone who can still swing a sword, and then gather up some actual swords,” Akella went on. “Preyla knows there’s enough lying around in the nasty ashes of these sorceresses.” She and Raffin simultaneously made that strange gesture with their pinky fingers, the superstitious ward against evil Linna had seen her do a hundred times whenever she talked about the shadow arts or those who practiced them. “We’ll be leaving for the palace as soon as we’re armed.”
“As you say, Rizalt.” Dez turned, heading back to the dormitory where the children of the Adessian sailors and their captors had their beds. He called out in Adessian as he went.
“You can’t even stand, Akella,” Megs said.
Akella spread her arms wide and grinned. “I’m always doing things I can’t or shouldn’t. It’s a bad habit.”
“Stay here with Raffin,” said Megs. “Please.”
“And miss the fun?” Akella scoffed. “As long as we’re talking bad habits, another one of mine is showing up just when that bloody Empress needs me. I know it’s deplorable for a pirate, but I can’t seem to stop.”
Megs gave Linna a pointed look. Talk her out of this madness, her eyes said.
But Linna had never been able to talk Akella out of anything.
“Help me up, seagull,” Akella said, reaching for Linna.
Linna got Akella to her feet. The pirate captain immediately swayed, and would have fallen again if Megs hadn’t caught her.
“You can’t fight, Akella,” Linna said. “You can hardly even stand.”
“That’s just plain rude, given that I saved your arse not twenty minutes ago,” Akella said. “Now. Are we going to storm that palace or not?”