Page 9

She cut her tongue, letting blood fall into the water, and she whispered for calm and stillness. Steam rose from the water, which she leaned over to inhale. Each breath in darkened the feather, thinning and splitting the clouds in their path.

It cost her.

She sank to the cot, shivering, head pounding. Her tongue throbbed, pulsing against the walls of her mouth. Thick blood coated her tongue, and swallowing didn't help.

Lance crept up beside her, curling tightly, and his presence eased the nausea. Her eyes dropped to Nellith’s ring on her hand. The sharp pain behind her sternum returned. Lance's head rose, his eyes staring at the ring.

The ship shuddered as the propeller roared to life. Idonea didn’t move as she watched the sky shift through the viewport, the sun vanishing behind the clouds.

Lance nudged her bag. She fished out a strip of dried pork and held it out. He sniffed and recoiled.

“Then starve.” The syllables came out thick and broken, stuck in her mouth like gravel. She went to tuck it away, but he lunged and snapped it from her fingers, his fangs grazing her skin.

She smirked. “See, not that bad.” A pulse of agony shot through her. She hoped she didn’t need to perform that ritual again during the travel.

Her eyes narrowed as she watched Lance devour the food. He had been missing when she got her tattoo done, as if sent away just like Idonea had been. How would Nellith know the exact moment she’d be taken? It sat wrong on her shoulders, but her mother always knew more than others.

She closed her eyes, hoping to find relief from both her headache and throbbing tongue.

A knock stirred her awake. Night had fallen.

“Safira will see you now,” Kerem said through the door.

As she stepped into the corridor, a rotten, burnt-cabbage scent caught her attention. Low and familiar. A daemonic trace, faint, but unmistakable.

“How long to reach the Republic?” she asked.

“A few days,” he said. “Provided weather stays clear.”

The weather was the smaller problem. She couldn’t shake the sense of wrongness as he led her towards a larger door, away from the scent. She barely smelt it anymore. He knocked once and pushed the door open.

“I’ll be outside,” he said, “so don’t try nothin’.”

Idonea would’ve liked him to try and stop her, but she smiled and entered the room. The captain’s cabin was large. A round dining table stood off to the right, with a charting table to the left. The secondary doorway must’ve led to her sleeping quarters, and she wandered over to the charting table to peruse the map laid out.

"Kerem didn't lie." The voice came in on orange and cinnamon. "You're a vision."

Idonea turned.

Sun-browned skin, with black hair in intricate loops. She wore a corset and high boots, legs bare to the thigh, a pistol at one hip and a rapier at the other.

Heat climbed abruptly into her face. Safira noticed immediately.

"Never seen so much flesh, witch?"

“Not unless I’m also naked.”

Safira laughed. “One must use every advantage.” She nodded to Idonea’s own low-cut blouse.

Idonea sat at the dining table and clasped her hands together. Safira’s eyes slid down Idonea’s body in appraisal.

“So,” Safira said. “Few wish to enter the Republic these days. If anything, they wish to leave.”

Everyone feared the Republic. The Republic feared the Temple: a zealous, old power with divine mandate and cultural sway. Recognised as a religious authority with the right to operate its own justice system concerning witchcraft and daemonic activity.

“I must find my mother.” She omitted the relic. No one else needed that information.

Safira raised an eyebrow. “A bit old to need your mother, no?”