ARC: The Wizard's Promise (8 page)

“Oh, drop the damn knife, girl. Frida’ll watch out for us.”

“She doesn’t seem happy about us doing this.”

“She hasn’t had the run-in with ghosts that I have. I don’t want to risk it.” He nodded at me. “Help me with this sail. We’ll wrap the poor boy up nice and neat.”

I jammed the knife into the belt of my coat so I wouldn’t have to set it down. Then I grabbed the rest of the sail and hauled it out of the chest. “Do you know any rituals?” I said. “Funeral rituals? For the Mists?”

Kolur stopped and squinted up at the moon. “What makes you think I know rituals for the Mists?”

“You’ve been keeping a lot of secrets lately.”

Kolur looked at me. “My history ain’t
that
interesting,” he said. “And anyway it’d be dangerous to get involved with Mists magic. Northern rituals are fine. Just trying to keep the ghosts away.”

“Are you sure?”

“Know more about it than you do.”

I rolled my eyes. He glanced over at Frida, who was watching us with her arms crossed over her chest. “You ever think that maybe this doesn’t have anything to do with us?”

She glared at him darkly and didn’t respond.

It’s a threat
, I thought, but I didn’t bother saying it aloud. Isolfr’s spell would guarantee they forgot it as soon as the words left my mouth.

“We need your help,” Kolur said to Frida. “You can keep watch over here.”

Frida sighed and walked over to us.

“This is dangerous,” she said, looking at the sail I cradled in my arms.

“You think I don’t know that?” Kolur gestured at me to hand him the sail, but I hesitated.

“How dangerous?” I said.

Frida swept her loose hair away from her face and looked at me. “We don’t always know what the effect of using our rituals on someone from the Mists will be,” she said. “Our rituals might attract Mist attention.”

“But I know damn well what’s going to happen if we just toss him in the water,” Kolur snapped. “The spirits’ll be on us before morning. You know it, too.” He jerked his chin at Frida. She looked away, scowling.

“We’re not in a good position,” Kolur told me. “But I’m willing to risk it.”

I nodded. I didn’t want to toss Gillean into the ocean without a funeral, either. He had tried to help me. He had been kind. Maybe our magic wouldn’t mix badly with his. Maybe the Mists had left our world and wouldn’t see what we had done. Maybe some things are just worth the risk.

“Now let’s see that sail,” Kolur said.

This time, I offered it to him. He grabbed one end and walked across the deck, spreading it out flat.

We worked in silence until Frida said, “I assume you keep a jar of anointing oil on board?”

“Bad luck not to.” There was no gloating about Frida giving in. Everything was quiet and somber.

Frida nodded and went down below. Kolur and I stood side by side next to Gillean. The sail we’d draped over the deck lifted up on the wind.

I shivered.

“You cold?” Kolur glanced at me. “I’ll tell Frida to charm one of her heat globes.”

“No,” I said. “I’m not cold.”

The night seemed endless, swarming around us, trapping us. When I looked over the railing, I couldn’t tell where the ocean ended and the sky began.

“Probably some victim from one of their squabbles,” Kolur said. He shifted awkwardly, and I knew he was trying as best he could to be a comfort. “They’ll send ’em through sometimes. Way of getting rid of the bodies.”

There was no point in correcting him, so I just said, “All right.”

Frida climbed back on deck. She had the little stone jar of anointing oil – it was whale fat, really, that had been infused with herbs and blessed in a ceremony out on the wilds of the tundra. All sailors kept a jar on board, in case of death. Without the ritual, a soul would be trapped in our world as a ghost, one of the legion of the dead who haunt the living. And you didn’t want a ghost aboard a boat.

I thought about that time when I was a little girl and Papa made us all go inside and bar the doors. “They didn’t do the ritual,” he’d said, and all night we heard the shrieking and howling of that lost soul weaving its way through the village. So while I wasn’t sure if the anointing oil would work on Gillean either, I didn’t want to risk hearing those awful cries again. A cold wisp of dread twisted inside me and whispered that Gillean’s death was my fault, that it was
Isolfr’s
fault. He’d made Gillean speak. But Isolfr wasn’t here to do his duty and bless the deceased. It fell to me.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “I’ll bless him.”

Kolur looked up. He’d already opened the jar. “You sure?”

At his side, Frida frowned.

“Yes. It’s supposed to be a woman, anyway.”

“It’s supposed to be an acolyte of Kjorana,” he said. “Which you are not.”

I scowled. “I can stand in her place. Let me do it.”

Kolur glanced at Frida, who remained stone-faced. But he handed me the jar without more fuss. It was heavier than I expected and warm from where he’d been holding it. I knelt down beside Gillean. His blood glowed all around me. Up close, his face seemed – surprised more than scared. I’d never seen someone die before. Maybe it was a surprise for your life to be snuffed out of you.

I dipped my thumb into the oil and took a deep breath. There were tears in my eyes. He’d been kind to me. He’d tried to help me, best he could. He wasn’t the way the people of the Mists were supposed to be at all.

He’d been kind, and now he was dead.

I turned my face away from Frida and Kolur so they wouldn’t see me crying. I pressed my anointed thumb against his forehead. His skin was warm like he was still alive. Startled, I snatched my hand away, expecting him to move. But he didn’t.

In a blur, the incantation came to me – I’d learned it as a child, like all children of Kjora. “Release his soul to the great sea,” I whispered. “Let him find his way home.” I touched my thumb to both of his cheeks, then to his mouth.

A sighing filled the air, like a hundred birds taking flight at once. But there were no birds here. As quickly as it came, the rustling was gone, and I was certain I had imagined it. For a moment, I thought I saw a shimmer floating above Gillean’s brow, like a slick of oil across the surface of water, but then that was gone, too.

I straightened up and wiped my eyes as discreetly as I could.

“We’ll need to wrap his body,” Kolur said softly.

I nodded and set the jar aside. Frida moved to help us, all three of us kneeling alongside Gillean and then pushing him at the count,
one two three,
onto the sail. Now that he was facedown, I could see the huge, jagged tears in his back, all glimmering silver.

“Something bad happened to him,” Kolur said, looking sideways at Frida. “Something very bad.”

“I can see that,” she said.

I didn’t want to think about Gillean’s wounds.

Together, the three of us wound Gillean up in the sail. His blood glowed dully through the fabric, like burnished moonlight. Kolur nodded at me, and he and I picked him up, end to end. It felt like casting a fishing net into the water. But this was all we had.

I reminded myself that Gillean’s body was just a shell, that with the anointment Gillean himself had fled to the great sea, where he’d swim among the souls of ancient fishes. It was only his body going into the northern waters.

Only his body, torn to shreds.

Gillean’s body landed with a splash and bobbed up and down with the waves. Kolur muttered a prayer to the ancestors and then turned away, but I stayed in my place, expecting Isolfr to appear.

He didn’t.

The swath of fabric drifted off into the moonlight.

When I turned around, Kolur and Frida were huddled close to each other, not speaking. I watched them across the deck. Frida was the first to break the silence.

“I’ll cast another protection charm,” she said. “You likely just sent out a beacon for the Mists.”

Kolur grunted. “You’d rather we keep the body on board, let him be a beacon for ghosts?”

She didn’t answer, only looked at me one last time. I stared back at her, and I got the sense she was studying me, trying to make sense of what had happened. I tensed and waited for her to say something. But she didn’t.

Frida faced the north and lifted one hand against the wind. The sails groaned as the wind shifted. I walked over beside Kolur, my arms wrapped around my stomach. I wanted to draw into myself and disappear.

“Don’t worry, girl,” he said. “I’m sure it was just bad luck.”

I wondered how many times he was going to repeat that. I hated hearing it. I hated that I couldn’t correct him.

“Still, I gotta admit, I’m not looking forward to sleeping up here alone.” He looked over at Frida. The wind blew her hair straight back away from her face, and her magic settled over us, prickling and almost warm. “It’s gonna be a long night till morning.”

“I’ll stay up here with you,” I told him. “To keep you company.” I smiled a little. It was the right thing to do, just like anointing Gillean and sending him out to sea despite the danger, even if Frida didn’t see it that way. “I don’t imagine I’ll be getting much sleep tonight.”

He laughed, although the laugh was thin and nervous. Frida’s protection charm pulsed through the wood of the
Penelope
. She dropped her hand and the sails swung back to accommodate the northern wind.

She walked over and stood beside us. “I’ll stay on deck tonight, too,” she said. “It’s not a night to be alone.”

I wasn’t going to argue that point, and I wasn’t going to deny the protection of Frida’s magic, either. Better to have it there than nothing at all.

Dawn broke after an uneasy night. I only realized I’d fallen asleep when I awoke to a beam of pink sunlight settling across my face. I was curled up beneath a pile of seal furs, sleeping on a hammock I’d tied between the foremast and the mainmast. Frida slept on beside me. Kolur was up at his usual place at the wheel, sleeping too.

Everything was calm.

I crawled out of the hammock and stretched. My head was fuzzy. In the soft light of morning, it was hard to believe that last night a man, a man who’d been trying to help me, had died. Except I didn’t have to believe it. I knew it had happened, and the pale stains soaking into the wood of the deck were just more proof.

I wanted to distract myself, so I set about checking the rope and the enchantment on the sails. I made sure that all the other magic running the boat was in order. Frida’s charm was still in place, strong and steady. All of Frida’s navigation notes were locked away, but I checked the carved map, placing my finger on the spot of ocean where I thought we were. Juldan was only a few fingerwidths away.

The
Penelope
glided slowly through calm waters. I wandered over to the bow and cast the charm to look for ice, just to have something to do. But I didn’t find any; the water stayed dark and murky as always. In truth, I was as much watching for Isolfr as I was for ice. But I wasn’t sure what I’d say, what I’d do, if I found him.

He’d put Kolur and Frida under a spell. Maybe he’d done the same to me.

I leaned against the railing, breathing in the cold scent of the sea. I wondered if Gillean’s soul had found its way. Even in the calm, lovely morning, remembering his face made my stomach flop around.

I was still staring out at the water when I noticed something flicker beneath the surface.

“Isolfr?” I whispered. “Is that you?”

No answer.

“If it is, you better get up here. Something terrible has happened, and–”

The flicker beneath the surface skipped away. Probably just a fish. I leaned back.

The flicker returned.

It was stronger this time. Brighter. It didn’t move like a fish.
Flicker
wasn’t really the right word –
swirl
, maybe. Like cream dropped into the hot black coffee Mama fixed sometimes.

Only this felt – sinister.

And my bracelet was growing cold.

I didn’t move from my spot, only kept my gaze on the place where the brightness swirled around in the water. Maybe it was magic left over from the ice-finding spell. But if that was the case, I knew, then my bracelet wouldn’t be burning into my arm.

The swirl thickened, became solid. It rose out of the water, a thick gray mist.

“Kolur!” I screamed. “Frida!”

The mist rose and rose until it formed the shape of a person. Two bright eyes appeared. They blinked once.

The magic inside of me rioted.

The mist-man disappeared.

“Hanna!” Kolur pulled me away from the railing. “Don’t let them see you.”

I was dizzy. Frida was already at the railing, drawing up the wind. I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to feel for abnormalities. But my heart was racing too fast. I couldn’t get a hold of anything.

“They’re close by.” Frida turned toward us. “That was a scout. We need to get down below, into the cabin. Hanna and I–” She hesitated, just for a second, her eyes flicking over to Kolur. He stared blankly back at her. “Hanna and I will have to use what magic we can down there. It’ll be easier to protect a smaller area.”

Kolur nodded. “Hanna, do as she says. Gather up your strength, girl.”

I wasn’t sure that was possible right now. “This is because of us,” I said. “Because of the body. They followed it–” I felt sick. The funeral rituals. All I’d wanted was to honor Gillean, and now look what had happened.

“Don’t think about that,” Frida said. “Come.” She put her hand on my back and turned me toward the hatch leading down below.

And then we both stopped.

I was certain we saw it at the same time.

A warship, towering toward the sky, big enough to cast a shadow over the
Penelope
. It looked carved out of gray stone, and towers rose up from its deck instead of masts, all of them billowing mist.

It was sailing right toward us.

I froze in place, trapped by the warship’s shadow. Beside me, Frida cursed, then shouted Kolur’s name.

“I see it!” he called out, his voice strained and small.

The ocean churned around the warship’s prow, frothy and gray-white. I couldn’t see anyone moving on its deck. It was a hollow, empty ghost.

“It’s the Mists, isn’t it?” I asked.

Frida hesitated for a moment. Then she said, “Yes. I think so.”

After we had cast Gillean into the sea, he had drifted toward the west, sinking as he went. Trailing light. And now this ship, huge and monstrous and run by magic, was sailing toward us. From the west.

I thought it was the right thing to do, casting the rites. He died because of me. But now we were going to die, too.

Kolur shouted behind me. I couldn’t make out what he said, his words distorted by my panic. But Frida called out, “Right away!” and bounded off.

I still couldn’t move.

“Hanna!” My name rose out of Kolur’s shouting. “Hanna, get the hell away from the railing!”

An enormous dark wave, rising from the warship’s path through the water, swelled underneath us. The
Penelope
rocked back and I went skittering across the deck, landing hard on my back next to the masts. For a moment I stared, dazed, at the pale blue sky.

“Hanna!”

The boat lurched.

That broke me out of my spell. I scrambled to my feet, clinging to the mast for support. Kolur glared at me over at the helm, where he was fighting the wheel for control of the
Penelope
.

“Turn the sails!” he roared. “That ship’s not turning away.”

I nodded.

“Don’t use magic. It’s too dangerous right now.” The wheel whipped out of his grip and went spinning, and the boat spun with it. Everything tilted to starboard. I toppled sideways, grabbing onto a loose rope before I tumbled over the railing. As soon as we righted again, I went to work, loosening the knots and dropping the sails. Kolur’s words echoed in my head –
don’t use magic
. I listened to him. Now was not the time to be contrary.

We rocked back up. I stopped thinking about Kolur’s orders and just acted on them. I’d shifted the sails plenty of times without magic, but always on calm seas, and never when the situation was so dire.

The boat tilted again. Freezing seawater splashed over me, so cold I gasped and nearly dropped the rope. Shivering, I drew the rope tight and tied it off in its new position, although my hands trembled so badly, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to make the knot.

I tied off the second rope just as the boat lifted up on a great wave. For a moment, we stayed there, at its peak, higher than a fishing boat should be. The air sighed around us. The warship was close and so tall that it blocked out the sun, and I clung to the mast and stared up at it. Figures stood up on deck now. Men with no faces, lined up in rows, watching us.

It was the longest second I’d ever known.

And then we plunged back down. Seawater poured over the deck, burning with cold.

In the shock of that freezing water, magic stirred. Wild magic, tumultuous and deep and unfathomable. I held on and stared at the dark gray side of the warship, and I knew I was going to die.

Water rose up around us, glittering in the sun.

The magic tasted like salt on my tongue.

And then the ocean crashed down on the
Penelope
, and for a moment, all I saw was light splitting through the murk, and all I felt was a cold so deep, it sank straight to the marrow of my bones.

Then darkness.