Daybreak (7 page)

“But Captain, east’ll send us on top of those rocks,” Shamus sputtered as Lysander reached him. “We’ll be wrecked!”

“Better wrecked with a chance to swim than burned with no chance at all. We can’t hide on the seas. But if we can get close to land —”

“The lads can make a run for it. Aye, Captain. Sorry, my beauty.” Shamus’s hand fell heavily on the wheel before he jogged for the lantern.

The pirates woke to the resounding screech of Jonathan’s fiddle. It carried through the hammocked chambers and startled the sleep from their eyes. They poured out across the deck, tugging on bits of clothing as they went.
 

Lysander took the helm, barking a stream of orders as he spun them towards the rocky shores: “Down to your tunics and trousers, dogs — no cloaks, no coats, nothing that’ll drown you. Hang your blades across your shoulders and leave your arms free for swimming.”

“What about the longboats, Captain?” one of them called.

“No boats!”

“But, Captain —”

A
whoosh
and a blast of light sent the pirates sprinting to the rails. The fire cast the shadows from their faces and drew horror across their eyes. They watched as a ship three ahead of them went down — moaning and crackling beneath the power of the flames, its flesh split open by a bright red swell of embers. A mix of steam and smoke billowed up as the waves dragged it under.

The pirates didn’t need any more convincing:

“Aye, Captain — no boats!”

“Come on, mates! Help me clean out a few of these barrels,” Jonathan said. He tipped one over and heads of cabbage came rolling from its top. “It’ll all be burned up anyways, so we might as well have the barrels to float with.”

The pirates leapt to help him while Lysander’s eyes stayed locked upon the eastern shores. “Shamus?”

“No luck, Captain.” The shipbuilder worked the latch of a signal lantern quickly, opening and closing its shutters in a pattern of lights. “They all think we’re mad for cutting inland … wait, here’s one!”

The ship just ahead of them rocked so violently that it nearly tipped over as it swung east. 

“Perceval,” Lysander muttered as the ship out-paced them. It bounded up and over the waves in a desperate sprint while its crew held on tight.

The other ships paid their signal no heed. They split away and raced towards the open sea. Lysander grimaced when a fresh bolt of flame roared through the air behind him, but he kept his grip. “Move to the railings, dogs! Jump at my order and swim for your lives.”

Sweat poured down his face; fire singed the air at his back. Screams rent the night as the last of the west-heading ships went down. Shamus stumbled from the lantern, his face ghostly pale. He dragged a hand through his hair and whispered:

“Fate … poor souls.”

“Could we reach them?” Lysander called, but Shamus shook his head.

“Reaching them wouldn’t do a blasted thing Captain. The heat’s in the water around the ship — I can see the bubbles popping up. Those poor lads are boiling alive. They’ll be dead before we’ve turned around.”

Lysander’s lips pulled back from his teeth and he leaned against the helm. He shoved forward each time they struck a wave, as if he might be able to will them through. A loud
crack
to his left told him that Perceval’s ship had just run aground. His shallower bottom carried him a greater distance inland. A few of his sailors had already paddled their way to shore.

Lysander watched the men duck into the woods — nothing more than shadows, at first. But then the details of the garments and faces became bright by a growing light in the clouds.

He watched as their dark gray bellies were boiled away, churned aside by a heat so fierce that he could feel it burning across his face. The light went nearly white before Lysander had to look away: it ached his eyes so badly that he feared he might be struck blind. He’d just managed to blink the dark patches aside when the light finally broke.
 

Flames spewed down upon Perceval’s wrecked ship. Their roaring drowned the pirates’ cries and a wave of heat dropped them to their knees. Lysander bared his teeth against a searing pain as the hot air scraped across the back of his neck. But he spun the wheel hard — aiming the ship’s nose between two jagged spires of rock.

Even when Perceval’s ship sank and the fires went dark, he held his course. The pirates dragged themselves to their feet only to drop once more and grip the rails.

“Captain?” Shamus said, eyes widening when he saw where Lysander was headed. “Captain!”

“Hold fast, men!” Lysander cried. “Jump the moment we’ve stopped and get yourselves to shore!”

Shamus crouched and wrapped his arms around the railing just as the ship reached the spires.

Her sides scraped as she charged through. The sound of her splitting flesh cracked through the air. Lysander managed to hold on until the ship’s belly struck the rock. Then the force of the sudden stop threw him over the wheel.

“Jump, mates!”

The pirates followed Jonathan’s wild, flailing plunge into the waters below. He wore a barrel like a dress, secured to his lanky frame by a coil of rope. The pirates clung to barrels and crates — any bit of wreckage they could salvage. Once they struck, they beat their legs through the violent waves towards a thin strip of shore.

Lysander lay alone upon the upper deck. He rolled over onto his back, gasping in pain. His stormy eyes fixed upon the sky above him; his chest went tight. The night was dark and silent, for now. But in a moment, the fires would come. His breaths deepened, his eyes closed …

“That was the wildest bit of sailing I’ve ever seen! You’re blasted lucky to be alive,” Shamus bellowed as he grabbed Lysander under the arms.

“No — I swore a captain’s oath, and I mean to go down with my ship!”

“Eh, you can go down with the next one,” Shamus said as he hauled Lysander up. “Ready, Captain?”

“You can’t —!”

But Shamus tipped backwards over the rails before he could protest further, plunging them both into the icy waves below.

Cold shocked him. Lysander held on with numbed hands as Shamus dragged him up for air. He tried to kick against the shove of the tide, but his legs were too stiff and the waves were too fierce. His head still spun from his fall.

Shamus fought hard. He barreled them through the first couple of swells and had crashed into a third when the sky erupted.

Light plunged down upon them — so thickly that Lysander could feel it pressing against his skin. Next came a wind that flattened the waves. It howled from the light’s middle in a heat that burned his flesh like the sun. The waters around him began to warm.

All at once, the ice melted from his legs and Lysander’s breath returned. He kicked wildly beside Shamus, trying to beat a path for shore. But they were too far out. The clouds roared and the heat drew steam from the waters’ top.

“We’re not going to make it,” Lysander gasped as he fought. “We’re going to be boiled alive!”

“Ha! Let them try!” Shamus bellowed, his gaze settled fearlessly upon the roiling fires above. “Even if they boil us, what a tale that’ll be — oof!”

His words were cut short by a coil of rope slapping across his face.

“Grab on!” Jonathan called. He held onto the other end of the rope — a whole band of pirates lined up behind him. The second Lysander and Shamus grabbed on, they pulled.

The pirates tore them across the water and onto the shore a blink before the fires fell. They ran for the shadow of the trees, heads craning behind them to watch the flames devour the ship. She moaned piteously as the fire raced down her beams, chewed her sails to ashes. Lysander turned back in time to see her mast tilt and fall.

He went straight to his knees. “My ship … ” He groaned as Jonathan dragged him up again. “You should’ve let me die.”

Shamus snorted. “She was a beauty, Captain. But ships can be replaced. You’ve got far too much to live for.”

Kael stayed up until late into the night, waiting for Kyleigh.
 

The storm that’d been threatening the village all afternoon finally broke. Now rain lashed the windows and the thunder grew along the breath of the wind.

Kyleigh loved flying through the storms. Nothing seemed to make her happier than cutting along the bursting clouds. But though Kael’s heart muttered that all was well, his mind still worried.

When he tried to read, his eyes wouldn’t focus on the page. They kept flicking to the window, turning back to the door. No amount of drawing or thinking could distract him. He quickly ran out of things to fix. Even when he paced, his hand kept trailing back into his pocket.

It was a stupid thing — he
knew
it was stupid. But for some reason, Kyleigh’s ring sat heavily at its bottom. He swore he could feel the metal growing cold. It burned his skin through his trousers and after a while, his own ring started to cool.

The white-gold dragon coiled dully about his finger; its burst of onyx flame seemed darker now than ever. He knew it was only his mind playing tricks on him. If he allowed himself to sit and worry, there was no end to the ridiculous things he might dream up. Still, he couldn’t stop it.

When his hand began to ache from the cold, he slid his ring off and stuffed it down next to Kyleigh’s. Once she returned, all would be set right.

But he’d have to find some way to distract himself until then.

Kael was actually relieved when somebody knocked on the library door. “Come in. It’s only me, Mandy,” he called, when he saw how slowly the door crept open.

While the other maids burst in on them every chance they got, Mandy was always careful. She was a round-faced woman with a warm smile and a very firm grip.

“Good evening, Master Kael,” she said as she entered. “Crumfeld just sent me along to make sure you’ve had your dinner. He didn’t remember seeing you in the dining room or the kitchens.”

Kael hadn’t seen Crumfeld, either. It was strange because so much of Roost seemed completely reliant on its butler. They’d never once crossed paths. Soldiers and maids would pop up every once in a while to give him one of Crumfeld’s messages — and occasionally, he would wander into a room that had clearly just been tidied.

But though he’d scoured every inch of the castle, Kael had yet to find him.

It seemed today would be no exception. “I got hungry earlier, so I ate in the village,” Kael lied. The fact was that he’d completely forgotten about dinner. But he knew if he said as much, he’d just get dragged off to the kitchens.

“Very well. Just so long as you’ve eaten,” Mandy said. Her eyes cut quickly across the room before coming back to his. A frown marred her cheery features. “Has Miss Kyleigh not returned?”

“No,” Kael said with a sigh. “She’s out playing in the blasted rain again.”

He’d tried to keep the bitterness from his voice, he really had. But Mandy must’ve heard. She flashed him a smile that made his face burn horribly before returning to her frown. “Well, when she gets in, would you kindly let her know that I’m perfectly capable of handling my own affairs?”

“All right.” Kael was almost afraid to ask it. But as he had nothing better to do, he thought he might as well. “What do you mean?” 

“Gerald turns white as a ghost any time he sees me. He jogs off, sputtering about having to do one thing or another. And I know she’s had a hand in it.”

Though he’d been with them for a few weeks, Kael hadn’t quite gotten used to the castle — and the various goings-on of its residents still made him a bit cross-eyed. But if he remembered correctly,
Gerald
was one of Roost’s guards. He often manned the keep doors or patrolled the upper levels.

And sometime while Kyleigh had been away, he’d apparently taken a liking to Mandy.

“How can you be so sure it was Kyleigh’s doing? Perhaps he’s only nervous.”

“Oh, I’m sure he is. I’d be nervous too if I’d been promised a head-first plummet from the clouds.”

Well … that certainly
sounded
like Kyleigh. “I’m sure she didn’t mean it like that — but I’ll speak to her,” he added quickly, when Mandy raised her brows.

“Thank you,” she said with a dip of her skirts. “It’s been a fresh turn of the tide, having you here. She can get a bit fiery about this sort of thing.”

She certainly could. Kael wasn’t at all looking forward to have to try to reason with her, but he promised he would do his best.

Once Mandy had wandered off for the night, Kael went back to trying to find some way to stay busy. He rescued the fire from dying and then brought out the small chessboard he’d found tucked inside one the desk’s drawers.

While much of Roost went bare, the library was packed full of things. Kael liked the narrow desk, and how it’d been arranged in a corner of the room that allowed him to watch the door and the window at once. He liked the cushioned chairs that’d been settled before the hearth, and the little table that sat between them. 

Though the chairs were a bit more lavish than he would’ve liked, he found that draping bear pelts across their backs helped soften them up a bit. He’d also replaced the gold-threaded rug with one made up of the stitched-together hides of animals. And slowly, the library had begun to feel more like home.

Kael settled himself in one of the cushioned chairs and opened the board upon the table. Uncle Martin had insisted that chess was a game he could play on his own, but Kael had never quite gotten used to it. If he set up a convincing attack, he always knew exactly how to counter. Back and forth he’d battle until the game finally went stale. 

No, he’d prefer to play with an opponent who kept him on his feet. He wished she would hurry up and fly home.

He was in the middle of trying to rescue his pawns from the queen’s advance when he heard the creak of the library door. “It’s about blasted time,” he growled, trying to look severe. But it was no use.

Kyleigh’s eyes were far too warm, her smile far too bright. Her raven hair was damp and dripping down the back of the shirt and trousers she’d nicked from one of his drawers. She’d obviously thrown them on in a hurry: one of the legs was rolled higher than the other, and the tail of the shirt hung out the back.