Impossible Things (28 page)

She wouldn’t have gone lower than this. Maybe if she’d been fighting a retreat, but he didn’t think she would.

He went down to the orlop deck. The hold. She wasn’t there. She wasn’t anywhere.

Back up in the fresh air, he let Brutus go sniffing around corpses as they were heaved over the side. Dear gods, what if she’d gone over too? What if she’d been hurt and fallen in the sea? What if—

No. He couldn’t let himself think like that. He couldn’t.

If he ever got her back he was damn well locking her up in Skjultfjell with his sons, and to hell with what she wanted. She had to be safe.

‘Still nothing?’ Eirenn said, his expression worried. He glanced at the trireme, still anchored to the
Ghost
by ropes and hooks.

Verak strolled over, wiping blood from his sword and not looking particularly hard-worked. ‘Still not found her? Maybe she went over to their ship.’

They all stared at the trireme’s deck, plainer and flatter than that of the
Grey Ghost
, with very few places to hide. All it held was a few corpses. None of them were Ishtaer’s.

‘I’m going to check,’ Kael said, striding towards the rail.

‘There’re probably still a few men there, I mean the ones who row it or whatever, they can’t have all been up here and fighting …’

‘I can handle them. Are you coming?’

Eirenn eyed the gap between the ships. ‘Not sure I can make the leap,’ he said, gesturing to his leg.

‘I’m with you,’ Verak said, and called over a couple more men. ‘Safety in numbers. We don’t know what we might find.’

A nightmarish image of the slave ship Ishtaer had burned into Kael’s memory came flashing back. He shuddered. ‘Let’s go.’

He slung his bow over his shoulder, leapt onto the ship’s rail, balanced for a second, then swung down onto the deck of the trireme. Verak and his men followed a second later.

The ship was eerily quiet.

‘Trap?’ Verak mouthed, and Kael frowned. It didn’t feel like a trap. It felt … wrong.

Access below decks seemed to be through one hatch. It lay open, exposing a ladder stair and nothing else. Kael approached carefully, sliding an arrow from its quiver and aiming it at the hatch. Verak did the same.

Nothing emerged.

Kael dropped into a crouch, peering inside. It was duller down there, the light coming only from the oar holes. He saw the outflung arm of a corpse, red and bloody. Nothing moved.
Oh gods, if she’s down there
 …

He’d dropped through the hatch before he could even finish the thought, and the first thing he saw was that the outflung arm was actually a severed arm. And it was by no means the only one.

The reason nothing moved was because everyone was dead.

Kael stared in horror, unable to speak, as his men descended behind him and stood just as appalled as he was. There were bodies and parts of bodies everywhere. The floor and walls were red with blood. Someone had massacred them.

He heard a sound behind him, a growl, and wondered for an insane second if there had been some huge beast down here. But these men hadn’t been bitten or clawed. They’d been hacked to death with a sharp blade, and in some cases, bludgeoned. People had done this.

He turned, and the source of the growl stared back at him.

Ishtaer had done this.

She stood with a curved sword in one hand and a length of chain looped over her arm. Her hair obscured her face in a dark tangle, her eyes seeming to glow through it. She was drenched with blood, breathing shallowly, and as he watched, her head came up and her gaze fixed on him.

‘If that bitch wants me, she can come and get me.’

There was no parade, no glorious amble through the streets of the Empire’s capital. Ishtaer watched the city come into view, a huge rock in the middle of the bay, surrounded by white cliffs, the Turris Imperio rising up to the sky. It wasn’t as big as she’d expected, or as glittering. The docks looked like docks anywhere, like the docks on the island of Gurundi where she’d sneaked aboard that merchantman disguised as a boy, like the docks in Puerto Novo where she’d been herded into a corral at the slave market.

Kael didn’t leap aground the way he had when she’d first arrived at the city. He set down the gangplank, wrapped his fur cloak around him, and glanced at her.

‘Are you sure you’re okay?’

‘Better than ever,’ Ishtaer said, and meant it.

‘How’s your hand?’

She glanced at it, still bandaged. Eirenn had helped her reset the bones, very pointedly not asking any questions about what had happened to it. She’d have told him if he’d asked. She’d have told anyone.
I broke my own hand to escape from my chains and have the freedom to fight the men who wanted to rape me.

And then I killed them all.

‘It’s fine. Better,’ she amended at his dubious look.

‘You’ve been very … calm … since the fight with the trireme.’

The fight on the trireme, Ishtaer thought. She didn’t remember it in detail, but flashes came back to her in unguarded moments.
I killed them all.

She didn’t feel calm. She felt invincible.

She’d stood on the deck of the
Grey Ghost
with her hand a bloody wreck and watched the trireme being burnt and sunk with its grisly cargo. And she’d turned to look at the captives Kael’s men had manacled on deck, ready to be sent to the Empire’s prisons, and seen the fear in their eyes. They were afraid of her.

The power was immense.

‘I’m not afraid any more,’ she said.

Kael gave her a look that was hard to decipher, then turned and walked down the gangplank. She followed, with Verak and Eirenn, to the horses already waiting for them. She still wasn’t much of a rider, but all she was required to do was stay sitting on the thing while the Emperor’s men escorted them through the city.

She knew she should be thinking about what to say to the Emperor, but her attention was continually caught by the people and buildings of the city. They passed the high walls of the Academy, shining white even in the dull winter sunshine, and she was surprised to see how tall the buildings behind it were, and how richly decorated with painted columns and coloured panels. Rising above the rest of the buildings was a tall tower with a bell – the same bell, she realised, that had organised her days at the Academy.

The Turris Imperio loomed at the end of the Processional Way, a road lined with bright tiles and bas reliefs. Every gate they passed under was even more richly decorated than the walls, carved and painted and gilded. It was starting to give Ishtaer a headache.

They rode up the roadway around the tower to an audience chamber that was as carved and decorated as the Processional Way. ‘One of the more restrained rooms,’ Kael told her in an undertone, catching her stupefied expression. ‘Practically cosy. I’d avoid the Mirrored Chamber at all costs if I were you.’

The Emperor was not as grand as she’d expected. In this insanely over-decorated palace he seemed out of place, a soberly dressed man with a neat grey beard. Beside him stood the Empress, equally sober, and on a sofa nearby sat a drawn, tense-looking couple she guessed were the Emperor’s younger sister and her husband, the parents of the missing nephew.

‘Lord Krull, Lady Ishtaer. Sirs. Thank you for coming so quickly. Please sit down.’

His gaze fell on Ishtaer as she took her seat, then fluttered away again. He gestured to a servant, who brought forward a letter.

‘The ransom demand?’ Kael said.

‘Indeed. It is … well. Take a look.’

Kael read it, and whatever was written there made him blanch. He glanced quickly at Ishtaer too.

‘What is it? What does she want?’

Kael looked up at the Emperor, who nodded gravely before fixing his gaze on Ishtaer, and told her what she’d known since Aquilinia first brought the news.

‘You,’ said Kael. ‘She wants you.’

The Imperial Army had been amassed, ships had been made ready, and Kael had work to do, a strategy to plan.

He kept thinking of Ishtaer instead.

The Emperor had agreed very smoothly that there was no way Ishtaer would be exchanged for his nephew, although Kael got the feeling that he’d damn well considered it.

‘Might I ask why she wants you back, my lady?’ he’d said solicitously.

‘She doesn’t like to lose,’ Ishtaer said calmly. That terrible, dangerous calm she’d shown since the fight with the trireme. ‘She might have only lost a useless slave, but it’s still a loss. And since Lord Krull has been trying to make me famous, it seems probable he’s succeeded and she’s heard of the slave who got away and became a famous Warrior and Healer.’ She glanced at the marks on her arm, at the bandage on her hand. ‘It is, after all, why she bought me.’

‘She called you a witch,’ Kael said, remembering.

‘She thought that’s what the marks were. She doesn’t understand the Chosen. Just like they didn’t in the Saranos,’ she added. ‘She’ll be spitting mad that she could have had her own witch and it got away.’

‘You’re not an
it
,’ Kael said hotly.

She gave him a look too calm to be true. ‘I was to her,’ she said. ‘And I’m dangerous. I know her secret.’

‘That she’s a psychopath?’ Kael said. ‘I think we’re all getting that.’

She looked at the Emperor for a moment, and then at Kael. ‘What were you doing in the New Lands when you found me?’

‘Is this relevant?’ the Emperor said.

‘You were looking for Venerin. Trying to find the source.’

She watched the realisation ripple over his face. ‘Samara?’

‘Yes. And no. I told you,’ Ishtaer said measuredly, ‘that I was good with herbs.’

Everyone stared at her.

‘I wanted to please Ladyship,’ she continued. ‘I made what she wanted. It was mildly effective, and then she ordered it baked into cakes and sweetmeats. That’s what makes it as potent as it is. She uses it as temptation and reward for her slaves. If you want to eat, that’s what you get.’

Kael felt sick.

‘It’s exported inside the oil drums,’ she added. ‘In tiny sealed containers. I don’t know what happens to it after that. But that’s where it comes from.’

‘Why,’ Kael had to clear his throat and start again. ‘Why didn’t you tell me this before?’

Ishtaer looked at the Emperor, who was trying and failing to keep his calm.

‘I didn’t want to be punished.’

The Emperor found his voice. ‘You won’t be. Dear gods, Lady Ishtaer. Shut this woman down. Destroy all her Venerin. Burn her alive. Just bring back my nephew.’

The ships were loaded with supplies, with men from the Empire’s regular troops, and with Healers to tend to them. Kael was surprised to see so many, both fully qualified and still in training, some of them Chosen and some trained by Madam Julia as lay healers. Still, the Empire was paying for it, and he supposed it was better to have too many than not enough.

And since Ishtaer was avoiding him, he had no way of asking her about it.

They’d been under sail for a few hours by the time he managed to corner her on the poop deck. ‘Do we really need all these Healers?’

She paused in her contemplation of the sails and gave him a measured look. ‘It rather depends on what you want to do when we get there,’ she said.

‘What do you mean? We fight. It’s sort of what armies do.’

‘Against other armies, yes. But—’

‘She has ships, Ish. It’s quite feasible she’s been building an army.’

‘All right, then.’ She leaned back against the rail, looking up at him. ‘Say she does. Will she have hired them and trained them herself? No. She’ll have hired mercenaries. Professional killers. They’ll do their best to kill everyone. So, you’ll need Healers.’

He folded his arms, waiting. Ishtaer chewed her lip and gazed out over the sea at the admittedly fine sight of the fleet.

‘And if she hasn’t got an army?’ Kael prompted eventually.

‘Then you’ll be fighting slaves. She doesn’t have a lot of guards. But she has a lot of people who are utterly loyal to her. You saw me, I wouldn’t leave even though she was killing me. You know everyone in that compound, no matter how weak, will pick up a weapon and fight for her.’

If anyone else had told him this he’d have said they were being ridiculous. But he was looking at Ishtaer, really looking at her for the first time in days, and he could see the fire burning behind that terrible calmness.

‘They won’t last long,’ he said slowly.

‘I know. Hence the Healers.’

‘They’re for the enemy?’

Ishtaer pursed her lips and looked away again. She didn’t seem to have got the hang of eye contact. The wind blew her fine dark hair around, obscuring her face.

‘What is your plan when we get there?’ she asked.

‘Reconnoitre until we know what we’re dealing with. Be prepared to fight before we even land. Expect an army. Get to know the lay of the land.’

‘And then what?’

‘Fight.’

‘And then what?’

‘And then we get the kid and go.’ He waved a hand. ‘I’ll work out the details later.’

‘And then what?’

He scowled at her, annoyed. ‘What do you mean, and then what? And then we return the boy to his family, Emperor pays us, we have a victory ceremony—’

‘And in the New Lands? What happens there? Does Samara go on exactly as before?’

‘No, because we’ll kill her.’

‘Right. And don’t you think she might have some plan in place against that? Some method of escape? She might already be gone. This might be a trap.’

‘I’m aware of that,’ Kael said. ‘If it is then we chase her. You forget,’ he leaned in close, ‘we have what she wants.’

Her eyes did meet his then. Painfully clear and bright, the blue of them burned into him.

‘You’re going to hand me over,’ she said quietly.

He stared at her, first in astonishment and then in rage. After everything they’d been through, everything they’d done together, after finally believing that she could trust him, she still thought this of him?

‘Do you even know me at all?’

‘Yes,’ she said calmly. ‘I know you’re a great warlord and strategist. And you’ll listen to advice from someone who knows your enemy.’

‘I am not handing you over,’ he stormed. ‘How could you think that?’

‘Kael, please—’

‘No! You do not sacrifice yourself for this!’ He put his face right in close to hers, as close as he’d been when she was hot and naked and gasping in his arms, and said fiercely, ‘I will see everyone here dead before I hand you over.’

She looked back at him calmly. ‘Then that’s what it’ll come to,’ she said, and pushed past him to walk away.

Ishtaer had finally taken a cabin on the ship, and it was there she retreated, heart thumping with anger, with frustration, with fear. Not, for the first time, fear for herself but for Kael, for everyone else on the ship and in the fleet.

She closed her eyes and saw herself walking towards Samara, passing the small figure of the Emperor’s nephew toddling the other way, towards Kael, towards safety. It was going to happen. It had to.

Because the other vision she was seeing was of slaughter.

Footsteps sounded, and Ishtaer hurriedly wiped her eyes before turning to the door as it opened. A stranger stood there, a tall young man with fair hair and chiselled good looks. He wore a jerkin and breeches of a rather superior quality, a sword with a jewelled pommel at his hip and a necklace of crystals just showing beneath his collar.

‘Can I help you?’ she asked, and a small frown creased his pretty brow.

‘You don’t know who I am, do you?’ he asked, and she felt her eyes widen as she recognised his voice.

‘Marcus?’

He spread his hands as if to say ‘here I am’.

‘I heard you’d got your sight back. How’d that happen?’

I learned to trust a man
. ‘It’s not very interesting.’ She turned to fuss with the blanket on the bed. ‘I didn’t know you were aboard.’

‘No, I was on the
Pride of the Empire
. I rowed across with my uncle. He’s one of the commanders.’

‘I see.’

Marcus let out a short laugh. ‘Yes, I suppose you do.’

Ishtaer glanced at him over her shoulder. He was leaning in the doorframe now, his broad shoulders filling it. ‘Was there something I could help you with?’ she asked again, her voice cool.

‘Where’s your mutt?’

‘I left him with Madam Julia.’ Where he would be safe, and cared for, even if she never came back. She didn’t need a guard dog. Not any more.

‘There’s a rumour flying around that you killed everyone on board Lady Samara’s galley.’

‘Not everyone. Quite a lot of them boarded the
Grey Ghost.
’

‘So you just killed the ones who didn’t board?’ He didn’t sound remotely like he believed her.

She turned around to face him. ‘I killed the ones who knocked me out and tied me up on board the galley, yes. Their intentions were not … pleasant. I’d had enough of being treated unpleasantly.’

Marcus had a very pretty Cupid’s bow lip, but it became less pretty when he curled it in derision. ‘So you’re still frigid then.’

Anger flared in her.
I could cut you to ribbons before you even saw me move
, she thought, and knew it was true. But she pressed that down, and said instead, ‘I don’t want to fight with you, Marcus. We’re supposed to be on the same side. When we get to the New Lands, you can see where I lived for five years and how I was treated for five years and maybe you can imagine what sort of a state you’d be in after that. And then you can tell me if you think “frigid” is the right way to describe me.’

Marcus opened his sneering mouth to reply, but the voice she heard was Kael’s, coming from directly behind him.

‘Not in the least,’ he said, lightly shoving Marcus out of the way. ‘Go away, Gloria, and stop harassing your superiors.’