Ferran's Map (50 page)

A gut-wrenching realization dawned. Her
Grandmaster was going to burn down the ship, and had threatened to
leave her on board…to be engulfed in flames. He was enraged, even
if he hid it well; she had let him down beyond measure. She
wondered what the Harpy and his companions had done to make
Cerastes attack so openly. It was not his way. Surely, he could
have sent others to do this task.

Then, without warning, a piercing vibration
crashed over the deck with enough force to push Krait from her
feet. She fell back and caught herself on the galley door. Even
Cerastes staggered against the sudden wind. The Dracians all
shouted and pointed at the sky.

Light burned her eyes. Krait lifted her arm
to shield her gaze. Hatred smoldered within her: the seraphim had
arrived.

* * *

Caprion hovered just beyond the aft of the
ship, his wings blazing strongly against the overcast evening
sky.

Two members of the Sixth Race stood below
him on deck. Krait, he recognized, but he didn’t know the pale,
long-haired man next to her. The insidious stranger looked like a
powerful enemy: a black aura surrounded his body, and his skin
appeared sallow and loose. Caprion knew the signs. This
Grandmaster’s demon was so strong, his human form was practically
melting from his bones.

A Grandmaster,
he thought. And, he
suspected, the leader of the Shade. He met the man’s piercing gaze
without fear. He had faced demons before—his first demon, in fact,
had been an ancient and powerful specimen—but this Grandmaster held
a strength he hadn’t felt before. The air seemed toxic. He could
feel the force of the man’s aura clogging his throat, attempting to
stifle his Song, and the demon wasn’t even transformed.

“Release your servant,” he said, and pointed
to Krait, who cringed from the light of his wings. “She is mine
now.”

The Grandmaster smiled, a horrifying look.
“Take her, then. Kill her if you wish. She is of no further use to
me.” He spread his hands. “A pity your fellows are not here. I
hoped to burn you all while you slept. I suppose I will throw the
two of you instead to the Dark God’s fire.”

Caprion released another crushing vibration
from his wings. “Your cult is a twisted lie,” he rebuked, “and you
are the king of liars.” He drew his sword from his belt. Sunstones
studded its hilt. The blade glowed with crystalline light. “Stand
back, demon,” he challenged. “Your servant is under my
protection.”

The Grandmaster sneered. “You are a child,”
he said, “untried and unskilled. I am not afraid of you.”

“Nor am I afraid of you.” Caprion allowed
his second set of wings to glimmer into existence.

His opponent glared up at him with narrow
eyes. “You dare challenge me?” the Grandmaster hissed. “So be
it.”

Caprion felt the demon’s power surge. Black
fire spread from his feet to engulf the deck. The four Dracians,
who had silently watched the confrontation, shouted in alarm and
ran away from the fire. Without hesitation, all four leapt over the
aft of the ship into the freezing waters of The Bath.

With a few gestures, Caprion surrounded the
Dracians with white light and lifted them to the docks. The black
fire spread down the side of the ship and across the surface of the
water, melting patches of ice. The water did not douse the flames,
and soon The Bath began to steam.

Caprion turned his attention back to the
Grandmaster, who swept the flames back with massive wing strokes as
he tried to approach the two figures on deck. He knew the
Grandmaster could open shadow portals and probably intended to
escape soon, but he wouldn’t leave Krait alone, helpless on deck.
Not in the hands of this demon.

Finally, the flames parted and Caprion saw
his opening. He focused his power and released a blinding flash of
light, then dived through the flames and dropped between Krait, who
huddled on the deck near the galley door, and the Shade’s
leader.

The Grandmaster shouted some grotesque curse
and swept his hand forward. A wave of black fire moved with his
hand, but Caprion’s giant wings deflected the rush of burning
darkness. He gritted his teeth against the pain as black fire
burned his wings. The scorching heat was unexpected, and his feet
dropped solidly to the deck. He planted himself between the demon
and the fallen girl and raised his sword before him. The blade
shone like the sun against the black fire and smoke.

“Fight me now, or leave,” Caprion growled.
He allowed the power of his voice and Song to swell through his
body. His sword hummed like a tuning fork, its metal specially
designed to amplify his voice.

They stood facing each other, neither moving
as the flames spread. Caprion became aware of a crowd growing on
the nearby boardwalk. Many people pointed at the bright flames
spreading along the side of the
Dawn Seeker
toward its
central mast.

After a long minute, he sensed the
Grandmaster’s power recede. The black fire on the ship slowly
changed to a more natural orange. Still, the destruction was too
widespread—the fire couldn’t be stopped now. Silas’ ship was
doomed.

Finally, the master assassin took a step
back, seeming more put off by the crowd than the battle before him.
“Another day,” he said briefly. Then, with a flurry of shadows and
smoke, he disappeared, leaving Krait behind on the burning deck. In
her weakened state, she had passed out from smoke inhalation.

Caprion lifted the woman into his arms. Even
though she was unconscious, he felt her resist him, becoming stiff
when his arms encircled her. He tested his wings experimentally and
lifted up from the deck. Pain shot down his shoulders and back;
singed feathers fell to the deck of the ship. He could fly, but not
far; his wings had never been damaged like this before. He hadn’t
thought it possible for them to physically burn—but the
Grandmaster’s fire was not natural. That worried him. The power of
his star energized his wings; the demon’s magic shouldn’t be able
to affect him like this. Perhaps he didn’t know as much as he
thought about the abilities of the Sixth Race.

He launched swiftly into the air and
circumvented the docks, struggling over the waters of The Bath
until he landed a brief distance away from the gathering crowds. He
stumbled when he landed and almost fell to the icy mud. Tall pine
trees and thick foliage hid him from the peasants gathering on the
boardwalk. As he peered through the trees, he watched a group of
sailors run across the docks in an attempt to rescue other vessels.
The orange flames from the
Dawn Seeker
leapt and spread
ravenously, with a supernatural appetite.

Then, with a fierce gust of wind, snow began
to fall heavily.

Caprion banished his wings, pulled his cloak
about his shoulders and his hood low over his head, and left the
shelter of the trees. Carrying Krait in his arms, he slipped behind
the massing crowd toward the southern gate to the city. Between the
weather and the fire, no one paid him any mind. He didn’t see any
Dracians in the mix; perhaps they had already left to find Silas.
He wondered how the poor captain would react when he heard about
his ship.

Once inside the city walls, he tried to flag
down a coach, but was refused service as he didn’t have any coinage
to pay. Distracted people rushed by him in the streets, jostling
him to and fro. He watched the crowds carefully, but saw no sign of
The Shade. With no other option, he began to walk back to The
Regency with Krait clasped close to his chest. He couldn’t think of
anywhere else to go. Once he reached Ferran and the others, they
could decide what to do.

The sky continued to darken as the snow
thickened, and he hoped he reached the Ebonaire manor soon, before
he was forced to take shelter elsewhere.

CHAPTER 30

Viper flew toward the south end of The City
of Crowns, to the Smokeshaft district, or so it was called by
locals. It had a proper title, Enderlane View, but no one used that
other than the King’s tax collectors. As he flew, the snow
thickened into gale-force flurries. Billows of white frost and mist
obscured his black wings.

In the Smokeshafts, the buildings, made of
plaster walls and tin roofs, were tucked close together. Stories
had been stacked on top of each other with hardly any structural
foundation, until the apartments resembled broken accordions all
laid upright, ready to tumble to the ground. A dense forest of
chimneys spewed gray-and-black smoke into the sky, thick as fog.
Residents of the Smokeshafts burned peat, not wood. What snow
didn’t melt turned sooty-gray and hurtled down to the streets
below.

Viper swooped through the gritty air, with
Sora held tightly against his broad chest, until he found the
rooftop he sought. The upper floors of the building were abandoned
after a long-ago fire. The bottom level contained an herb shop—an
apothecary of sorts—which he remembered well. He lived here once,
briefly, while still on the run from Volcrian.

Viper landed on the clay tile. A
flame-ravaged gap in the tiles provided easy entrance to the attic
below. He dropped down and landed on the floor. Humans couldn’t
climb this high into the building; the fire-eaten staircase
wouldn’t hold.

Viper easily traversed a large hole in the
floor where part of the third story had caved in. This level once
housed six small apartments, all of which appeared uninhabitable,
except for one at the end of a long hall, where the fire hadn’t
quite reached. He walked carefully toward it and nudged the old
door open with his shoulder. It creaked on its hinges, ready to
collapse. He scanned the small, single room for ladders or ropes,
or some other means of access, but it appeared impossible to reach
from below and completely abandoned. He entered the open doorway
cautiously.

A dilapidated cot stood in one corner
beneath a grimy window, and a cast-iron stove with decent venting
sat in the corner. He searched for signs of inhabitance, but saw no
traces of food or belongings. Everything in the room looked
forgotten. Empty. Perfect.

He laid Sora down gently on the cot. Her
skin was moist and clammy. Cold sweat beaded her brow, and her
breath came in short gasps. For a long moment he inhaled, taking in
her scent. In his demon form, he could smell the toxins in her
body. Strangely, it made him salivate. His heart quickened and he
bristled unexpectedly, a row of black spines flexed along the back
of his neck.

He forced himself to back away from the cot,
knelt on one knee and placed both hands on it, focusing his
thoughts, his energy. The smell of her stayed with him, a heady,
irresistible perfume.

Crash looked down at his claws, his hardened
black skin, and the dagger-like bones protruding from his arms. He
ran a hand over his head, feeling the short thumbnail spikes. He
knew his eyes would appear flat and cold as a shark. He shifted his
bulky wings.

She can’t love us like this,
Crash
thought to his demon.
How do you think we appear to her? She is
afraid of you.

The demon didn’t seem to listen. It stayed
focused on Sora’s sleeping form on the bed.

Is this what you desire?
Crash
thought ironically to the beast.
Where is your love of the
Shade? Of the Master who betrayed us?

The demon still didn’t reply.

Why do you fight for her?
Crash
asked.

The demon looked curiously at the prone
body.
Heat,
it thought simply. Together they gazed at Sora,
two wills through one set of eyes. Crash, who fiercely desired to
defend her, and the demon, who smelled the residue of poison in her
blood and thought it to be a very fine perfume.

Share her warmth,
the demon thought
again, as plain and direct as the first time he thought it.

Crash knew that need well. It wouldn’t take
much for him to cave. In that, he shared the beast’s longing.

Then he touched the bristling spikes on his
head with his clawed fingers. No. Sora could not wake to see him
like this.

He reclaimed the throne at the front of his
mind. The demon reluctantly withdrew without its usual fight. For
once, their wills seemed one and the same. With a long groan, Crash
took over his limbs. His wings shrank into his back; his body
returned to normal size. Finally he collapsed to the ground,
shirtless in the frosty winter air and overcome by exhaustion.

For a long moment he could only lie on the
floor, wheezing in pain. The dagger wound in his side felt twice as
sore, though thanks to his demon’s strength, it had stopped
bleeding. He dragged himself up next to Sora on the cot, wrapped
her firmly in her cloak and dragged a pile of musty blankets over
her. Then he turned to the door. He needed to visit the apothecary
below before she awoke. Her body would naturally fight off the
poison on its own, but he still worried about her fever. That, and
he needed time to compose his thoughts before they spoke
face-to-face.

* * *

Sora awoke to the scent of musty blankets.
Her head pounded, and the world tipped every time she moved. She
tried to take stock of her surroundings and was reminded of a
long-abandoned bedroom. She recognized the slight curve of a
tattered dresser on the opposite wall. Thin lantern light flickered
outside a single window from a barely-visible row of buildings
across the street. Thick flurries of snow swirled down from a
heavy, overcast sky. Cold air seeped through the rotted window
pane, making her shiver.

She was alone.

She sat up and looked around the room. She
remembered…
someone.
Her head pounded. Her stomach churned.
She vaguely recalled strong arms lifting her into bed. She thought
harder. She remembered, quite vividly, the appearance of Cobra at
the parade. She remembered being dragged through the alleys. But
afterward?