Volcrian's Hunt (The Cat's Eye Chronicles) (13 page)

But in these moments she felt it. Some shard of darkness, of unimaginable strength. A body more powerful than her own, an aura greater than her shadow, begging for release.
Yes. Yes. Yes.

She cried out, overwhelmed by sensation. Her voice carried through the night, across the shipping yard and over the ocean waves. She lost herself to the sound, to the crack of the whip, to the stinging blood that trailed down her back.

CHAPTER EIGHT

SORA BLINKED, FOGGY from sleep. Her left side was warm and she had a vague memory of curling up next to a body—someone strong and familiar. She looked up blearily, confused for a moment, wondering if she was still caught in a dream. Her eyes landed on Crash's back.

By the North Wind....

She sat up, startled, then winced at the pain from her arm. Her shoulder ached dully, throbbing in its socket. She was relieved that it was strapped to her chest. The extra support made the pain bearable.

The sight of Crash, however, took much longer to adjust to. She stared at his naked, muscular back, the tanned skin flecked with scars.
We slept next to each other.
It wasn't the first time, and yet she felt different now, too close, somehow exposed.

The assassin stirred next to her. He sat up and turned toward her, pausing when he met her eyes.

“How is your arm?” he asked. Practical, as always.

Sora shifted her bandaged limb and winced. “I'll be fine,” she mumbled, though at that moment, she wished she had some of her mother's valerian root extract—an excellent salve for pain.

Crash stood and gathered his weapons, scattering the fire, throwing dirt on the remaining embers. She studied him, lost in thought. He was smooth and graceful, powerful, his actions precise and controlled. His black hair swept down around his ears, longer than she had last seen it, obscuring his eyes. His jaw was sharp and clean, his nose straight, his eyes the color of moss, deep-set beneath two elegant black brows.
Handsome,
she thought now, though she had forced herself to ignore it before. He always reminded her of a wolf, a cunning beast of the wilderness, sleek and dangerous.

When she had first met him, she had feared him more than anything else. He had killed Lord Fallcrest at her own Blooming, her coming-of-age ceremony. He had stolen her away into the night. Threatened her life, held a dagger to her throat. She had hated him.

Yet somehow, over so much time, things had changed. They had grown close. Become...friends? Could one be a friend to an assassin? They relied on each other. He had saved her life on countless occasions and she had returned the favor. After his actions of last night, she could only assume that he was fond of her. That he cared. Perhaps more than just cared. But she couldn't guess his thoughts....

He caught her eye. The hint of a smile touched his lips, secretive. She blinked, then looked away quickly, embarrassed. Her gaze traveled to the sky, a pale blue, quickly brightening in the east. It could be no more than an hour past dawn.

“Are we going to the Dracians' camp?” she asked, her voice husky and dry. She licked her lips, suddenly desperate for water.

“No,” Crash said briefly. He straightened and pointed to the northwest, opposite the dawn. “They found a town out that way. Abandoned. We're meeting them there.”

Sora nodded. She was relieved that he wasn't looking at her—his presence still made her nervous, like a child. She focused on his words instead. Soon, she would see her friends—Burn, Laina, everyone....
They're alive
. It was enough to make her forget her thirst, her hunger, even the ache of her arm. She couldn't wait.

They packed up camp quickly. There was little to take with them, only Crash's weapons. Then they started down a deer path in the opposite direction of Witherman's remains. She tried not to think of the dead men that lay in the forest, rotting under the sun, perhaps charred by flames. Witherman had been stranded here for seven years and no one had come. This island was far away from the mainland, completely isolated. She tried not to worry about that, too. With her friends by her side, they would find a way forward. Their quest would continue. It had to.

Crash and Sora walked all morning through the thick forest, following the natural deer paths that led through the woods. It was a hot day, the air dense and muggy under the trees, thick with pollen, laden with a vaguely citrus scent. The shade protected them from the intense sun, but still, Sora's shirt was soaked with sweat after an hour. She swatted at gnats and mosquitoes with her good hand, gritting her teeth in annoyance. The bugs seemed endless, clouding the air, following in their wake.

At times, they had to cut their way through the brush, hacking back thick vines and wide, waxy leaves. Snakes were common in this part of the jungle and she saw several different species of vibrant colors: green, yellow, black and red. Crash held up a hand when they crossed paths with a snake, remaining motionless until the beast slithered away; or he would pick up a stick and guide the reptile off the path. They forded several streams of clear, sweet water. He stopped at one stream and took a long drink, splashing his face, wetting his hair so it stuck to his forehead. Sora did the same and tried to wipe off some of the grime. She winced, avoiding her reflection.
What I don't know can't hurt me.

Crash filled his water flask and they continued after a short break. The assassin was unusually conscientious: stopping to help her up a steep ledge of rocks, waiting patiently as she pushed her way through the thick brush. She was surprised by this—usually he was the one to push them forward, intolerant of any complaints. Her injured arm slowed her pace, and she was weary, her feet sore after only a few hours. They stopped to bind her feet with cloth, but it hardly seemed to help. Perhaps the past two days had affected her more than she thought. She didn't feel like her usual energetic self.

“What's that tattoo on your wrist?” Sora asked after a long span of grueling silence. She didn't have much breath left to talk with, but she tried anyway. Crash wasn't the type to begin a conversation.

He glanced down at his wrist as though annoyed with it. “My namesake,” he said, then looked back to the path ahead.

“Namesake?” Sora echoed, curious. Usually Crash avoided answering any sort of personal question.

He nodded. “The Viper.”

The Viper. She hadn't heard him called by that name—not by Burn or anyone else she knew.

“That's your name?” she dug.

“Yes. It was,” he said briefly.

“Was?”

Crash shrugged, resigning himself to the conversation. “Dorian started calling me Crash after we met you. A joke, I suppose.” He glanced at her, as though self-conscious about the story.

Sora grinned. “That's cute.”

“Dorian thought so.”

She snickered at this. Leave it to Dorian to nickname an assassin. The thief was long dead, but he had a way of living on. She wondered, briefly, what he would say in their situation.
“Bad luck, sweetness,”
she heard in her head.
“Just the way we like it.”

“Why Viper?” she asked. “That's a strange name.”

Crash sighed. She knew he was uncomfortable with all of these questions, but she wasn't going to back down. His faux death had given her a new perspective on things, at least for the time being. She wanted to know as much about him as possible. As much as he would let her know.

“Where I grew up, we had to earn our names,” he explained. He paused briefly to jump over a fallen log, then turned, reaching out a hand. She took it and he helped her over the obstruction. On the other side, they resumed walking. “I earned the name Viper because I was the best.”

Abruptly he reached to his belt, pulling out a long, viciously curved dagger. She had seen him use it before, but had never looked at it closely. She gazed at the sharp blade, noting the worn handle, the intricately carved snake around its pummel. Her eyes widened. It was beautifully made and very well-maintained for its age. “I won the name and the blade with it,” he added.

She gave him a sour look. “Humble, aren't you?” she grunted.

A thin smile came to his lips. “It's the truth.”

“The best at what, then? Blade work?” she asked brusquely. He certainly knew how to use a dagger and a sword.

“All of it,” he repeated softly, and looked to the ground. A sudden, cold shiver went down her spine. His meaning was clear. Not just blades, but the spear, the bow, the fist—the best at killing.

She looked away, suddenly unnerved.
You know who he is,
her inner voice said.
Don't act so innocent.
It was true, she knew he was a trained killer, a master of the deadly arts. But she tricked herself into forgetting sometimes, lost in his enigmatic presence. They had grown so close over the past year.
Have we really
? She hardly knew anything about his past. Still, she couldn't look at him as just a murderer—a man who took money in exchange for lives.

She forced herself to push through it. She was afraid of his answers—but she needed to hear them, and she was suddenly full of burning curiosity. “What....” She paused to clear her throat. “What made you leave? Did they force you out? Did Volcrian have something to do with it?”

He shook his head slowly. His eyes clouded for a minute, focused on something that she couldn't see. She wondered where his mind was. She had seen that expression before, a glimpse of his inner thoughts.

Finally he said, “No, not Volcrian. I wanted something else. A different life.”

Sora let out a long sigh of relief.
There, you see
? she scolded herself.
He's not evil after all
. And yet when she looked at him, he didn't seem happy. There was no peace on his face. Only a small grimace, as though focusing on some unsavory detail of a larger painting.

“I take it you haven't found it yet,” she said wryly.

He glanced at her. A glimmer of surprise registered on his face. He gazed at her until she turned away, unable to stand the intensity.

“Perhaps,” he agreed slowly. “I don't know.” And he turned back to the trail.

They continued walking, entering a lush grove of strange fruit trees. Their leaves were bright green and spade-shaped, hanging close to the ground, supported by fat, short trunks. As they walked, he pulled two exotic fruits from the lower branches, large pinkish orbs with soft skin that reminded her of peaches, only larger and heavier. He handed her two and took two for himself. They ate as they walked, peeling the skin from the rich fruit. The meat of the fruit was a deep yellow color, soft and juicy, warmed by the sun. Sora thought it was the best thing she had ever eaten. She took two more before leaving the grove.

* * *

“Why are we just waiting here?” Lori muttered, rolling up the sail and tying it to the yardarm. Ferran assisted her on the opposite side of the mast, securing the closed sail in place.

Despite its large size, Sylla Cove had been difficult to find, tucked between high cliffs almost forty miles past Cape Shorn. The trip up the coast had been fraught with short, choppy waves and bursts of wind. Now staring across the cove, Lori saw no evidence of a pirate ship, just a broad half-circle of land scooped from the cliffs and a friendly batch of seals that clambered on shore, honking and yelping at one another. The evening sun lowered softly behind her, casting its net across the sky.

“Patience, my dear,” her companion replied, his hands tugging deftly on the ropes. “Isn't
patience
required of Healers?”

She shot him a disgruntled look.

Ferran grinned flippantly. His “loft,” as he called it, was a small and shabby affair, a sailboat that had been constructed into a dwelling, not meant for the high seas. It sat low in the water with a roof built over it, housing a single cot, small table and kitchen area. At least it was clean. The mast was thin and pointed, attached to the front of the boathouse where he could fly a sail. But they wouldn't need one beyond this point. Once the tide came in, the current would carry them forward and Ferran would rely mostly on the long rudder that jutted from the aft of the boat.

To one side of the cove, a narrow inlet cut through the shelves of rock, flowing inland from the ocean, leading to some unknown destination. Its mouth was about fifty feet wide and blocked by a series of jagged stone teeth. For the past hour, she had watched the water inch upward incrementally. Soon the teeth would be submerged and the inlet free to travel. She assumed, given the direction of Ferran's gaze, that they were going through it.

“It looks too narrow for a schooner to sail,” she said, noting the cliffs on either side of the inlet. “Certainly too narrow for a squarerigger.” Luckily, their boat was about a third of that size.

“The channel is broader than it looks,” Ferran replied. “And deeper.” He was chewing on a cinnamon stick, rolling it about in his mouth. He pointed over the low railing to the broad cliffs. “On the other side of that inlet lies Rascal Bay and Sonora, the Pirate City.”

“Pirate City?” Lori balked. He hadn't mentioned a city when they had left Cape Shorn a week ago. She had never even heard of one before. Then again, she didn't consort with any pirates.