Page 91 of Hijack the Seas: Seismic

“I think Emrys will use it,” Morgaine said. “But not on their behalf.”

“Then you’re even more of a fool than I thought! They care for nothing but power. They are selfish, self-aggrandizing, cowardly animals, every one—”

“Not cowardly, surely,” Morgaine said, sounding amused again.

Which, yeah. Not the time, I thought, as her grandmother flushed puce. And somehow made it look good.

“Yes, cowards!” Nimue spat. “They fled deeper to the hells when the gods pursued them, refusing our offers of alliance. They left whole worlds to burn—their worlds—rather than defend them. They died by the hundreds of millions, by the billions for all I know, fighting and scrapping among themselves like wolves over meat—”

“Instead of what? Cooperating with their overlords as we did?” Morgaine hiked an eyebrow and, for a minute, looked so like her son that I blinked. “You act like it would have changed anything to stand together. They’d have died all the same.”

“No, not the same!” Nimue hissed. “Our people died fighting them, as you seem to have forgotten—”

“Some did. In time, when it became obvious what our fate was to be otherwise.”

“—and we did it facing them, not fleeing into the night! We did it on our feet, like fey, not on our knees, like vermin! There is a difference in how we face death, Morgaine, and it says everything about who we are as a people.”

“Perhaps,” Morgaine cradled her son, who had calmed down and was giggling as his mother tickled his tummy. “Fortunately, my boy has fey blood, too, doesn’t he? Your blood. Do you think that someone with your blood could be less than courageous?

“If so, you don’t know yourself half so well as I do.”

“Have a care, Morgaine. For I will find him.”

“I don’t think so. Not this time. But if you do, hopefully, it will be when you've had a chance to cool down. And your decency has overtaken your panic, as it always does. And you have thought on the fact that the worth of a man isn’t entirely down to bloodlines. Who he is and what he does with his life is up to—”

The room wavered again, but not because of Nimue this time. She was suddenly as frozen as if I’d cast a time spell or a TV had been paused. The whole scene was.

“What is it?” the incubus demanded, looking around. “What did you do?”

“I don’t run the Common,” I reminded him. “Faerie does.”

“Then why did she pause it? If she brought us here to see this—”

“Lover’s Knot,” I said, wincing slightly.

“It’s not on you!”

“Yes, that’s the problem.” I staggered slightly before I caught myself. “Without access to Pritkin’s fey blood, I keep . . . coming unstuck. . .” I gasped, and the room darkened slightly. “That’s why she had to . . . drop me out of it . . . the first time. . .”

“But we went back in after that,” he said, sounding almost panicked. He really wanted to see this. “And you were fine!”

“I wasn’t fine. Nothing changed on my end, but I think she . . . compensated . . . by pushing more power into the spell. . . But she's carrying two of us . . . and it’s getting . . . tiring. . .”

“She’s a goddess! They don’t get tired!” I shot him a look and didn’t say anything because I didn’t have to. My bedraggled state said it for me. “Then put it back!”

“What?”I gasped.

“Lover’s Knot!”

“I can’t. I don’t know the spell and . . . don’t have the power . . . anyway. And I think . . . we’re about to get thrown . . .

“Out,” I finished, just as a wave of magic hit me.

It was as refreshing as a drink of water in the desert, as powerful as blood rushing back into half-collapsed veins, and as comforting as warmth after bitter cold. I almost gasped in shock, not having really expected this to work. Because Pritkin was smarter than me, but right now, he was also distracted.

Which gave me a minute to act, or however long this vision had left. Because that’s what we were in; not the Common, but a vision of my own, like the ones I used to have all the time growing up. But which I’d had very few of since becoming Pythia.

The Pythian power sought formidable seers to work with because our union was a symbiosis. It gave me the ability to shift and use its godly power in various ways, while I . . . gave it my eyes. At least, my metaphysical ones.

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