Page 161 of Once the Skies Fade

My best friend’s brother’s widow.

I cringed every time I reminded myself of that fact, and no matter how often I tried to shrug it off as the stars’ bad joke, the awkward discomfort remained. Would Connor and Lieke understand? They had to. They were the most hopelessromantics I’d ever met. If anyone could understand, it would be them.

An intense rumbling vibrated the entirety of the ship, pulling me out of my thoughts. Pushing to my feet, I steadied myself against the bars. The ship was slowing. They must have been lowering the anchor—my best guess, as someone who knew little-to-nothing about ships.

A moment later, Graham was stepping down the ladder, a set of chained cuffs in one hand.

“Time to go,” he said. “Give me your wrists, and don’t do anything stupid. The entire crew has orders to kill you if you arrive above deck without me.”

Obliging, I allowed him to bind my arms together and lead me up out of the ship’s belly. I squinted against the drastic shift in light despite the overcast sky. Dark gray clouds hid the sun and made it impossible to determine the time. The small crew—a rough and haggard group who rivaled even the surliest of crowds Connor and I had met in the taverns around Emeryn—filled the deck, hands either gripping their weapons or hovering at their hilts. Graham said nothing to anyone, only nodded at a male sporting an impressive hat and an even more impressive beard before dragging me across a wide plank that connected the ship to the simple, narrow dock.

It wasn’t until my feet were on solid ground again that I got a good look at my surroundings, and I couldn’t tell which dropped lower, my jaw or my stomach.

The land—Dolobare—was like no place I’d visited on Sandurdam. Steep cliffs of jagged black rock lined the coastline, their peaks lost in the thick mist high above. In the distance, white falls cascaded down narrow crevices along the mountainsides, only to disappear into the rock. Cold and desolate, the land appeared devoid of any vegetation, and if not for the dock beneath my feet and the few buildings dottingthe black sand beach, I would have assumed it was devoid of life altogether. Though, as we neared the end of the dock, I realized the buildings were in various states of disrepair with roof thatching caving in, doors hanging askew, and glass in the windows cracked or shattered. Further down the coast, rock and timber littered the sand, possibly the ruins of the rest of the village.

“A bustling port of trade, I see,” I said, hoping my sarcastic tone was sufficient to hide the apprehension swirling in my gut.

“Once was,” Graham noted. “At least, so I’m told.”

“What happened here exactly?”

Graham whispered a single word, “Nightwalkers.”

I swallowed hard. “Are they still here?”

He shrugged and continued walking up the beach toward the cliffs, yanking hard on the chain so that I nearly lost my balance. The chilled air nipped at my skin as we trudged on.

“Where are these human friends of yours anyway?” I asked, though I expected him to ignore me.

He ignored my question. “What do you know of the island?”

“Only that the nightwalkers—who make exceptional brandy—fled here when the war broke out, while the humans—who presumably create the poison wreaking havoc on Sandurdam—aren’t happy to share the island with their new neighbors.”

“And why should they, when those neighbors use them as food?” Graham asked, a hint of humor present, as if he held the humans in such little regard as to ridicule them for not wanting to be drained of their own blood.

“The island is ruled by the nightwalkers, though, and—like us in Emeryn—they’ve been struggling to eradicate the human rebellion.”

Graham was silent for a bit as he led me into a narrow canyon barely the width of three males standing shoulder-to-shoulder. Staring up the sheer rock faces towering over us, I shivered atthe expanse of mist that seemed to be closing in on us from above. The ground slowly shifted from sand to rocky soil, though I still found no sign of any flora.

“Funny,” Graham said. He kept his voice low, but it did little to prevent it from echoing around us. “All the benefits we immortals possess have mattered little in this war against the humans.”

“Who said it was a war?” I asked. “It’s not?—”

“Perhaps that’s why you’re losing, general.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Was this pitiful excuse for a fae actually right? Were we—both fae and nightwalker—failing to overcome the rebellions because we didn’t take them seriously enough?

“You think Calla had it right then? Exile or kill all of them?”

Graham wrinkled his nose at me, not out of disgust, but as if he were legitimately pondering the question. “I don’t know. Maybe. But then again, the humans have proved rather helpful for my ambitions.”

This nearly had me stopping in my tracks, but pretending to stumble, I forced myself to keep up with my captor. What were his ambitions? The way he’d said that implied the humans had done more than simply provide him with the poison, but what else had they done?

Wrenwick.

I’d nearly forgotten Calla’s words from our dream. The humans in Wrenwick had killed Brennan, and they could have quite easily done that at Graham’s behest. But then wouldn’t Minerva’s spell have pointed to Graham instead of the Olanders?

Tricky mage.

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