Page 111 of A Frozen Pyre
The sailor nodded.
“Show me.”
The sailor led him into the belly of the ship to where the papery skin of a former crewmate had been sucked clean of its blood, its meat, and all things that had once made it human or fae.
“In all our years, we’ve never seen anything like it,” the sailor said. His lips moved rapidly in a silent prayer to the All Mother while Harland knelt beside the body.
“I have,” he said gravely. He looked up at the sailor. “Was there a second woman? A fae with dark hair?”
“There was,” the sailor said. “It happened so quickly. The princess and her handmaiden arrived and were only here for a few hours. We were meant to set sail for Sulgrave. After the princess died, the lady disappeared just as the demon burrowed its way into our ship. There was so much blood and chaos, sir, it was impossible to keep track.”
Harland got to his feet. He sneered at the idea of Dwyn posing as a handmaiden. “Who saw the princess die? Only the one crewmate?”
The sailor shook his head, both concern and apology plain on his face. “I don’t know how he could have seen it, sir. He was down here beneath the deck with the rest of us when he began crying for her. But he insisted it, as sure as I insist my mother’s name. You don’t speak with conviction like that for nothing.”
“Certainly not for nothing,” Harland said bitterly as the image of the parasitic Dwyn shot through him.
A call came from topside that the men had returned with no evidence of a body, which did nothing to assuage Harland’s simmering fury. He didn’t understand why, but the siren must have convinced the men that Ophir had died. Whether Ophir had created the creature to escape the sailors or the girl crafting stories of her demise, he couldn’t guess.
“Did Princess Ophir leave anything behind before she…died?” He struggled with the absurdity of the lie, particularlycontrasted against how gutted he’d been only moments before at the idea of a world without Ophir. It felt wrong to play along with Dwyn’s game, but it would be easier to return with a healthy princess later than attempt to explain Ophir’s manipulative attachment now.
“If she did, it would be in the captain’s quarters allotted her,” the sailor replied.
Harland led the way up the ladder. He waved off the fretful faces of the apologetic sailors. They promised to continue their search in the morning, but their words glanced off Harland’s back as he turned for the cabin. He let himself in and walked toward the center of the room, scanning for any clue as to what Ophir might have been up to. If Ophir had escaped Aubade and had time to deploy a doppelgänger for her wedding, then she’d had a hand in planning Aubade’s demise. He couldn’t be sure why she’d need to make a pit stop on the Frozen Straits only to jump ship moments later.
Harland rested his hands on the table, frowning as he found no clothes, no food, no trinkets, not a single shred of evidence that she’d been on the boat at all. As he righted himself to leave empty-handed, something caught his eye. He glowered at the map, allowing his brows to meet in the middle as he stared at a large, dark blot.
He marched from the cabin and scanned the men.
“You were bound for Sulgrave?”
It wasn’t a question. They looked at the man in royal Farehold armor with guilty expressions.
“You wouldn’t take a new bride to a distant land under Farehold’s orders. Can I assume you’re paid on King Ceneth’s coin?”
“Sir, we—”
Harland cut the sailor off with the flick of his hand. He sucked in a breath of bitterly cold air. “Which one of you is captain?”
They slowly turned to look at the blubbering man who continued to loudly mourn the loss of his belovedmonarch. Whatever had been done to his mind had gone a touch too far.
Harland sighed, his breath puffing white and glistening against the torches that dotted the deck to stave off the night. “Who’s first mate?”
“I am,” said the sailor who’d escorted him about the ship. “Navigation is my inborn talent.”
“Excellent,” Harland said. “Your name is?”
“Caleb, sir.”
“I’m commandeering this ship under Farehold banners, Caleb. Take me as far east as the ice allows.”
The men glanced at the shell of their babbling captain then exchanged uncertain looks. “Sir? We were meant to go north.”
“Not any longer,” Harland said, voice firm and steady as it drifted over the snowbanks and crystallized in the winter air. “Take me as close as you can to the Unclaimed Wilds.”
Forty-One
“How much farther, Caleb?” Harland panted against thesweat and exhaustion of their travel. He’d dedicated decades to mental and physical discipline, but he’d never spent a week on foot trudging through the snow. Each new step took on the weight and effort of twenty. Each time he lifted his foot and punched it down only to sink into the mountainside exacerbated their struggles. Still, the cold was different here. Whether the Frozen Straits had been cursed by a malevolent deity, he’d never know, but once they’d anchored their ship and set off into the forest, the temperatures began to climb.
