Page 212 of The Cradle of Ice
Daal pressed the edge of his blade, hard enough to draw a bloody line across Fenn’s throat. Still, Daal’s hand shook. Then his shoulders. He fought with himself, with his heart, with his need for vengeance.
“They … they suffered so…” Daal gasped out, sorrow and fury straining his voice. “They didn’t deserve that. They had such love … for everything, for me. They trusted me. To keep them safe.”
Daal kept his dagger pressed to Fenn’s throat.
Darant’s men looked ready to rush him, but Graylin and Vikas guarded Daal’s back.
Nyx passed through them all and knelt next to Daal. She sensed the truer target of his wrath. Daal was angry at Fenn, but more furious at himself.
Nyx recognized that shame and misery. She had felt it often enough. “Don’t do this,” she whispered. “He’ll get his justice. Don’t stain your hands over this traitor.”
“I have to,” Daal said. “For them.”
He shifted higher, leaning into the dagger.
“Stop,” a weak voice whispered hoarsely.
The softness and pleading, more than the word itself, made everyone halt. Nyx shifted back to see Brayl struggle to sit up. She had to reach her hand and grasp the bar to do so, but it clearly agonized her. Blood rushed around her wound.
“Leave him be.” She slid back down. “I’m the saboteur. Not him.”
In that stunned silence, no one moved.
Daal finally fell away from Fenn, staring down at the dagger in disbelief.
Darant sank back on his heels, his eyes huge and glassy. “What…?”
Nyx pictured Brayl passing down gear from her sailraft into their skiff. There had been plenty of opportunity for Brayl to plant something in Fenn’s pack—maybe she intended to frame him if anything went awry. Only now, with death pending, did she feel the need to be honest.
Nyx stared at Darant’s daughter and recalled the first attempt at sabotaging their group’s efforts.
If anyone would know how to cripple the Sparrowhawk’s portside forge without blowing up the ship, it’s her. She must’ve hoped the damage would have forced them to limp back home. And when that failed, she had sought out another means to the same end.
Graylin asked the question for all of them. “But why? Were you bought off by the Hálendiians?”
Brayl’s breath rasped out a dismissive huff. “Fekk that. No gold or coercion swayed me.” Blood dribbled from her lips. “My choice. My doing alone.”
Darant shifted away, shaking his head, still refusing to believe.
“Then why?” Nyx asked.
Brayl’s gaze rolled toward her. “Because … of you.”
Nyx cringed.
Brayl lifted an arm, only to have it slap in the water. Her voice drifted to a tired whisper. “All the sodding prophecies, visions of doom, what-ifs … fekkin’ shite, the lot of it. I was raised a pirate’s daughter.”
She leaned her head toward her father, but he would not meet her eye, so she closed hers. “We believe what we can grasp. Right? Not this shite … Someone had to right this ship before we hit the rocks. Meant stopping you. Without killing the lot of us…”
Brayl tried to lift her arm again, reaching for Darant. “Then we could’ve all gone sodding home…”
Her arm dropped, and she slumped backward. Her face slid underwater.
No one moved to help her.
Not even her father.
SIXTEEN
