Assassin’s Fate

I clambered onto the top bunk and took up the heavy container. Per stared at me. ‘I know how to use this,’ I told him as it began to whisper its promises to me. I wouldn’t let the Servants take me. I could command them to leap from their boats and drown, and they would do it.

‘What are you going to do?’ Per whispered in horror, then barked, ‘Don’t do it! Don’t do anything with that stuff. It will kill you! The Fool put some on his fingers and the Rain Wild folk said it would kill him …’

I pushed past him, the heavy glass cradled in my arms, and hurried toward the deck. His warnings didn’t apply to me, I was sure. I’d seen what Vindeliar did with the serpent spit. This was different. Stronger and purer. I wasn’t sure how to use it. Did I have to drink it? The Fool had put some on his fingers, Per had said. Did that mean I should put my hands into it? Dump it over my head?

I reached the short ladder that led to the deck. Before I could go up it, a man dropped from the deck, bending his knees deep to catch himself. He straightened and looked at me, pale-blue eyes in a soot-blackened and flame-seared face. He was a nightmare come to life, with the hair scorched back from his brow. He looked wide-eyed at what I carried and shouted up the hatch, ‘It’s here! She has it!’

Another man dropped down to crouch beside him. The side of his face was blistered and he carried one arm close to his chest. The flesh of that arm was a ruin of fat blisters and burned shirtsleeve. ‘Girl, I need that. Amber told me about it the night I rowed her into Clerres. It’s for the ship. He needs the Silver.’

‘Boy-O!’ Per exclaimed in horror as he dashed up beside me. I clutched the container close to my chest. It was singing to me. Power and strength. It was mine.

The ship roared again. It cascaded through the vessel and echoed in me. I could not find myself for his despair. I saw it mirrored on the faces of the men who had cornered me.

The man with the burned face spoke quickly in a shaking voice. ‘Fire’s spreading, Per. We can’t stop it. Whatever they’re using, water won’t quench it. You need to get the girl off the ship now. But that Silver stuff … I need it. For Paragon. He’ll sink here and be gone forever unless he can turn into dragons now. Amber told me where to find it. It’s the Silver Paragon was promised if he helped you.’

The other man held out his hands to me. ‘Please, girl. You can’t use the Silver; it’s poison to you. But it might be enough to let the dragons break free!’

If I kept it, I could make them obey me. All of them. I’d be like Vindeliar, but much stronger.

I’d be like Vindeliar …

‘Take it.’ I thrust the silvery tube at them. The burned man reached for it.

‘No,’ the other man said. ‘You get them off the ship. I’ll get this to Paragon.’

‘The flames,’ the burned man cautioned him. ‘Kennitsson, you’ll never get through.’

‘It’s Paragon. This is my family ship. Blood of my blood. I must.’ The man called Kennitsson grabbed the container, cradled it, and scampered up the ladder one-handed.

Another agonizing shriek split the air and raced through the bones of the ship. ‘Get up the ladder,’ Per ordered me, and I obeyed him as quickly as I could. I gained the deck and stood up into blowing smoke and falling ash. I looked up. Our furled sails were slowly burning, shedding fragments of ash and flaming canvas as they did. On one side of the ship, flame licked up in a wall. We would not escape that way. Smoke rose on every other side, and I had learned how quickly rising smoke could become a sheet of flame. My eyes streamed so that I could barely see.

A gloved hand seized my shoulder from behind. ‘Get to the boats!’ Beloved shouted in a gasping voice. ‘There’s no saving him. Oh, Paragon, my old friend.’

‘Amber! Where are my parents?’ the man with the injured arm shouted, and Beloved shook his head.

‘They ran toward the bow. Our attackers have been concentrating the fire there. Boy-O, you won’t get through the flames. They’re lost!’

But the man chased after his friend with the Silver. They ran forward. I saw them run, I saw them leap, and hoped it was a thin curtain of flames they penetrated and not an inferno. The keening of the ship filled my ears and my whole body. I shook with his fear and anger. This was how we would all end. I knew that as clearly as he did. All this I saw as I was dragged away by Beloved. He was stronger than he looked and, in a corner of my mind, I wondered if it was my dead father’s strength that he used.

We reached the other side of the vessel. He looked over the side through the rising smoke and swore. ‘They left us!’ Per exclaimed and coughed.

Beloved kept a grip on my shoulder. He wrapped his arm over his face and spoke through the fabric of his sleeve. ‘They had to, or the boat would have caught fire, too. They’re there, trying to wait for us, but we’ll have to jump and then swim. And the Servants’ boats are closing in on them.’

‘Lant?’ Per coughed. ‘Spark?’

‘I don’t know.’