It wasn’t until he saw a gray coat flapping loosely around a familiar shape that his first tears fell. As the Bullets lifted the boys and girls onto a ladder and told them to climb, he saw them impale his father’s body on a pike near the front of the ship. That distant star in his mind crashed to the ground, and in a single disorienting moment, Donnally was on his feet and running toward his father.
“Don’t touch him!” he was shouting, he hardly knew what. “I’ll hang you! I’ll drive your bodies on spits and roast you!”
The Bullets abusing his father’s body ceased their work long enough to watch his approach with bemused expressions on their faces.
Donnally stood before them, angry that they touched his father, angrier still that they didn’t think him more worthy of respect than amusement. His mind spun until all that was left was perfect fury.
He drew a deep breath, and he roared.
The sound filled him up. It was raw and ugly and loud. It was like a fever racing through every part of him, changing every part of him.
“Now, that is a battle cry.” An older boy came to stand before Donnally. He had a crown of blond hair and a face like a collection of knives. He met Donnally’s glare with piercing blue eyes of his own.
“That kind of rage will serve you well,” the boy said. “What’s your name?”
Donnally raised his chin and sharpened his eyes.
The boy was suddenly very close. He gripped Donnally’s jaw and tilted his head back, exposing the tattoo at his temple. Recognition lit the boy’s eyes, and he released Donnally.
“Your sister was very brave.”
At first, the words didn’t make sense. Donnally assumed he was speaking to someone else. Then a new, horrible reality ripped through his mind like a wind scouring everything in its path.
“Will you come with me, little brother?” the boy asked, not unkindly. “Come with me, and I will teach you to be just as brave as she.”
An image of Caledonia appeared in Donnally’s memory. She was laughing and proud and her hair tossed behind her in a friendly wind. How had she died? The boy standing before him wanted him to ask. Wanted to tell him. He was sure of it.
“Don’t you want to be brave?” the boy asked. “Tell me your name.”
Tears slipped down Donnally’s cheeks. He felt them on his skin, but not in his heart when he answered, “Donnally.”
The knife-faced boy smiled again. “Hello, Donnally. I’m Lir,” he said extending a hand. “Your new brother.”
CHAPTER ONE
Four Years Later
Caledonia dreamed of fire and of drowning.
The sea was glassy and cold. It surrounded her in a way that was almost loving, pushing at her fingers and toes, swirling at the nape of her neck. The current nudged her gently back and forth as though she were a piece of kelp, relaxed, yet not quite adrift. Directly above, the surface blazed. Fire danced along the water as far as Caledonia could see. And somewhere beyond those flames a voice called her name.
She reached up, and her fingers met something soft and dry.
“I think she’s coming around.” A hand wrapped around her own. “I’ve got you.”
She blinked and was surprised to find she was not underwater but in a room. Her eyes refused to focus on the broad dark outline of the person holding her hand.
“Try to relax,” he said.
Her eyelids felt heavy. She let them fall closed, and the fiery ocean folded over her once more. Exhaustion urged her to stay there. Yet a quiet voice inside her insisted she open her eyes again. She’d left something undone. She’d left people unprotected. She’d left before she meant to, and on the other side of those flames were people she loved.
Pisces.
Amina.
Redtooth.
Hime.
Donnally.
Now she was burning. The room was hot. So hot. Her skin was burning, and she could barely draw a full breath. She tried a second time, and for a second time felt her lungs constrict. So she tried harder and harder still, but it was as if she were trapped, by water and by fire.
“Oh, hell. Someone get Triple!” the boy holding her hand called.
“She’ll kill herself if she keeps this up.” This was a new voice. And not a kind one. “Good riddance.”
“You’re not helping, Pine.” A third voice. This time a girl. “Move over. I’m going to put her under.”
The cool glass of the sea returned. Caledonia drifted. Her lungs heavy and shallow, but she didn’t mind. The sea had her. And she always trusted the sea.
* * *
When she woke next it was dark. The air smelled like damp cloth, and the only light came from a small pile of dying embers cradled in a ceramic bowl. It cast its ruddy glow over the wall nearest Caledonia’s feet. Fabric, not steel. Her eyes struggled to focus, and her mouth felt like it had been filled with tar. A soft pain throbbed in her back.
A breeze pressed against one wall of the tent. The fabric rippled, and just on the other side of that thin layer pine needles whispered. This is not the Mors Navis.
Her mind was suddenly very alert, her memories returning in a flash. Her crew had sailed into these cold northern waters for a chance to save her and Pisces’s brothers. They’d fought Electra and won; they’d found Ares. But not Donnally. And when Lir’s ship appeared on the horizon, she’d left the Mors Navis for the chance to take revenge on the boy who’d killed her family and stolen her brother. She’d faced him on the deck of his own ship, and for a second time Lir had left her to die.
That explained the pain shooting from her lower back to her stomach, but not the tent in which she now found herself. Not the loose-fitting shirt and pants in which she was dressed.
She curled her fingers and toes, carefully testing each one. They burned and protested at first, then movement came more easily. Encouraged by their progress, she drew a breath of air that tasted like smoke and attempted to sit up. Pain—hot, lancing, angry—blossomed from a point in her back. It sliced through her like a spear through water, seeming to cleave her in two. A noise escaped her mouth, and suddenly the tent flap was pulled aside.
There was a disorienting swirl of dust and daylight, then the flap was closed, returning the room to smoky darkness. Only this time, there was someone else inside. Hands landed on her shoulders, holding her firmly against the bed.
“Lie back, would you?” The boy’s voice was gruff and distantly familiar.
Caledonia’s eyes settled on his arms, on the old scar running across one bicep. In this light, everything was washed in a colorless shadow, but she knew what hue she’d find there—a dense, violent orange.