Siege and Storm (Shadow and Bone #2)(19)

The stag had lived so long in my imagination that, when it had finally stepped from the trees and into the snowy glade, it had been almost familiar to me, known. The sea whip was a stranger, more myth than reality, despite the sad and solid truth of its broken body.

“Either way, it won’t survive,” the privateer said.

I grasped the knife’s hilt. It felt heavy in my hand. Is this mercy? It certainly wasn’t the same mercy I had shown Morozova’s stag.

Rusalye. The cursed prince, guardian of the Bone Road. In the stories, he lured lonely maidens onto his back and carried them, laughing, over the waves, until they were too far from shore to cry for help. Then he dove down, dragging them beneath the surface to his underwater palace. The girls wasted away, for there was nothing to eat there but coral and pearls. Rusalye wept and sang his mournful song over their bodies, then returned to the surface to claim another queen.

Just stories, I told myself. It’s not a prince, just an animal in pain.

The sea whip’s sides heaved. It snapped its jaws uselessly in the air. Two harpoons extended from its back, watery blood trickling from the wounds. I held up the knife, unsure of what to do, where to put the blade. My arms shook. The sea whip gave a wheezing, pitiful sigh, a weak echo of that magical choir.

Mal strode forward. “End it, Alina,” he said hoarsely. “For Saints’ sake.”

He pulled the knife from my grip and dropped it to the deck. He took hold of my hands and closed them over the shaft of one of the harpoons. With one clean thrust, we drove it home.

The sea whip shuddered and then went still, its blood pooling on the deck.

Mal looked down at his hands, then wiped them on his torn shirt and turned away.

Tolya and Tamar came forward. My stomach churned. I knew what had to come next. That isn’t true, said a voice in my head. You can walk away. Leave it be. Again, I had the sense that things were moving too fast. But I couldn’t just throw an amplifier like this back into the sea. The dragon had already given up its life. And taking the amplifier didn’t necessarily mean that I would use it.

The sea whip’s scales were an iridescent white that shimmered with soft rainbows, except for a single strip that began between its large eyes and ran over the ridge of its skull into its soft mane—those were edged in gold.

Tamar slid a dagger from her belt and, with Tolya’s help, worked the scales free. I didn’t let myself look away. When they were done, they handed me seven perfect scales, still wet with blood.

“Let us bow our heads for the men lost today,” Sturmhond said. “Good sailors. Good soldiers. Let the sea carry them to safe harbor, and may the Saints receive them on a brighter shore.”

He repeated the Sailor’s Prayer in Kerch, then Tamar murmured the words in Shu. For a moment, we stood on the rocking ship, heads bent. A lump rose in my throat.

More men dead and another magical, ancient creature gone, its body desecrated by Grisha steel. I laid my hand on the sea whip’s shimmering hide. It was cool and slick beneath my fingers. Its red eyes were cloudy and blank. I gripped the golden scales in my palm, feeling their edges dig into my flesh. What Saints waited for creatures like this?

A long minute passed and then Sturmhond murmured, “Saints receive them.”

“Saints receive them,” replied the crew.

“We need to move,” Sturmhond said quietly. “The whaler’s hull was cracked, but the Darkling has Squallers and a Fabrikator or two, and for all I know, those monsters of his can be trained to use a hammer and nails. Let’s not take any chances.” He turned to Privyet. “Give the Squallers a few minutes to rest and get me a damage report, then make sail.”

“Da, kapitan,” Privyet responded crisply. He hesitated. “Kapitan … could be people will pay good money for dragon scales, no matter the color.”

Sturmhond frowned, but then gave a terse nod. “Take what you want, then clear the deck and get us moving. You have our coordinates.”

Several of the crew fell on the sea whip’s body to cut away its scales. This I couldn’t watch. I turned my back on them, my gut in knots.

Sturmhond came up beside me.

“Don’t judge them too harshly,” he said, glancing over his shoulder.

“It’s not them I’m judging,” I said. “You’re the captain.”

“And they have purses to fill, parents and siblings to feed. We just lost nearly half our crew and took no rich prize to ease the sting. Not that you aren’t fetching.”

“What am I doing here?” I asked. “Why did you help us?”

“Are you so sure I have?”

“Answer the question, Sturmhond,” said Mal, joining us. “Why hunt the sea whip if you only meant to turn it over to Alina?”

“I wasn’t hunting the sea whip. I was hunting you.”

“That’s why you raised a mutiny against the Darkling?” I asked. “To get at me?”

“You can’t very well mutiny on your own ship.”

“Call it what you like,” I said, exasperated. “Just explain yourself.”

Sturmhond leaned back and rested his elbows on the rail, surveying the deck. “As I would have explained to the Darkling had he bothered to ask—which, thankfully, he didn’t—the problem with hiring a man who sells his honor is that you can always be outbid.”