Siege and Storm (Shadow and Bone #2)(30)

He’s a privateer, I reminded myself. And he’d stoop to war profiteer in a second. Sturmhond’s weapons could give Ravka an advantage, but those guns could just as easily be used by Ravka’s enemies.

I was pulled from my thoughts by a bright light shining off the port bow. The great lighthouse at Alkhem Bay. We were close now. If I craned my neck, I could just make out the glittering towers of Os Kervo’s harbor.

Sturmhond did not make directly for it but tacked southwest. I assumed we’d set down somewhere offshore. The thought of landing made me queasy. I decided to keep my eyes shut for that, no matter what Mal said.

Soon I lost sight of the lighthouse beam. Just how far south did Sturmhond intend to take us? He’d said he wanted to reach the coast before dawn, and that couldn’t be more than an hour or two away.

My thoughts drifted, lost to the stars around us and the clouds scudding across the wide sky. The night wind bit into my cheeks and seemed to cut right through the thin fabric of my coat.

I glanced down and gulped back a scream. We weren’t over the water anymore. We were over land—solid, unforgiving land.

I tugged on Mal’s sleeve and gestured frantically to the countryside below us, painted in moonlit shades of black and silver.

“Sturmhond!” I shouted in a panic. “What are you doing?”

“You said you were taking us to Os Kervo—” Mal yelled.

“I said I was taking you to meet my client.”

“Forget that,” I wailed. “Where are we going to land?”

“Not to worry,” said Sturmhond. “I have a lovely little lake in mind.”

“How little?” I squeaked. But then I saw that Mal was climbing out of the cockpit, his face furious. “Mal, sit down!”

“You lying, thieving—”

“I’d stay where you are. I don’t think you want to be jostling around when we enter the Fold.”

Mal froze. Sturmhond began to whistle that same off-key little tune. It was snatched away by the wind.

“You can’t be serious,” I said.

“Not on a regular basis, no,” said Sturmhond. “There’s a rifle secured beneath your seat, Oretsev. You may want to grab it. Just in case.”

“You can’t take this thing into the Fold!” Mal bellowed.

“Why not? From what I understand, I’m traveling with the one person who can guarantee safe passage.”

I clenched my fists, rage suddenly driving fear from my mind. “Maybe I’ll just let the volcra have you and your crew for a late-night snack!”

Sturmhond kept one hand on the wheel and consulted his timepiece. “More of an early breakfast. We really are behind schedule. Besides,” he said, “it’s a long way down. Even for a Sun Summoner.”

I glanced at Mal and knew his fury must be mirrored on my own face.

The landscape was unrolling beneath us at a terrifying pace. I stood up, trying to get a sense for where we were.

“Saints,” I swore.

Behind us lay stars, moonlight, the living world. Ahead of us, there was nothing. He was really going to do it. He was taking us into the Fold.

“Gunners, at your stations,” Sturmhond called. “Squallers, hold steady.”

“Sturmhond, I’m going to kill you!” I shouted. “Turn this thing around right now!”

“Wish I could oblige. I’m afraid if you want to kill me, you’ll just have to wait until we land. Ready?”

“No!” I shrieked.

But the next moment, we were in darkness. It was like no night ever known—a perfect, deep, unnatural blackness that seemed to close around us in a suffocating grip. We were in the Fold.





CHAPTER


8





THE MOMENT WE entered the Unsea, I knew something had changed.

Hurriedly, I braced my feet against the deck and threw up my hands, casting a wide golden swath of sunlight around the Hummingbird. As angry as I was with Sturmhond, I wasn’t going to let a flock of volcra bring us down only to prove a point.

With the power of both amplifiers, I barely had to think to summon the light. I tested its edges carefully, sensing none of the wild disruption that had overcome me the first time I’d used the fetter. But something was very wrong. The Fold felt different. I told myself it was just imagination, but it seemed like the darkness had a texture. I could almost feel it moving over my skin. The edges of the wound at my shoulder began to itch and pull, as if the flesh were restless.

I’d been on the Unsea twice before, and both times I’d felt like a stranger, like a vulnerable interloper in a dangerous, unnatural world that did not want me there. But now it was as if the Fold was reaching out to me, welcoming me. I knew it made no sense. The Fold was a dead and empty place, not a living thing.

It knows me, I thought. Like calls to like.

I was being ridiculous. I cleared my head and thrust the light out farther, letting the power pulse warm and reassuring around me. This was what I was. Not the darkness.

“They’re coming,” Mal said beside me. “Listen.”

Over the rush of the wind, I heard a cry echo through the Fold, and then the steady pounding of volcra wings. They’d found us quickly, drawn by the smell of human prey.

Their wings beat the air around the circle of light I’d created, pushing the darkness back at us in fluttering ripples. With crossings of the Fold at a standstill, they’d been too long without food. Appetite made them bold.