“That would be less than ideal.”
“Let me run and grab a bow. I’ll find some soldiers, someone who can help…” I trail off as his eyes begin to glitter with familiar calculation; a new plan is taking shape in his mind. “What? Why are you looking at me like that?”
His pause is full of implications I do not fully understand. Not until he says, “You have other powers, skylark. Beyond the lightning.”
My shoulders stiffen. “Powers I have not used in months.”
“Great. You’ll be fully charged.”
“You cannot be serious.” My heart thumps so hard, I’m surprised my ribs haven’t cracked. “I can’t control my maegic, Soren. Look what’s been happening with the weather! You said it yourself, it’s manifesting in dangerous ways. Even when I do access my powers intentionally, they’re totally out of control.”
“Probably because you’re too scared to use them properly.”
I cast a glance at the suspended arachnida. Is it my imagination, or is the water cage lower than last I looked? “This really isn’t the time to discuss this.”
“Actually, I disagree. It’s the perfect time.”
“Soren, I can’t do what you think I can.”
“You can do far more than I think you can. Better—you can do far more thanyouthink you can.”
Beneath the thin tunic, my Remnant licks out across the skin of my upper chest, frosty with cold. It, like Soren, seems to have a mind of its own when it comes to dealing with the situation at hand. Or maybe it merely wants a chance to come out and play after so many months kept suppressed beneath the weight of mourning.
My fingertips tingle as a chasmic reserve of untapped maegic spirals through me. A storm is gathering within. One that never goes away—merely ebbs and flows from the forefront of my mind to its deepest recesses. Most of the time, I do my best to banishit there. I can count the number of times I have called the wind willingly on one hand, for I know the risks. Penn has made them abundantly clear, over and over again. His mantra on the subject is so familiar, I can almost hear his voice inside my head.
You must contain it, Rhya. If you don’t, it will consume you.
Yet here is Soren, so casually asking me to do just the opposite. To summon a power I scarcely understand. A power that, unchecked, is far more likely to kill me than save me.
“You must be mad,” I say, shaking my head rapidly. “I realize you want to help me master my powers, but surely you don’t expect me to start with an impromptu trial by fire.”
“Not by fire. By spider silk.”
“If you make one more jest, I swear to the gods—”
“Now or never, skylark.”
“Fine!” My throat is tight. “I choose never.”
“Now.”
His arms come down—and, with them, the water cage. It smashes into the deck, through it, to the lower hold, sending up a splash that douses us both. The arachnida disappears beneath a pile of splintered wood, but I am not fool enough to think it was mortally wounded by the impact. I stand, tense as a bowstring, waiting for it to reappear with the quicksilver speed I witnessed before.
This time, when it vaults up into the air, I am prepared. Time slows to a crawl as it springs at me, fangs clacking, forelegs extended, lethal stinger jabbing from its undercarriage. Beads of water fly off its hairy body in all directions as it sails across the deck. I take a breath, raise my arms, and blast outward. A shock wave of pure, solidified air.
The arachnida reverses course, caught in the wind current, flipping end over end until it lands in the ratlines that run the height of the mast. Any satisfaction I might’ve felt is snatchedaway as, less than a breath later, the creature’s spring-loaded legs bend and it launches itself straight back at me.
“Skies!” I yell, diving sideways onto the deck, narrowly avoiding a fatal jab of its stinger. I tuck my body into a quick roll and spring back up—a move Jac spent weeks drilling into me over the course of our many sparring sessions. With a normal opponent, I’d be well out of range of sword or fist. Not so when it comes to this foe. The very instant I find my feet, I’m jerked off them again. I scream as I realize a thick web has snared me around the midsection. The giant beast is steadily winding me in as a fisherman might his reel, forelegs jerking the tendril closer and closer to its snapping jaws.
My fingers work to peel away the sticky silk, but it is fused to my tunic. I nearly lose my footing as the creature gives another strong tug, my boots scrambling for purchase on the slippery deck.
“SOREN!”
“Mmm?”
Gods, the man sounds positively bored. Meanwhile, I am staring into the festering maws of certain death. No amount of advanced healing will save me from this end. My own horrified expression is mirrored back at me in the collection of dark eyes lodged in the arachnida’s misshapen head as the distance shrinks from paces to handspans.
“HELP ME, YOU PRICK!”