The Warden

Chapter 45

Heart sprinting faster than her feet, mind a frantic jumble of information, Kyla pushed her body past any previous limit she may have thought she had. Half the vessel blurred past from one breath to the next.

Wilo had gone from the sky, but his remnant light echoed there still. A death wail of the day. The last traces of lively blue emptied to black. All the crew had abandoned the decks, leaving the lanterns with their bright, unseeing eyes as the only witnesses of her flight, straight and sure as an arrow.

She had to reach Masis. She had to get his attention without drawing the nightlings to her. Both were easier thought than done.

Lady Telias had been the queen of the night all along. She should have guessed as much. But then again, she had no idea that the bleeding wighties could disguise themselves in that way. The revelation had come as a genuine surprise. A sensation she had not experienced in sometime. The other information hardly even ruffled her.

They planned to kill her. She would do the same in their place. Her abilities and skills made her an obstacle to their goals. Anyone with half a mind could see that.

They wanted to abduct Masis. Again, no surprise there. But how in the name of Werold did they ever expect to overcome him or trick him into going with them willingly.

Masis Domrae hated wighties. He hated them to his very core. He would sooner kill them than join with any scheme they were involved with.

And then the single most important piece of information: while Wilo rode in the sky, the wights were completely immobile.

Masis had to know. The whole kingdom had to know.

She sailed over the next railing. A nightling popped into being in her mindeye behind her.

Manu's light! she swore.

She poured on the speed. Her feet hardly touched down before they rose again in a blur.

The dark dot in her mindeye vanished. It reappeared on the deck of the last vessel in the line. Then it began to move. From standstill to a blurring motion, heading straight for her.

Kyla tried to smother her lifelight.

Pain, acute and scalding, forced her to clench her teeth. Hiding from the wighties had cost her.

It wasn't an option. And without the ability to mask her lifelight, cloaking her body would do little good.

Patience. She needed patience and speed.

That dark blot in her mindeye continued to gain on her.

The foreboding clouds, once on the horizon, now blotted out the last traces of Wilo's fading. A flash seared the interior of the mass. A banshee-cry clap of thunder immediately followed. It thrummed in Kyla's ears. Her eyes glittered with splotches of color as the first rain drop hit her face. A sharp, cold sting. A deluge followed, one drop to countless stinging droplets. Thunder and lightning burst in unison, the energy palpably burning about her.

She leapt into the next vessel. A bit closer to her goal. It might as well have been a thousand miles away.

The wight at her back reached the vessel she just left.

Werold if there ever was a time to help this would be it, Kyla thought, straining to push her mind outward.

Nothing returned. Typical.

She growled, drawing on reserves and speed never before tapped. It bought her no more than a second.

From one lightning strike to the next, the gray-haired he-wight stood before her, teeth gleaming in a smile.