Page 153 of The Sea Witch
“She’ll take us to it,” Strickland said with a tight nod.
“You’ve no use for the fail-safe,” Ben threw back.
“Others do,” Warne answered. “We find it, and destroy it. We’ll add more creatures to our arsenal. Every ship in the fleet will have at least one monster as part of its weapons.”
“This has to stop.” Ben turned to Strickland. “This isn’t what the navy is supposed to be.”
“This ispreciselythe purpose of His Majesty’s Navy,” the admiral replied coldly. “To protect and advance the Crown is exactly our objective.”
“Alys has nothing to do with any of this,” Ben insisted. “She only wants to be left alone.”
“She’s a thorn,” Warne returned. “We have to pluck her out of our paw.”
“She’ll be taken to England,” Strickland said flatly. “Burned in London.”
“A slow burning,” Warne added. “Mages have unique ways of prolonging the agony. We use magic to keep the victim alive for as long as possible.”
Ben thrashed wildly. He managed to throw off the sailor holding him, and when Warne backed up, Ben went straight for Strickland.
He slammed his fist into the admiral’s face. Blood sprayed from Strickland’s nose and coated Ben’s fist.
“I know,” Ben said through clenched teeth. “I know everything.Youkilled him. You and your piece of shit mage.”
“What’s this?” Captain Gray looked stunned.
“Stow it, Gray,” Strickland snapped. “Unless you want to bekilled by piratesas well.”
White-faced, the captain kept silent.
Before Ben could land another punch, his arms were pinned behind him and he was thrown to the ground. As he lay on the floor, Strickland pressed his boot against the back of Ben’s head.
“You never held much potential, Priestley,” the admiral said with mock sadness. “I kept hoping you’d turn around, and, in the absence of your father,Icould shape you into something worthwhile.”
Strickland removed his boot and the seamen holding Ben hauled him to his feet and slapped the shackles and manacles onto him. Hot pain shot up his arms and spread across his chest.
Strickland walked to him and patted his cheek with far more force than a fond but judgmental parent.
“I had hoped you wouldn’t be so disappointing,” Strickland said.
The mage strode to Ben. He placed his hand on the center of Ben’s chest, his fingers digging into Ben’s skin.
“A turncoat cannot be trusted.” The mage closed his eyes and his lips moved. Red light enveloped Warne’s hand. It sank into Ben’s skin.
Searing pain ripped through him, as though the mage tore his beating heart out. Yet Warne’s hand remained on top of Ben’s chest.
More agony shot through Ben, crackling into his veins and scouring every corner of his being. Alys’s bright flame within him suddenly went out.
Warne pulled his hand away, and Ben sagged. Echoes of pain reverberated through him. Physical anguish, and something else. A hollow, devastating loneliness. An icy cold solitude that left his soul bleeding.
“No,” he breathed.
Alys was gone. The connection between them had been severed.
His gaze met Warne’s. The mage’s pitiless eyes stared back.
She was gone from within him. All her heat and strength. Vanished.
There would be no way to contact her. No means to dreamwalk again to warn her about what was to come. She might even believe him dead.
