Page 55 of Take No Prisoners
"Aye, Bea." Stan stood and gave her a quick bow.
Efren nodded his head, and then Stan dragged him away by the elbow. He turned back and mouthed, "Good luck," to Niall over his shoulder.
His grandmother scowled at them until Efren turned his back and they disappeared. Then, she turned to Niall with a beaming smile. "You're good for him. I'm glad to see him care about something, someone again."
"I care about him, too," Niall whispered.
"You've both experienced losses at the hands of General Coryn." Her voice hardened, no longer the voice of an elder, but of a mother still grieving. "If I learned anything from your mother's death, it's this. Love can overcome anything. It can heal the hardest of hearts. It can turn the worst anger into the highest pleasure. If your grandfather and I had listened to our love instead of the world around us, we ... well. That ship sailed long before your parents' deaths, but love and grief brought us back together."
"I'm so sorry," Niall said. "I should have done something." There it was, the bottomless pit of rage in the core of his being, the one he could find even at the best of times. If he needed fury to guide his magic, he had an abundance for General Coryn.
"There," his grandmother said. "There is the source of your wind. There will come a time when you won't need anger to fuel your air weaves, but for now, it will do." She grinned at him. "Time for you to fill the pitcher, and I'll warn you, you'll also want to drink from it when we're finished."
Niall laughed with her. Then he got to work.
Chapter 13
Efren
Efren couldn't remember a time when he'd been so taken with a lover. As soon as Niall was out of his sight, Efren wondered when they would see each other again. It seemed too soon to want to spend every waking moment with him.
"He makes me feel young again," he confessed to Stan as they walked up the gangplank ontoStarlight Specter.
"Aye," Stan said, slapping his shoulder again. "You look a bit younger, too, without those dark circles under your eyes." Stan had a way of clipping his words so that you sounded like "ya," and your sounded more like "yer," no matter how many times Elder Beatrice had told him he'd get further in life by sounding like he could brush shoulders with the Embertide royalty.
Efren had taken her words to heart and practiced his speech with Vadim in every free moment after he'd purchasedStarlight Specter. He'd envied the effortless way Vadim discarded his island accent for the highbrow mainland nasal tones when he'd attended the Imperial Academy of Elements. Maybe Efren had been too eager to rise above his station. The words and flat accent of the royals came easy for Vadim after his stint at the academy, but Efren had never erased the hint of lilting islander twang from his tongue.
Niall spoke with an easy mainland accent, jauntier and more relaxed than Vadim's. The more Efren spoke with him, the more he noticed himself picking up certain tones and inflections until he sounded more like a mainlander, too. Over time, he might lose his accent completely in favor of sounding like Niall. He didn't know why that mattered to him, but it did, far more than sounding like the royals.
"You're still thinking about him, aren't you?" Stan asked.
Efren wanted to deny it, but he nodded. "I'm curious how long before we can return to the sea."
"It won't take him long to learn his powers. It's not even noon, and she's already got him working on a second element."
Niall had taken to air faster than any student Efren had known, which wasn't saying much. Efren hadn't stuck around the training grounds once he'd completed his studies, and shortly after, he'd shipped off for Hearthstone to join the navy. Still, he assumed Niall already had a basic education from his parents and through his apprenticeship, so once he mastered his weaves, he would be free to go.
"Each type is different," Efren remembered. What had worked for Stan hadn't worked for Efren, and vice versa. Once they'd both mastered their techniques to reach their magic, Vadim had still struggled to understand his own. Martiz hadn't been a patient teacher, and Vadim fought against all attempts of healing instruction. Death came easier for him. Efren would never forget the day an entire school of fish had washed ashore with the tide, thanks to an argument between teacher and student.
"Let's hope Niall is a better healer than Vadim." Stan shuddered as though he recalled the same memory.
In his cabin, Efren propped the door open with his captain's chair under the handle to air it out a bit. The room still smelled of sex, but a quick burst of Stan's air made it better. Efren stripped the bedding and moved his dirty clothes to the deck, which helped even more.
"I hope you keep him," Stan mumbled as he shuffled past the table to sit on the far corner of the bunk.
"Why?" He and Stan had been friends since they were boys, but this was the first they'd ever spoken of Efren's relationships. They spent far more time talking about how Stan and Tovey had fucked up their on-again, off-again arrangement, but those conversations had been very one-sided of late.
"I meant what I said earlier." Stan stared at the stone paperweight in the shape of an anchor before him. "You look younger when you're with him. I've known you most of our lives, and you've always had such a weight on your shoulders. Vadim only made it heavier. This one lightens the load a bit. He's good for you."
Efren had to agree, and he was surprised at Stan's astute observation. If only Stan had enough distance to view his own relationship through the same lens.
They spent the rest of the morning detailing star charts and updating the island's maps to match the updates they'd made at sea. Then, they discussed preparations for their trip to Equis Island the following day.
They returned to Petri's stand for lunch and found Niall and Beatrice there, too.
"How did it go?"
"Water isn't my best."
