Page 29 of Tell No Tales
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." They pointed to the surrounding sky, and the waves below. "I thought you'd like the view."
"It's beautiful." Klaus had never seen anything so pure. The water seemed to be darker than the sky, with its puffy white clouds.
"There's Equis, the northernmost, anyway." They pointed, but Klaus saw nothing. "Here. You'll need this." They handed him a scope made of soft wood and glass.
When he brought it to his eye, he was amazed by the clarity. He'd looked through naval scopes before, but they had all seemed a little cloudy. He wondered if his eyesight had improved with his healing, or if Hannah's scope was superior quality. Then, he noticed it, a hint of a water weave between the two lenses. "You spelled this?"
They blushed and nodded. "Like I said, we'd be lucky to see it. With a normal scope, we couldn't."
"Thanks for showing me."
They grinned. "You're welcome. It can get boring in the hold sometimes. Vadim hates it up here, so if you ever want to get away from him, you're welcome to join me. I wouldn't want you up here on your own, though, not until your first storm."
"Storms are bad?"
"I've been knocked off before," Hannah said. "Caught myself on a wave that nearly sank the ship. Captain was not happy." They squinted at him. "You don't have magic, though, do you? Even after this last bout of healing?"
"I don't think so," Klaus said. He'd heard the rumors that Martiz and other healers had healed Coryn so many times, she'd become a siphon. "I've only ever been a seeker, though my ability has improved over the years." He knew it had to do with each successive bout of healing, too. This last time, he thought he could probably lead them to ports of call simply by pointing in the direction of the largest gatherings of weavers. "Landale's that way," he pointed south. "Glamiere's … huge." He pointed to the north.
"Aye." Hannah nodded wistfully. "I miss home, sometimes."
"What's it like, growing up somewhere weavers are respected?" Klaus asked. He wasn't a weaver, but he knew enough of them to know life had been hard in Landale, even before the seekers came calling.
"You don't even think about magic," Hannah said. "Like breathing." They grinned. "People still feared me for the lightning, but I didn't blame them. It's tricky sometimes." They patted Klaus's knee. "What you did for Niall down there … you made him feel better than anything I could have said."
"He's been my friend forever." He swallowed hard, remembering how he'd repaid Niall for his kindness. "I don't deserve him. Here, I thought he was still mad at me, and he's beating himself up for hitting me with a stray bolt of lightning."
"He's a good one, I'll give you that." Hannah studied him. "You're harder on yourself than you need to be, too. You did what you must to survive."
Klaus scoffed at that. "It wasn't exactly a hardship. I love sex. Turning tricks seemed like a reasonable next step."
Hannah frowned at him. "I didn't mean the sex. Pleasure houses are noble work. Seeking, though. You're lucky to be alive. Being a seeker in Coryn's navy is far more dangerous than being a pirate."
"I suppose," Klaus said. "The one time I thought I might not make it to a healer, an air weaver sliced into me because I wouldn't sleep with him. I nearly bled out on Niall's doorstep."
And then Vadim had found him and changed everything by setting the life link. As Klaus stared at the serene blue water beneath the vibrant blue sky, he wondered how he ever thought he could walk away from Vadim after that.
"You called. I came."
Gods, he would never get the death weaver out of his system. While he was glad for the chance to explore what more they could be to each other, he was also more frightened than he'd ever been in his life. He'd never counted on anyone, and now that he could rely on Vadim, he didn't want to lose him.
Chapter 7
Vadim
Vadim had already re-read Delilah's letter three times, but he read it again, searching for more clues. He still didn't know why she'd sent Hesse's journal to him. It was a thick tome covering the four years Hesse spent at the academy. As much as Vadim wanted to immerse himself in it, he also dreaded what he would learn. What if Hesse hadn't loved Vadim as much as he'd said? Worse, what if he had only discussed schoolwork and hadn't mentioned Vadim at all?
As he re-read the letter, he knew one thing for certain. Delilah had been murdered. She knew too much about the academy, Coryn's plans for Hugo, and what lay beneath the surface of Stony Eel Island. She knew more about the island than the weavers Vadim had questioned. He now knew the size and shape of the object. It was a sunken building the same size as the academy's tower. Stony Eel Island had been Embertide's first attempt to build a weaver academy. The stone was supposed to make it easier for weavers to access their elements for the first time, but it had adverse effects on the earth weavers who had built it. Emperor Horatio had sunk the tower into the earth and buried it with volcanic rock by cutting a fissure through the sea floor.
Vadim still didn't know the connection between healers and mundane people becoming siphons, seekers, suppressors, and enchanters, but there had to be one. For a moment, he considered returning to the hold and asking the former healer how the stone knife worked, but he quickly changed his mind. Martiz had no reason to tell him the truth, and the knife, or what little was left of it, was safely hidden away in the caverns on Horseshoe Island, far from any healer who might use it on a hapless mundane person. Vadim would have better luck finding another healer, but they'd been purged from Hearthstone. The only one he knew off the top of his head was Yvette, a fellow pirate onWildfire. Vadim hoped he never saw her again as long as he lived.
The empress's letter didn't mention Hesse's journal. Only the note he'd burned connected the journal to her, and he didn't understand the significance.
Vadim stared at the journal's cover and took a few deep breaths to steady his racing heartbeat. The wax seal was blood red on the brown leather. The journal had been spelled shut with a protection spell that used healing magic. Vadim didn't remember seeing the journal before Stan had lifted it from the hold, and the spell wasn't his work. He'd removed the spell on the walk back to the crate, but he couldn't read past the first page, which identified the journal as Hesse's notes on healing and death magic.
Hesse wasn't a healer, but he had been obsessed with how the element worked. When Hesse had learned Vadim was a death weaver sent to learn balance at the academy, he'd latched onto Vadim and never let go.
