Page 34 of Tell No Tales
"She sailed us down with no problem," Hannah said, startling them both with their nearness. They nodded to where the ship was coming around. They'd unraveled a free sail on deck. "We're in for a show."
"She always wanted to fly." Olivia shook her head. "Too bad our family are water weavers."
As an adult, Nola was always smaller than Vadim remembered. In his head, she was larger than life, especially since she'd towered over him at her adult height when she was twelve and he was six. She looked tiny as she grabbed both ends of the sail, and even smaller as the wind weavers hefted the sail into the air. They pushed her up and over the ship's railing.
Nola let out a whoop as she drifted between the two ships. "Well met,Starlight Specter!"
"What happened to asking if you could board?" Olivia shouted over the rustle of the sails.
"Sister, would you dare deny me?"
Olivia laughed and shook her head.
Nola's tricorn hat fell from her head and landed on the deck. The sail quickly deflated without wind. She dropped to the deck and rolled to her feet, leaving the ends of the sail behind her. "It's so good to see you!"
Nola was a good three inches shorter than Olivia, but one would never know from the way she stood on her toes to give her a hug. They both had the same long black hair pulled back in a thick braid, though Nola's was more shot through with gray.
"You're here as my sister, then?" Olivia asked. "Not as a foe?"
"Foe?" Nola glanced over her shoulder at Vadim, and her eyes hardened for a moment before returning to her sister's face. "Never. We all want what's best for Embertide, and Aquarion. I'm here to make sure you don't take it easy on that snake."
Vadim took a step back, looking for something to put between him and the rival captain if he was the snake in question.
She turned on him before he found a suitable barrier. "Martiz," she hissed. "Take me to him. It's too bad you broke his knife. I wanted to cut him with it, but this will do." Nola pulled a blade as long as her forearm from the sheath inside her knee-high boot.
"Hold up, there, Captain," Efren called. "Put that away before you hurt someone."
"Oh, I intend to hurt someone." She turned to Vadim. "You aren't the only one he's cut. Take me to him."
"Don't you dare," Olivia said. "We need him to barter for Hugo's release."
"Coryn won't release the emperor to you, no matter what you bring her. Let me kill him now while his death will mean something." Nola shook with rage, so much that the blade trembled in her grip. Vadim could relate.
"To whom?" Olivia placed her fists on her hips and leaned down, almost headbutting her sister. "You'd risk everything we've done for some revenge?"
"You know what he did to me." Nola deflated a little with those words, and she looked less confident when she turned to Vadim. "Please. I have to know what he hoped to accomplish with me. I was already a water weaver when …"
Vadim shook his head. "You won't learn anything from him. I think I've got the answer from one of Hesse's journals, though. Healers had been experimenting with the stone on other weavers to see if it would make them spectral."
"And?"
He shook his head. "It did not."
She nodded. "Damn right. I'm no spectral weaver."
"You can do things no other water weaver can," Vadim said, trying to keep his voice gentle and still be heard over the waves now crashing against both of their ships asWildfirehad pulled alongside them.
"You think Martiz made that possible?" she asked.
"No," he said. "I think you did. You honed your water listening skill because you wanted to know when he was coming for you."
She swallowed hard. "Yes."
"You're better than this," he said. "He's not worth your blade, and you don't want his blood on your hands. Coryn will kill him for us, in good time."
She shrugged. "Either way, I want in. What's the plan?"
Vadim's plan had been to go in alone, dragging Martiz behind him, and the gods help anyone who stood in his way. Nola would only complicate things, the way she always did. At least this time she was on Vadim's side, or so he hoped.
