éli pressed a dagger against the trembling figure’s throat. Wreckage floated across the harbor, upended chunks of wooden hull sinking beneath the stormy waves. The great silver beast lay dying on its side near the harbor wall. Life must still pulse through its veins, but he only had one thing on his mind.

  “Can you find the boy or not?” he asked.

  He’d never had a chance to get to the high council and exchange the faux-key for Connor. With the ship in pieces, he needed to know his son still lived.

  “I-If…” Their lower lip trembled as they pulled their spindly knees to their chest.

  They swallowed against the blade, blood beading along the sharp edge. The rail-thin dreamwalker tried to speak again, their lips and tongue stuttering without sound, but they nodded to show éli what they couldn’t speak.

  “Try anything, and I’ll make your former master look like a lapdog.” éli sheathed the dagger and tossed over the cuff keys. Who knew how many soldiers were left in the wake of devastation or if Connor’s small body already lay at the bottom of the harbor. The thought of anyone killing his son drove a spike through the center of his chest. “Find my son.”

  The dreamwalker’s hands shook as they inserted the flat slip of marble into the stone circlet until it clicked open and the cuffs fell away. They pushed their hands through their mousy brown hair.

  éli searched the sea, clenching his dagger hilt until his knuckles were white.

  A soft voice whispered at the fringes of his mind, the tone surprisingly gentle and reserved. I ask permission to see a memory of your son.

  éli nodded, the dagger’s hilt digging into his palm. The dreamwalker’s whisper of power slipped between his thoughts and retreated almost as quickly, leaving in its wake a single name: Evardo.

  Not like éli cared, but he supposed he couldn’t call the bastard Hey You. “If my son’s alive, he’ll be among the debris.”

  Evardo closed their eyes then pointed across the harbor toward the silver beast. He’s frightened.

  éli’s gaze slipped from the gray swells to the wine-colored sails disappearing into the storm. Jon and his men were gone again, leaving him behind to clean up their mess. He clenched his jaw to hold back the anger gripping his senses.

  “Commander.” A young soldier with sandy brown hair saluted him. “We’re ready to go.”

  “Head for the sky beast.” Golden sails with a black sun whipped in the storm. The smooth vessel slid away from the dock, the burly hevkor shouting at his men.

  But dark power thrummed below the deck, one of the high council, Kóranté Alken, who lurked in the hevkor’s private quarters. His black threads of power rippled through the brand on éli’s shoulder, holding him bound to the ship. He’d give anything to be free of the old men, free of the Tower caging him in a web of lies.

  Today, all he wanted was his son.

  They sailed slowly through the wreckage, tossing ropes to any soldier still alive as thunder rumbled across iron gray clouds. The ship slowed close to the silver beast. Metallic entrails hung out of a hole in its chest.

  “Stop the ship.” éli hastened to the rail, leaning far over as a shadow moved within. “Connor!”

  A small face peeked around a jagged tear, black hair slicked against his head.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  éli climbed on the rail and leapt the gap between them, landing on the slippery interior. He grasped the edge to hold himself steady. Metal sliced open his palm, but he ignored the sting and crouched in front of the quivering boy.

  “You’re alive,” he said, his tone neutral. “You’re stronger than I thought.”

  Connor pressed his back against the side, water dripping from his clothes as he clutched his small arm. Tears reddened his eyes, his voice the merest whisper. “A Guardian tried to kill us.”

  One sleeve still intact, Connor’s left arm was bare, obsidian burned into his bony shoulder. The Tower and two moons emblem with a thread of Alken’s power touching the surface.

  Rage ignited in the pit of éli’s stomach. “Who branded you?”

  His brother Sebastian had fought for years to keep them well fed so éli never had to know the pain of being a soldier. So he would always be a free man, until Jon Ayers destroyed everything by digging a knife into his brother’s spine.

  History was repeating itself as Connor clutched his arm, hiccupping between sobs. Unless he lopped the boy’s arm off, his son was bound to the Tower now.

  éli punched the sky beast in frustration.

  Every man needed two good sword arms. He would find a way to keep the boy from becoming a soldier, but he wouldn’t toss his arm away—not yet.

  “Guardians ain’t real, boy. What’s that damn mother of yours teaching you?” But with the urge to smack the nonsense out of the kid, even éli had witnessed the high council’s barge explode down to the keel. If Jon protected a Guardian and felt something for the woman…

  A faint smile pulled at the corner of his mouth.

  “S-Someone lives here.” Connor lifted a shaking hand, pointing over éli’s shoulder.

  éli unsheathed the dagger and whipped around, the blade held high.

  A burly man in loose, gray clothing lay against the beast’s innards, one hand pressed against his stomach with blood leaking between his fingers. Several deep cuts lined his arms and cheek, bruised skin circled his eyes. One of his legs bent at an odd angle as if broken.

  Someone had beat the hell out of him. The stranger clasped a glowing metal object in his hand and aimed it at éli. “Kóro.”

  The urge to kill the dying fucker grasped éli by the throat, but he didn’t know if the man held part of the beast or some type of weapon. A glass window next to him illuminated with a figure’s head, his hair glowing green like the dalanath and slicked to his head. “Oné Frank.”

  “The fuck is this thing?” éli stepped between Connor and man moving on the glass. “Get to the ship, boy.”

  But the injured man started screaming at the glass and pounding his fist against small lights. “Bradshaw, bareh ró!”

  Evardo whispered against éli’s thoughts, a vague image of Jon’s woman screaming in pain. Don’t let him find the Guardian. Kill him.

  éli’s shoulders wound tight. “Who the fuck are you?”

  The glass turned smoky black and the face disappeared, but the injured man with the shaved head shifted his hand to the side, a loud pop as the metal object in his hand burned a hole in the beast. “Kóro!”

  éli wasn’t sticking around long enough for the bastard to use that weapon on him, and he wasn’t certain he could get his knife in the man’s throat fast enough. He yanked Connor to his feet. “Jump to the ship, or I throw you across.”

  “Who—” Connor glanced at the waiting vessel then back at éli with eyes as black as his. “Who are you?”

  éli pressed his mouth into a thin line. Tightening his grip on Connor’s arm, he threw the kid over his shoulder and leapt off the beast onto the ship’s deck, dropping his son next to Evardo. “I’m your real father, boy. You’re lucky that bitch mother of yours is dead or I’d kill her myself.”

  He snapped his fingers at Evardo. “You, take care of the boy and finish stitching up my horse.”

  Power thrummed against his skin, a distant tug calling to him. éli could sense the rest of the high council beyond the harbor, waiting like locusts. Most Rakir wouldn’t feel more than an urge to head to sea, but the dark threads of power tugged him toward the fleet of ships beyond the horizon.

  éli ignored their pull and tossed the cuffs toward Evardo. “Put those on, or the high council will figure out what you are.”

  And he’d never see his new servant again. That still left the half-alive high councilman below decks to deal with.

  Hands shaking around the cuffs, Evardo tried to hide their tears as they cuffed themself with the stone, keeping the unlocking slip of marble clutched in their hands.

  éli grabbed Connor’s shoulder, the skinny runt barely coming halfway up his chest. “How old are you now, boy?”

  “Seven.” His wide eyes glanced around at the other soldiers. “Sir.”

  “Good, old enough to be a man. Get to the rail and search for anyone in a uniform like mine. We’ll need more soldiers where we’re going.”

  To destroy your uncle. The boy might never forgive him, but he didn’t care. Jon deserved to suffer—for Sebastian, for Connor and for the pain in éli’s heart that hadn’t eased once since his tenth naming day.