Blood soaked éli’s uniform, his body tensing with each slice across his back. At twelve years old, he’d tried to run away from the other orphans. When the Rakir returned him to the Tower, Kóranté Dràven had given him his first lesson in submission.

  The scars from that first encounter still lined his back, just as the brand on his shoulder had destroyed the last remnants of his birthmark. His Guardian had marked him from birth with a rearing horse wreathed in flames.

  “You’re going to do great things, little brother,” Sebastian had said to him every night before bed. “A few more years and we can leave this place. You’ll never have to endure the shame I feel every day of my life.”

  Clenching his fist until his knuckles were white, éli tried to block out the nerve-shattering pain. He had to be stronger to honor his brother’s memory. Stronger than his son.

  And he couldn’t let Jon’s betrayals be what bound him to this fate.

  His vision blurred as Alken grabbed his hair and yanked his head back. “You can no longer be trusted, Commander. Unless you find me the bloodflower, I will slice open your son’s throat and leave him to die at the bottom of the sea.”

  Alken’s head straightened as a strong, sure voice whispered into éli’s thoughts. Don’t feed him your power. You’re stronger than him.

  Evardo.

  The air lightened, small flecks of dark dust lifting away from the chained woman’s skin and flowing toward the old man. The same dusty flecks lifted away from his hand and twisted toward the old man. Alken was siphoning power.

  These women weren’t sex slaves—they were magic wielders.

  Herana needs you. Save her, Evardo’s voice whispered.

  What in all of Sandaris would Jon’s woman need him for? But in his blinding pain, he latched on to Evardo’s voice.

  The Guardian needed éli, not Jon.

  Not Jon.

  This thought was like music to his ears. The idea that he could make Jon feel the full weight of his pain and humiliation drove him to push back. He needed someone to take his pain, to free him from the anguish of Sebastian’s death.

  éli punched the floor, his magic flowing like silk through his veins. He ached to unleash it, but Alken must have been using his own strength against him.

  Sweat beaded across his brow as he focused on Alken’s face, holding tight to the Dark Flame’s silken power and pulling it deeper inside himself.

  “No!” Alken released éli’s hair and slapped him hard across the cheek. “You serve me.”

  “Not anymore, old man.” éli pulled harder, siphoning pain and fear and desperation until the air snapped. The flow of power reversed, the weight on his body unburdening.

  “Give it back!” Alken bolted across the room and yanked the dagger out of the dead woman in a desperate attempt to protect himself.

  éli stumbled to his feet and ripped his sword from its sheath, slicing the old man’s head off his shoulders.

  Long, white strands tumbled across the room, and the head hit the wall, dropping into the corner with the light gone from his vivid blue eyes.

  “Mother fucking prick.”

  The pressure eased on éli’s back, pain still screaming from the cutting gouges. But the bone-deep anguish had withered away with the old man’s power.

  éli retrieved his dagger and wiped both blades clean, returning them to their sheaths.

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  “Please,” the woman whispered, lifting her chained arms. “Help me.”

  He stormed out of the room and slammed the door behind him. Wiping the sweat from his neck, he trudged back on deck to a heavy silence. Tyken lay dead with a sword in his spine, the last three loyal soldiers surrounded by éli’s men.

  “Everyone on deck,” éli shouted above the gathering storm. “This ship belongs to me now, and we do not serve those white-haired bastards. You follow my orders or get the fuck off my ship.”

  A shadow moved near midship, the half-naked woman with her chains gone and murderous hate in her eyes. She spread her arms to the sky and burst into a flock of gold-and-black finches, disappearing into the fog. Granger would be pissed, but it was one less mouth to feed.

  “You heard the commander.” Granger walked along the line of soldiers, pointing the tip of his sword toward them. “He is the law now.”

  Anger burned in the last three loyal soldiers, but the others lined up in front of éli and pressed their fists to their left shoulders. “We follow you, Commander.”

  Evardo lingered at the fringes of his mind, his silent way of asking for entry. As quick as a silver fish, he had the names of four soldiers who were already plotting éli’s murder.

  Tell Granger, éli snarled.

  One by one, Granger drove his sword into each of the four men’s chests and tossed their bodies overboard.

  éli strode across the wood planking, his boots ringing a hollow sound. “Someone bring me a map.”

  As his men scurried to carry out his command, Connor crept up on deck with Evardo at his side.

  éli crouched in front of his son and fixed his gaze on the boy. “Are you willing to do anything to find your uncle?”

  A streak of hesitation blazed across Connor’s eyes as they welled up with tears. But he lifted his chin and wrung his fingers together. “Yes, sir.”

  éli wasn’t certain if he despised his son because he carried Ayers blood in his veins or if he was jealous of him. The boy was the endeavor of trying to find a weakness in Jon, and he wasn’t about to let that go to waste.

  “Good. Then you do exactly as I say.” He signaled Evardo over.

  “Yes, sir.” Connor lowered his head, tears sliding down his cheeks.

  “And don’t cry, or I’ll pitch you over the rail.” He stood tall when his men brought out a map and unrolled it across a stack of crates.

  Evardo followed, shoulders hunched inside the makeshift uniform, pieced together from what was left of the dead Rakir they’d found in the harbor. Their rail-thin body swam inside the clothing.

  “Find the woman.” éli gestured toward the sea. “She can’t be more than a day ahead of us.”

  Evardo seemed to hesitate as they eased their mind toward éli’s. You and the Guardian burn with the fires at the heart of Sandaris. She needs you, and one day, you may need her.

  Leaning his hands against the table, éli sized Evardo up once more. He ought to punch the bastard for daring to make any form of a demand, but the scrawny dreamwalker kept his head down in deference.

  “I’ll do what I damn well please with that woman. Her only value is in her ability to hurt Jon.” éli slapped the table, startling Evardo. “Are we clear?”

  Their body tightened, and they bowed low. “Y-Yes.”

  “What are we looking for?” Granger, his brawny second in command, scratched his thick beard. He wore a patch over the hole where his eye had been, his good blue one hard as flint.

  “Change of plans.” éli scanned the coastlines, poking his finger on several cities along the northern shore. Hezérin was on the northwest corner of the Dark Isle and in the opposite direction of the fleet but much too far for anyone to travel without a ship full of goods.

  The wheels in éli’s mind turned. Take the bait the high council offered or follow Jon. Connor could be of use, but the biggest payoff now was the woman: both a Guardian and someone Jon showed clear feelings for. Just the thought of such a volatile combination in a woman made éli ache for vindication.

  Yet he still couldn’t ignore his own curiosity. What had Dràven found that could bait Jon Ayers? Perhaps another family relic, but it had to be something more precious than his own nephew.

  Dràven couldn’t possibly have anything Jon wanted more. éli leaned over the map and tapped his finger against the two most likely cities, trying to guess where the other ship would land. Jon and his men would need supplies, and that meant they’d want to slip in and out of any city unnoticed.

  Something roared in the sky, and éli’s head jerked toward the clouds. Several sky beasts, their skin lit up with different colored lights, blazed through the storm—gone in a matter of seconds.

  They’re searching for her, Evardo spoke into his mind. They will tear her apart until there is nothing left.

  Not when I have her, he snapped back.

  Another glance at the map and éli chose the nearest city, right in the path of the sky beasts. “We sail to Felaren and slip into the city at night. You two”—he pointed a pair of younger soldiers—“sell off whatever we don’t need to resupply our stock.”

  “Yes, Commander,” they said in unison.

  éli had nearly thirty men at his command now, not including the boy or his new servant.

  “And what about the high council, sir?” a younger soldier asked.

  For the first time in his life, he could not feel the high council’s power thrumming through his brand. He never wanted to be within a thousand spans of them again.

  “They sail for the darkness.” His men didn’t need to know any truth other than what he told them. “We follow Jon Ayers.”