Marked for Death

Chapter 64

Kandler reached down and smacked the changeling across the face. “Wake up!” he said.

Te’oma opened her eyes, and the world swam around her. Kandler slapped her again, “Wake up!”

“Boss,” Burch said, “we can chase her on horses.”

“We can’t catch an airship from horseback,” Kandler said as he pulled Te’oma to her feet. “We need a way to fly.”

The changeling felt the justicar start to remove her cloak, and she fought back. She pushed against him with feeble arms, and he growled at her.

“Just give me that cloak!”

Te’oma shook her head. “Kill me,” she said, her voice rough and raw.

“I don’t have time for that,” the justicar said. “Just show me how this thing comes off!”

“It doesn’t!” the changeling said.

He kept shaking her, and her cloak unfurled into a limp pair of massive, batlike wings.

“I’m taking it,” the justicar said, “if I have to rip it off you. I’m not letting my daughter go down on a runaway ship!”

“That won’t work,” Sallah said. Kandler swung his head around to see the lady knight limping over toward the others. Bloodstains dripped from the many holes in her armor, but she had stopped bleeding. He suspected she’d used her healing powers on herself this time, but they’d barely been enough to get her back on her feet.

“Don’t tell me that,” the justicar said.

“That isn’t a cloak,” Sallah said, coughing. “It’s a symbiont. A living creature attached to the host in-”

“Spare me the lesson!” Kandler raged. “How do I put it on?”

With every second they stood there talking, Esprл sailed farther and farther away.

Sallah shook her head as she stopped in front of the justicar. “You’d have to kill her to get it off her.”

Kandler had no problem with that. He’d wanted to kill the changeling since he first saw her, and now he had every reason to do so. He wrapped his hands around Te’oma’s throat and squeezed. The changeling started to turn blue.

“No!” Sallah said. She punched Kandler in his injured shoulder. The justicar cried out as he let loose of the changeling’s neck. He fought the impulse to strike back at the Sallah. No matter what kind of feelings he might have for her, no one was going to stand between him and his daughter.

“Would you listen? You’d have to remove the wings carefully and then graft them onto yourself. It takes hours!”

Kandler shoved the changeling into Xalt’s arms and snarled at the lady knight. “We don’t have that kind of time!”

“You don’t think I know that?” Sallah said.

Through his one good eye, Kandler stared off after the airship as she receded toward the east. He felt like his heart might drop straight out of his chest. There had to be something he could do.

Somewhere behind the Mournland’s mists, the sun was setting, and the sky was growing dark. The ring of fire stood out against it in stark contrast. It grew smaller with each passing moment.

“Let me go,” Te’oma said, struggling in Xalt’s arms.

Kandler turned on the changeling. “If I had a sword, I’d cut you down here and now,” he said.

“No,” Te’oma said. “I mean, I’ll save her.”

Kandler frowned. “You’ll kill her.” Despite his fury at the changeling, she held out the only hope he had, and he hated her for it.

“No.” The changeling shook her head. “I won’t.”

“How can I trust-?”

“Let her go,” Sallah said quietly. “She won’t kill her.”

Kandler turned. “How do you know? Huh? After all she’s done, how can you say that? How?”

“Because,” Sallah said. She looked deep into Kandler’s eyes. “She wants Esprл alive, remember? She has the mark.”

Kandler looked up at the airship as she coasted away into the darkening sky. If he let the changeling go, she would rescue Esprл, but what then? He knew Te’oma wouldn’t turn around and bring the girl back. She’d point the ship toward Karrnath and be gone.

“Boss,” Burch said. Kandler turned to him. “If Esprл was all right, she’d’ve turned around by now. She flies that thing better than anyone. Something’s wrong.”

Kandler knew Burch was right, but he froze. If he let the ship sail off on her own, Esprл might die, but then the Mark of Death would be gone forever. If Te’oma got her hands on Esprл, there was no telling what could happen to the girl. In the end, he didn’t really have a choice.

Kandler reached out and took Xalt’s hands from the changeling. “Go,” he said to her.

Te’oma unfurled her wings, stretching them out to their full span. Their batlike shape made Kandler think of the changeling as if she were some kind of demon, the sort that takes children from their parents in the dead of night.

“She’s right,” the changeling said to Kandler. “I won’t hurt her.”

“Just go,” Kandler said. “Hurry! And you’d better hope she’s in one piece when I finally hunt you down.”

“Happy hunting.” Te’oma smiled and flapped off into the deepening night.

When Te’oma caught with the airship, she saw Esprл hanging limp in the leather strap that held her to the wheel. Te’oma landed, folded the wings, and rushed to the girl. From the look of her, Esprл had smashed her head into the ship’s wheel when the ship put an end to Bastard. Blood trickled from her forehead and down her face.

The changeling undid the strap from around Esprл’s waist and laid the girl out gingerly on the bridge. She looked dead.

Te’oma knelt down and put her ear to the girl’s chest. The heartbeat brought a smile to Te’oma’s lips. As she leaned back, Esprл’s eyes fluttered open, and the girl looked up at the changeling.

“It’s all right,” Te’oma said. She held the injured girl close and stroked her long, blonde hair. “It’s going to be all right.”

The airship kept sailing toward far-off Karrnath, beyond the Mournland’s misty walls, and the changeling did nothing to impede her course.