Spryne was gone. So was Kvelir. The moment Yethyr started coughing, the watersinger looked to the fallen copper lockbox he had betrayed his people for; he looked to me with even more greed in his eyes, and then finally, he looked to Jaetheiri, who would kill him with me if he tried to act on any greed, old or new. Kvelir chose life and fled, leaping into the lake and swimming downriver.
Toward the selkies.
Jaetheiri didn’t stop him, focused only on the living, breathing Yethyr in her arms. Water softened and darkened his copper curls. The same had happened to Jaetheiri herself. I hadn’t realized how long Brinn hair truly was until now. The water had straightened Jaetheiri’s hair so much it was brushing Yethyr’s bleeding cheek. There was a small cut from where I touched him.
So much had happened on that rock in the middle of the lake. Bodies bloodied the stone and the water surrounding it, but when the Prince at last opened his eyes, it was only his huntguard in view.
And me.
“Jaethe,” Yethyr rasped. “I don’t suppose you’re here to take me to Heaven?”
Jaetheiri’s relief hit her so hard that it manifested as rage.
“You,” she spat. “You inconsiderate son of a witch!”
Yethyr sighed. “I take it I’m alive then.”
“But you weren’t!” she cried. “You were dead! Spryne came to take you and—”
“I know. He taunted me as I drowned. It’ll be fun to taunt him back when I see him in my dreams tonight.”
“I didn’t know what to do! Seals attacked. Water attacked. Allies attacked. A demon attacked and there was nothing I could do!”
“You saved me. That’s what you did.” Yethyr smiled, warm and satisfied and triumphant.
Jaetheiri rankled at the strange smugness in his eye. “Why must you keep throwing yourself off ledges? One of these days I will be wise enough not to throw myself off too!”
“I was entranced by music!” Yethyr protested. “I didn’t mean to throw myself off this time!”
“This time! So you admit it was intentional last time!”
Yethyr curled his lip. “You knew exactly what I was doing as I was doing it. You may wish never to speak of that day, and I will respect your wish, but that does not give you leave to misremember it. Don’t fabricate dishonesty between us.” He suddenly looked vulnerable, more vulnerable than he looked even when he was dead. “Especially not about that. I have never been more honest than when I was with you, on the edge of freefall, with the Oredreirium below us.”
Jaetheiri’s anger left her. She fussed with his soaked hair, more to remind herself that he was alive than anything else. “...forgive me. That was unkind to say, especially when you just woke up.”
“Did you call my name when I was dead?”
“I...no. I didn’t.”
“I suppose it couldn’t have been that bad then.” He hummed, starting up the deathsong that puppeted his body.
Jaetheiri went to help him sit up and numbly realized she was still holding me. Then she remembered the thought that I had planted within her about how I gave Yethyr strength and she rushed to return me to his belt.
I wanted to laugh. Thrice now she had killed with me and thrice now she had overcome the greed leeching off my steel to give me to her prince, this time without any convincing to do so.
My father had to be offended at his work being ignored, even all the way down in Hell.
I was just relieved. Being with Yethyr, seeing through his eyes, and slipping back into his thoughts was familiar. It was almost shameful how comforting I found his mental presence.
When Jaetheiri let me go, I felt our bond stretch again, but it was stronger than it had been before.
Now the blood of three Brinn hunters bound her to me.
Yethyr watched Jaetheiri return me with a frown. “Did you use it?”
“I had no choice.” She helped him sit up slowly. “It was the only thing that could touch Spryne.”
Yethyr’s frown only deepened when he saw Dathari’s body. “It seems you used it before Spryne ever showed up.”
“It was Dathari who took it from you. I had to wrestle her for it. The outcome was…regrettable.”
“She looked up to you,” Yethyr said. “I am shocked she stole it. I took her for a devout believer.”
“I do not think she was herself. Whatever madness afflicted you seemed to take her as well.”
“Really?” Yethyr considered. “I find that difficult to believe. The music was watersong. None of us should have been able to hear it, to begin with. I only heard because I was using Bonesong’s senses, so it stands to reason that Dathari would only be afflicted after she took the sword from me, not before. Unless…”
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I could feel the shape of his thoughts. Demons below, I forgot how fast he could think.
“Jaethe, did you feel connected to Bonesong while you were in the water?”
Jaetheiri opened her mouth to deny it but then paused. “Now that you mention it, yeah. I weirdly did.”
“Did you hear anything in the water?”
“No, but that would be because I plugged my ears with the wax earplugs I found in Arsari’s pack. After you were ranting and raving about music in the water, I didn’t want to risk it.”
“Smart. That probably saved your life—” Yethyr gawked at the capsized hull of The Wily Seal in the center of a now tranquil lake. “Maethe,” he breathed. “The selkie seals did that to the ship?”
“And tried to kill me,” she reminded. “Strangely, they ignored you but it seemed like the whole lake swarmed me.”
“Perhaps they sensed I was affected by their song and you weren’t.”
I was thankful that was the conclusion he reached. He didn’t need to know I had urged on that attempt on her life.
Yethyr looked at the fallen boat. It very well may have been the last Flazean ship to sail and he had captained it to ruin.
I grieved at the loss. So did he. We were so tangled together at this point that it was hard to say if he felt that grief on his own or was just feeling mine.
Regardless of the truth, he quickly attributed the sensation to the loss of the crew.
“Many of us didn’t know how to swim,” he whispered.
“The thralls almost certainly drowned,” Jaetheiri said sadly. “I believe most of the hunters could swim though.”
“That may not matter.” Yethyr sighed. “I’ll have to ask Wesed, wherever he is, but I think Bonesong’s strange powers can travel through water in a way it can’t through air. If I’m right, that means everyone who fell into the water was affected by the song. Even those who could swim might not have tried.”
Jaetheiri scowled. “So all this is the sword’s fault?”
“Bonesong didn’t mean it,” Yethyr insisted. “It was affected by the song and wanted to share its ecstasy with me. There wasn’t any malice in it. What happened was an accident.”
I was startled by his fervent defense. It was comical. The one time I let him taste my true self happened to be the one time I wasn’t feeling malice toward him. In the throes of the selkie’s song, I had even been magnanimous enough to forgive him. What a strange view he must have of me, experiencing only what watersong had inspired me to feel.
Jaetheiri was wisely skeptical. “You don’t know that.”
“I do. Bonesong shared its senses with me. For a moment, we were one, as one as a Heavenly Fang could be to Maethe. I could hear the song of the world as clearly as it could. I could feel its emotions as if they were mine.”
“The sword has emotions?” Jaethe was baffled.
“It is not some dumb beast in the shape of a sword. He…” Yethyr frowned and shook his head. “It thinks and feels like a man. It’s intelligent. I was foolish to assume otherwise just because it doesn’t communicate the way we do.”
Jaetheiri was wary. “Can it understand us?”
I tried desperately not to panic, knowing Yethyr would feel it if I did.
“I’m not sure. It could at the time, but it is hard to say if that understanding came from our connection itself. It is possible it doesn’t understand words.”
Yes, I thought desperately. Keep thinking that.
“It’s retreated back into itself now. Perhaps it distrusts me; perhaps it’s shy. I won’t know for sure until I coax it back into opening itself to me again.”
I struggled not to scoff. I was never going to let that happen again.
“Again?” Jaetheiri scowled. “Why would you want to experience that again? You drowned because it opened itself to you. You died! All because it allowed you to hear a song.”
“Because it wanted me to experience it, Jaethe! You didn’t hear it. The selkies sang of family and peace. They made you believe they have everything your heart yearns for. Bonesong heard it and immediately opened itself to me so that I could hear it too. It wanted to share Heaven itself with me. Don’t you see? The profound generosity of such an act.”
It had been a selfish act in truth. I had just wanted him to get me to the water and he was the only one who could carry me there. I found myself uncomfortable with Yethyr’s misunderstanding, useful to me though it was. I didn’t deserve praise for kindness I didn’t even extend.
Yethyr grew hushed. “How could a man, even one such as Daened, fabricate that kind of humanity? That kind of passion! I can’t describe the feeling. It…loves so deeply, Jaethe.”
I was struck. Love was Zunad and Frida laughing together as I was forged into shape. Love was Erjed picking up Malinda as Datrea burned around them. Love was, loathed as I was to admit it, Jaetheiri wiping the blood from Yethyr’s cheek.
“Loves what?” she asked and it was a good question. I had just annihilated an entire ship because of the hatred Yethyr had failed to see. That word had no business being associated with me.
“Datrea. Its people. Its makers. The blacksmiths were its family and it grieves and regrets their deaths.” My steel shuddered. It was a frightening thing to hear Yethyr speak my tender truths aloud. “Its family pounded the poor thing into a cursed weapon of destruction and still, it misses them.”
“Sounds familiar,” Jaetheiri said drily, but Yethyr very deliberately ignored her.
“I do not understand why Daened made this instrument of death capable of such compassion. Perhaps it was an unavoidable side effect or even a mistake. I can’t imagine it was an intentional design to make a sword sweet.”
I reeled at such a description of myself. Only Malinda was naive enough to think I was sweet and that was a despicable comparison.
Malinda did not deserve to be compared with a monster like Yethyr.
I pressed upon his mind to change the subject, any subject to stop my nemesis from expanding upon my non-existent virtues.
I was relieved when Jaetheiri did it for me.
“Well, your sweet sword stranded us in the middle of the lake.”
“That’s true.”
“I am loathed to swim in selkie-infested waters to reach the shore.”
“I am hesitant to repeat my drowning, yes,” Yethyr said with humor.
Jaetheiri shrugged. “I guess we’re staying on this rock indefinitely.”
“Indeed. Perhaps you should take up fishing.” They looked at one another and suddenly Yethyr was giggling and Jaetheiri was laughing with her eyes.
I didn’t think the joke was particularly funny, but it seemed the stress of Jaetheiri’s battles, Yethyr’s death, and the whole situation in general bled out of them all at once.
“I doubt it’ll come to that. I should be able to make a bridge.”
Jaetheiri snorted. “Out of what?”
“Fishbones. The lake floor must be littered with them.”
“A bridge?” Jaetheiri was incredulous. “Enough to make a bridge that big?”
“I could try.”
Yethyr never ended up making that bone bridge. Someone came to pick them up first.
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Is Bonesong sweet?
