The House Of Gaian

now?
    “Captain?”
    Do no harm . If he gave the order ... Burning ships. Burning men. Most would jump into the harbor to escape the fire. Could they swim? Could they manage to stay afloat long enough for their comrades in the other ships to rescue them? How many of them had wives, children, families? If he gave the order, would he be any different than the Inquisitor who had killed that other captain and set fire to the man’s ship?
    Would he?
    Do no harm . Not just his ship and the people on board her at stake. Those other ships following in his wake ... They wouldn’t survive, either.

    Great Mother, forgive me . “Fire the ships.”
    The Fae Lord turned to face the ships, staggering a little to keep his balance as Sweet Selkie ran with the wind.
    Fire bloomed in the two ships’ lifting sails. It burst from the wood in the bows. Oars caught the moment they were lifted from the water.
    They burned so fast.
    Close enough to hear shouts. Screams. Close enough to see men leaping from the ships, slapping the water in an awkward attempt to swim toward him.
    He sailed between the burning ships, offering no lifeline, no rope, no help.
    A burning mast cracked, fell. More screams.
    Come on, darling. Come on. Get us past before those ships sink.
    Sweet Selkie lifted as even more wind filled her sails, felt almost as if she were skimming the water.
    The harbor mouth. The open sea.
    He dared to look back. The smaller ships that followed him had made it, too, safely beyond the pull of the sea as the two Inquisitor ships sank to the bottom of the harbor.
    Safe . Safe, for now, in the open sea.
    The ship suddenly bucked. He clenched the wheel, but it burned. Something burned. He couldn’t seem to find the wind. He had to find the wind.
    The last thing he saw was his first mate and two crewmen running across the deck toward him as his legs buckled. The last thing he heard was his first mate saying he’d take the wheel, it would be all right.
    The last thing he remembered was someone grabbing his left shoulder as his mind spun down into the deep cradle of the sea.
    Ubel stood in the bow of his ship and pounded his fist on his thigh as his captain hastily prepared to sail after their fleeing prey.
    That filthy, witch-loving bastard had cost him good men and two fine ships! Master Adolfo would accept the loss as part of the cost of cleansing this filthy land—but not if that bastard captain managed to escape.
    No matter. He, Ubel, had the best ships—Wolfram ships. He had the best warriors. And if warriors weren’t enough, he had his fellow Inquisitors. No one could defeat men trained by the Witch’s Hammer.
    No one .
    That bastard captain thought he was getting away, but he was just leading the Inquisitors to the new lair.
    And when Ubel found him...
    He wouldn’t kill the bastard. Not right away. He’d punish him first for the trouble he’d caused, punish him for the deaths of Wolfram warriors—and the two Inquisitors who were on those ships when they burned. And after the bastard had received the initial punishment, he would take whatever bitch was dearest to the bastard’s heart and sharpen his knives against her bones.
    And she would still be alive while he did it.

 

     
     

Chapter 23

 

     
     

     
    waxing moon
     
    Since Keely was assigning garden chores to a handful of children and didn’t need her help, Breanna walked between the rows of crops until she reached the wooden water bucket resting on the kitchen garden’s stone wall. The water, after sitting in the sun all morning, was too warm to drink. She didn’t have to take a sip to know that. She could feel the heat in it.
    Resting her hand against the bucket, she quietly drew the heat of fire out of the water, through the wood, and, finally, into the stones. When she was done, she picked up the dipper resting in the bucket and drank. Cool. Delicious. She drank another dipperful, refilled it, then handed it to Keely when the other woman joined her.
    “The Mother has been bountiful,” Keely said, sipping the water while studying the garden with a sharp eye.
    These moments were the only ones when Keely sounded like the adult woman she was, the only moments when the emotional scars that had frozen her forever in a mental childhood receded. The only moments Breanna glimpsed the woman her mother might have been if the old baron, Liam’s father, hadn’
    t raped Keely when she was still a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Those moments hurt, but Breanna