Total pages in book: 100
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93948 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 470(@200wpm)___ 376(@250wpm)___ 313(@300wpm)
Will I even miss Bastian? Nox? The friends I’ve made in my time wandering Threshold? Will I remember what I’ve lost? Or will my world narrow down to the earth beneath my paws, the taste of blood on my tongue, the flesh of my enemies between my teeth? Will I stop being Siobhan and turn into Cŵn Annwn and only Cŵn Annwn?
I hope so. To be trapped in a hunt and know I’m trapped sounds like an agony that would drive me mad. Better to lose myself completely.
I can’t tell Bastian and Nox. They’ll try to stop me, to find a different solution. I’ll be tempted to allow them to find another way, even though there is no other way. Haven’t I played out the alternate scenarios until I’m drowning in the theoretical blood that would be shed? There’s a reason the rebellion existed in the shadows for as long as possible. There is no viable alternate scenario.
What’s one life against thousands?
Because the Cŵn Annwn violence won’t stop with those actively rebelling. They’ll see the faces of people from so many islands in Threshold and they’ll fear that the unrest extends wider than they could imagine. So they’ll go on a campaign of terror to break the spirits of everyone under their jurisdiction, to squash any hope of freedom, any semblance of the fallacy that they protect instead of dominate.
I inhale slowly and exhale just as slowly. So be it. I knew my life might be payment for a better future. This bargain is just more explicit than I realized. I’m not even dying, not truly. Yes, Siobhan will cease to exist, but my body will go on.
There’s no point in worrying about it now. If I dwell on it too forcibly, then I’ll panic and try to find another way. There isn’t another way. There likely never has been.
This means I won’t be around to help Threshold get back on its feet, but Bastian is cleverer than he gives himself credit for. He’ll step up once he finally stops believing the fiction that he’s merely a worthless second son. And Nox will be there, one way or another. They might pretend their allegiance is only to their crew, but if that were true, they never would have joined the rebellion in the first place. They believe in the mission.
More, last night proved that things aren’t finished between them and Bastian. They’ll take care of him, and he’ll take care of them. They don’t need me to have a happy life. If Bastian had left Lyari with them fourteen years ago, they would have been together this entire time. The two of them never would have needed me.
That knowledge stings, but it’s comforting at the same time. They’ll be okay. Nox and Bastian have a community around them that firmly believes in their cause and has the power to back up that belief and make it into reality.
They simply need the threat of the Council and all their followers gone.
I shiver, and not even I can tell if it’s in anticipation or fear. No matter how little I’ve shifted fully previously, I’m a hound down to my very soul. Tearing out the rot in Threshold with my teeth is appealing.
I just have to live long enough to make it happen.
And lie to the two people I care most about in this world in the process.
Chapter 30
Bastian
In some ways, the following week is one of the happiest of my life. The days are filled with the intense work that comes with keeping a ship like the Audacity running, and my nights are filled with Siobhan and Nox. I never would have dared dream the three of us could carve out something that felt as natural as breathing.
And yet…
Something is wrong. It’s there in the moments after we collapse onto the sheets, our bodies sweaty and our exhales coming hard. It’s there in the silences that stretch a little too long when we talk about what happens after Lyari.
At first, I think Nox is the source. They’ve been cagey from the moment I came aboard, and though they share their body willingly enough, they hold part of themself in reserve. It makes sense. I’ve hurt them before; they don’t trust me not to hurt them again.
But on the morning we’ll reach Yoth, I wake up to Nox slipping out of bed the same way they do every morning. They pause to press a kiss to my knuckles before padding to the door and out of the room. I lie there, Siobhan curled around me as if she’s afraid she’ll lose me in her sleep, and I have to admit that Nox isn’t the problem.
There’s something wrong with Siobhan.
Her breathing isn’t quite steady enough to pass for sleep. I clear my throat. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”