For Wreck and Remnant Read online

  CONTENTS

  FOR WRECK AND REMNANT

  FOR WRECK AND REMNANT

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  FOR WRECK AND REMNANT

  Secrets of Itlantis #4

  Other books by Kate Avery Ellison

  A Gift of Poison

  Frost (The Frost Chronicles #1)

  Thorns (The Frost Chronicles #2)

  Weavers (The Frost Chronicles #3)

  Bluewing (The Frost Chronicles #4)

  Aeralis (The Frost Chronicles #5)

  Of Sea and Stone (Secrets of Itlantis #1)

  By Sun and Saltwater (Secrets of Itlantis #2)

  The Curse Girl

  Once Upon a Beanstalk

  Discover more about Kate Avery Ellison’s upcoming books at http://thesouthernscrawl.blogspot.com/

  FOR WRECK AND REMNANT

  KATE AVERY ELLISON

  Copyright © 2015 Kate Avery Ellison

  All Rights Reserved

  Do not distribute or copy this book, in print or electronic format, in part or in whole, without the written consent of the author.

  ISBN-13: 978-1506026015

  ISBN-10: 150602601X

  For Scott

  CHAPTER ONE

  WHEN I WAS a child living in the Village of the Rocks, Kit and I would sometimes sneak away to play at the far end of the island, where a freshwater spring poured down a bone-white column of rock into the sea, and a hidden lagoon made a pool perfect for swimming out of sight of the village houses. We’d splash in the shallows, build little villages in the wet sand, and dive beneath in the crystal-green water that jumped and danced with sunlight to pluck shells from the ocean floor.

  Sometimes, Kit would climb the column of rock to the spring above and call down for me to follow. I’d shake my head, nervous about the crumbling footholds and the slippery wetness of the stone.

  “Trust me,” he’d say, laughing. “I’ll tell you exactly where to climb.”

  Once, he coaxed me into trying it. I made it halfway up the rock face before my hands lost their grip and I plunged into the water below. When I broke the surface, sputtering, Kit was cackling with laughter.

  “Sorry,” he called down. The sun made a halo around his hair as he bent over the side of the stones, and his curls blew in the wind. “That’s the slipperiest place. I won’t do it again, but you looked so funny when you fell.”

  I scowled in his direction and took myself to the opposite end of the lagoon to make a mermaid out of sand. And although he begged me to try again, I didn’t.

  ~ ~ ~

  I sat with my legs curled up against my chest, my chin pressed to my knees, my eyes shut. The Dron ship shuddered beneath me, and an echoing chug chug of the engines rang through the floor and vibrated against the soles of my boots. Rivets on the wall pressed into my spine, and I shivered in my wet clothes. The pain forced me to stay partially in the present, where I was a prisoner of the Dron once again, locked in a room with a flickering light, a sink in the corner, and a single bunk bolted to the wall.

  The other part of me was back in Primus, back with Kit and Merelus. In my mind’s eye, I saw them running, heading toward the Riptide while I stayed behind with a weapon pointed at my head and my heart falling.

  Had they made it?

  Was Merelus still alive?

  Had the Riptide escaped?

  An ache spread through my limbs, and tears crawled in my throat and made my nose sting, but they didn’t reach my eyes. I was not going to cry. I breathed in and out, making a ragged sound in the silence of the room. I remembered Garren’s words to me in the hallway when he’d taken me prisoner.

  We came here to get a bargaining chip for our dealings with Nautilus, and now that we’ve lost him, I don’t intend to return empty-handed.

  He’d dragged me away, and dropped us both into the ocean. We’d been picked up by a Dron ship. I had no idea where we were going now.

  I was a bargaining chip for Nautilus, at least according to Garren. Did they intend to trade me to him in exchange for peace?

  A shiver worked down my arms.

  I wasn’t going to take this without a fight. I needed a plan. We hadn’t yet traveled far. Perhaps there was a way I could escape.

  Even as I tried to think, guilt gnawed at me as I remembered my last words to my sister, Laimila.

  Your assassination attempt failed, but I know it was you. You really are a Graywater, like you said.

  She’d drawn back as if I’d slapped her, and in that moment, I’d shattered the fragile relationship we’d been building as sisters. And I’d been wrong. She hadn’t been behind the assassination attempt, and in accusing her I’d broken something that perhaps could not be fixed now. The realization throbbed like a bruise in my chest.

  The door split, and a figure stepped inside, boots clicking against the metal floor. I lifted my head, peering through my dripping hair at the intruder.

  Nol.

  He stepped inside and crossed his arms. I noticed the way his muscles stretched his shirt. He was taller now, stronger, and harder. His hair was shorter, and his eyes burned with determination.

  The door shut behind him, and he stood looking at me. His expression was unreadable, but I hoped mine wasn’t. Seeing him was desire wrapped in pain and threaded with fury. The rage was strongest, and it threatened to choke me unless I spit it out, but I bit down on the words and stayed silent. Better to let him talk first and see what he wanted.

  Nol studied me. A muscle in his jaw flexed, and I could tell he was trying to decide what to say.

  “I know you’re angry,” he began. “But it’s better this way.”

  I laughed, low and harsh. “Better? How could you possibly defend this? Are you that assured of your position?”

  So much for letting him talk first.

  His expression hardened. “Yes.”

  “I’m a bargaining chip for the Dron to use with Nautilus. I’m a prisoner who was kidnapped and dragged away, leaving my dying friend behind. How is this better?”

  “Dying friend?” His expression wavered, betraying a momentary flicker of concern.

  “Merelus was injured. He was dying. He might be dead now.” I spat the words even as pain splintered through my chest. I felt as fragile as cracked glass, as if one careless touch could shatter me.

  Nol released his breath. He had known Merelus—the old man had been our master when we’d first been captured by the Itlanteans. Nol had not been close to him the way I was, though, but I think he’d respected him all the same.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know. I... I’m sorry.”

  I believed he was sorry. It made me angrier, somehow. How could he be sorry, and yet do the things he’d done? How could he be working with the Dron instead of with us?

  “Let me go,” I said. “Give me a ship. I’ll go to Verdus myself. This doesn’t have to happen.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  Can’t. Hearing the word sha
ttered me. I broke into rage.

  “You’ll hand me over to Nautilus instead?”

  He shook his head. “Nobody is handing you over to Nautilus.”

  “You’re wrong.”

  Nol’s jaw flexed. He crossed his arms as if preparing to do verbal battle. “No, I’m not. Put your raging suspicion aside and let me help you.”

  “Raging suspicion? Hardly. Garren said I was going to be his bargaining chip. He’s the one in charge of this mission. He’s the one who failed. He’s desperate, and he hates me.”

  “Garren overestimates his importance when it comes to making decisions in this conflict. You are not the solution he thinks you are, and I daresay he is motivated more by revenge than logic.”

  “Is that supposed to be comforting?” I demanded.

  Nol continued, “When we reach Basin, the Dron capital, if you play it right, you might be taken before the Dron leaders instead of locked in a cell and forgotten about.”

  “So what will that accomplish?”

  His gaze challenged me. “You’ve been making arguments since we were children. You’re clever, Aemi.”

  I rubbed my forehead. A headache was beginning to throb behind my eyes. A flash of a memory shot through my mind, a patch of painfully blue sky over a pebbled shore, and Nol and I standing in the waves, only children, covered in sand and furious at each other, facing my master as I tried to talk my way out of a beating for the fight.

  I hadn’t been successful then.

  “It’s time to eat,” he said. “Get dressed. You have dry clothes there.” He pointed.

  I shook my head. I didn’t want to face a mess hall. Not with the grief and confusion and rage still pumping through me. “I’ve been through a lot. I’d like to rest.” I said the words sharply.

  I needed to figure out my escape.

  “I’ll bring you something to eat here, then,” Nol said. He hesitated. “Aemi—”

  He didn’t finish the thought, whatever it was. He ran a hand through his hair, then turned and exited the room.

  I dropped my head into my hands, biting back anything I might have yelled after him. It was time for thinking, not insults.

  The light flickered like a dying fire as I rose and crossed the room to stand by the door. When Nol returned with the food, I’d hit him on the head as soon as he entered, and run. His hands would be full, and I’d have the element of surprise. It was not exactly a brilliant plan, but it was the best I had.

  I scanned the room for anything I might be able to use, but everything was bolted down except the pile of clothing. I ran my hands over the wetsuit I still wore. I’d stay in this, as it would be more useful to me.

  My breath scraped through my throat as I pressed my back to the wall and tried to remember the route that led to the bay. Once there, I could steal breathing materials and swim away. They might have underwater propulsion devices, something I could use to make the return trip.

  It was a terrible plan, full of holes, but I wasn’t going to sit here in the belly of this Dron ship and do nothing while my friends were dying. If I saw a better option while making my escape, I’d take it.

  I leaned against the wall and waited for Nol, my heart keeping time with the chug of engines beneath my boots. I thought about what had transpired before my capture.

  Coral, the tutor hired by my mother to replace Tallyn, had tried to kill me.

  “You’re dangerous,” she said. Her jaw flexed, and I could see she was doubting the words as she spoke them.

  “What? How?”

  “It’s not what you could do. It’s what you contain.”

  What did that mean? What I contained? My potential? My blood? Was this about my ancestry, the fact that I was the Graywater heir?

  Ask your betrothed, Cress had said when I’d demanded to know why.

  My betrothed. Valus. Was this something to do with Nautilus, this potential I contained?

  “Tempest cannot be stopped.”

  She worked for Tempest. But who had hired her? Who wanted me dead within this shadowy political organization? Who feared what I contained?

  It wasn’t Laimila. I hadn’t trusted her. I’d wrongfully accused her. I’d thought she wanted me out of the way because I superseded her in the family line.

  I cradled my head in my hands as I sifted through more memories, earlier ones. The conversation with Annah.

  “What have you told her about the attempts on your life? What about the rumors, the accusations?”

  “Nothing yet,” I said. “Why this secrecy?”

  “You cannot hide them from her. The servants will talk. But let her believe the matter is settled. Do not tell her about Cress being kept in my custody, or Valus’s connection to this.”

  “You don’t trust her?”

  “It is complicated. Just do as I say.”

  Then she’d said:

  “There are many secrets in this household. Your mother keeps them from me, and I from her. I cannot make accusations. I lack the proof, and the conviction. But I do not...” She stopped, considering her words. “I do not know who is to blame for the death of your father.”

  “You think my mother—?”

  “I do not know what to believe. I have information that gives me concern, and knowledge that pains me, and I do not want to see you harmed. Misinformation is already spreading. Soldiers have already come to your door. Just... I do not trust her.”

  Annah denied believing my mother was behind Cress’s attempt on my life. But was she right? Uncertainty filled me.

  I didn’t know what to think, and the memories threatened to overwhelm me. I put them aside and concentrated on the immediate matter: escape.

  I would deal with the matter of the Graywater trustworthiness when I was safe from the Dron.

  ~ ~ ~

  Exhaustion pulled at me. I waited, head propped against the metal wall, listening to the creaks and groans of the ship.

  I had to be quick and clever. I was only going to get one chance to do what I needed to do.

  Footsteps. I tensed, shifting into a position of readiness like Tallyn had taught me.

  The door opened. Nol stepped inside and looked to the place where I’d been before. I slammed into him, throwing him to the ground as I caught him completely off-balance, and then I darted through the door and into the hall. I hit the button and it hissed shut behind me, cutting off Nol’s shout.

  My feet slammed against the floor as I pounded for the bay. I followed the curve, ears straining for approaching sounds. The hall was silent except for the sound of Nol pounding on the door.

  I reached a door and paused, listening for voices. Nothing. I darted past, holding my breath, my veins humming with terror. No one shouted for me to stop. I slipped on.

  The ship groaned and creaked around me. The technology was ancient, the walls rust-stained and pockmarked.

  Another corner, and the bay doors were before me. I accessed the panel and scanned the controls.

  It required a code.

  I hissed a curse. What had been the code on the last Dron ship? The one Nol had given to me secretly?

  Truth.

  I punched in the word, but the panel beeped a refusal.

  A hand clamped onto my wrist and spun me around. Nol pinned me to the wall, fury blazing in his eyes as he held his face inches from mine. I could smell him, a scent like seawater and soap, and it made me shiver.

  “What are you doing? Are you insane?” He spat the words at me in a furious whisper. “There’s no way you’d get off this ship without meticulous planning, and even if you did, we’re far from Primus. Do you have a death wish?”

  I gazed back at him in defiance, not replying. Did he really need an explanation? “I’m a prisoner, Nol. We’ve been prisoners together. You know I’m going to try to escape.”

  “I thought you weren’t stupid,” he shot back.

  I glared at him, mostly because he was right. It had been stupid. Rushed and frantic, and now I’d blown my chance. He wa
sn’t going to let me try again. Fury rushed through my blood, making me feel volcanic. Every seam of my body pulsed with rage.

  Nol lifted his head, looked both ways to check that no one could see, and then dragged me back down the hall without another word. When we reached my cell, he pulled me inside and jerked a pair of restraints from his belt. He slapped them around my wrists.

  “Now stay put,” he said. His shoulders pulled taut as he looked at me. A vein pulsed in his throat.

  I went to the wall and sank to the floor. The restraints rattled around my wrists.

  Nol turned and left. The hiss of the door closing mocked me.

  I was alone in my cage once more, this time wrapped in self-loathing as well as grief.

  The ship shifted, and my stomach plummeted as I felt it begin to dive. An alarm rang out distantly, and I heard the crackle of a loudspeaker.

  “Prepare to enter enemy waters,” a voice intoned.

  ~ ~ ~

  When the door opened again, I was expecting Nol. Instead, Tack stepped inside, carrying a steaming tray. He set it down on the bunk and stepped back toward the door, as if expecting me to lunge at him.

  I gazed at him warily, ignoring the food even though my stomach clenched with hunger at the scent of it.

  “Enemy waters?” I asked.

  Tack looked at the door. He probably wasn’t supposed to talk to me. “Better eat,” he said. “You may need your strength.”

  “Why?”

  He bared his teeth in a smile. “We’re taking you to a rendezvous with Nautilus’s men.”

  “You’re returning to Primus?” Maybe I could escape. Hope lifted me.

  Tack shook his head. “No. It’s too dangerous with the turmoil of battle. We have an arranged meeting place near Volcanus. We’ve already sent a signal to them.”

  Panic shot through me, but I fought to stay calm. “I thought I was headed for Basin to see the Dron leaders.”