When it became clear to Damien that David wasn’t coming back he turned his attention to the debris floating below. A few survivors drifted amid the ruins of the flotilla. He needed to fish those people out of the water and get them somewhere dry. On the platform beside him Salem sniffled and rubbed her eyes.

“Are you okay?” Damien asked.

Salem made one last swipe at her eyes before she looked his way. “She abandoned me. My own sister, after everything we’ve been through. How could she?”

Damien had no idea how to answer that. He couldn’t imagine Jen ever abandoning him or if she did how he’d feel about it. “I’m sorry. If you want to go after them I understand.”

“You’d let me go?”

“You’re not my prisoner. I can’t let you have the urns though. They’re way too dangerous to have loose in the kingdom. I need to get the survivors out of the water. If you’re going now’s the time.”

She shook her head. “I’m not strong enough to make the flight and anyway I have no idea where they’re headed. I’ll stay with you.”

“That’s fine. I suspect you’ll see your sister again and if you stick with me maybe you can convince her not to do something that will make me have to kill her.”

Salem flinched. Damien sighed. He really needed to take Lane up on her offer of diplomacy lessons. Well, sometimes the truth wasn’t very diplomatic.

Damien flew down to the water. Sailors shouted and waved at him. He plucked them out one by one, transferring them to the platform he’d conjured for Salem. He picked up eleven men, some of them in rough shape. One had an arm bent at the wrong angle, another had a two-foot stake of wood driven through his calf.

Nothing else moved, but near the edge of the debris field he sensed a weak soul force. Damien flew over and found Captain Velco clinging to the remains of his ballista. One of his arms was missing just below the shoulder. Something, probably the dragon’s soul force, had cauterized the wound so he hadn’t bled to death.

Had the Leviathan left Velco alive on purpose? The captain’s remaining arm was tangled up with the ballista cable. That was the only thing that had kept him from going to the bottom when he passed out.

Damien scooped up the unconscious man and flew him to the platform. The sailors sat around staring into space. A couple muttered to themselves, trying to make sense of what had happened. Salem had recovered enough that she was healing some of the worst injuries.

One man sat huddled off by himself, watching the girl through narrow eyes. He grasped his forearm and from between the gaps in his fingers Damien saw something black. When Damien made a move to get a closer look Captain Velco coughed, groaned, and sat up.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Damien said.

Velco looked around the little platform. “Is this all that survived?”

“Your other sorcerers fled to their true master. You were a pawn in something much larger, Captain.”

Velco groaned again and lay back, his remaining arm over his eyes. “Any more good news?”

Before Damien had a chance to answer, the sailor he’d been watching lunged for Salem and put a knife to her throat.

“You’re going to give me them urns and fly us back to Port Valcane. Otherwise I’m going to cut this bitch’s head off.”

On the sailor’s arm was a tattoo of a raven. How did a member of the Unkindness sneak aboard the whalers’ ship?

Damien surrounded the sailor’s knife blade with an invisible sheath of soul force. He wouldn’t be able to cut butter with that weapon now.

Salem locked gazes with Damien and gathered her power. He gave a slight shake of his head, hoping he could draw some more information out of the thug.

“I can’t give you the urns. Let her go and you might live through this.”

The false sailor pulled Salem closer to his body. “I know your type. You won’t let anything happen to this girl. The master will reward me for recovering her property.”

“Her? You mean the sorcerer?”

“Aye, she’s waiting for us back in port. When I give her the urns she’ll take me to her master and he’ll give me real power. Now hand them over.”

Damien nodded.

Salem lashed out with spears of power. They pierced her captor through the chest and stomach. He staggered back and dropped his knife.

“I’ll kill you for that.” He spat blood onto the tattoo on his forearm. It burst into black flames that swirled around him, healing the holes in his body. The dark fire gathered around his hands.

Damien opened a hole in the platform under the thug’s feet. He fell a hundred feet to the ocean below. The man thrashed his way to the surface, the water boiling around him. He shouted curses and screamed incoherent threats as he fought to stay above the water.

“You’re just going to leave him to drown?” Salem asked.

“His power will burn out in ten or fifteen minutes. When it does he’s dead. He chose to die the moment he activated that tattoo. That’s what corrupt power does to people, it kills them or turns them into monsters.” Damien shook his head and flew away, the platform trailing behind.