The Skir Master looked at Argoth with puzzlement on his face.

Argoth cursed himself and quickly shifted his focus. It was good the bungholes were so small, he thought. Very safe. Very much like keeping the lamps away from the bed when he and Serah made love. However, the crew should be banned from this area. No telling what careless men might do. “Let us compare your mixture, Great One, with the finished product.”

“Leaf,” said the Skir Master and gestured at the barrels with his chin.

Leaf walked over to one of the barrels, easily worked its lid off and set it aside. Then he dipped a cup and brought it back to the table.

The open flame of the lamps on the table, the bowl of dark seafire, the barrels just paces behind-this was his opportunity.

“Now the consistency,” said Argoth.

The Skir Master reached out and grasped both lamps and pulled them back slightly.

Argoth dipped the thumb and two fingers of his good arm into the bowl of seafire and rubbed them against each other. He held them out for the Skir Master to see. “That is what you want, Great One. Mark it.”

“What are you hiding?” asked the Skir Master.

He should not hide things from the Master. He should tell him all.

“This,” said Argoth. Then he stuck his fingers in the flame of one of the lamps. They flashed blue, then spat into flame. Argoth brought them up.

The Skir Master raised an eyebrow in alarm.

Then Argoth mustered all his will, turned, and dashed for the open barrel.

“Stop him!” shouted the Skir Master.

Argoth raced to the barrel, his fingers aflame.

One pace from the open barrel, Leaf grabbed his splinted arm and jerked back.

The pain screamed up his arm. But he’d fought through worse. He turned and shoved his flaming fingers into Leaf’s eye, wiping seafire along the socket and nose and up the tattoo.

Leaf cried out, raising one hand to his face. But he did not fully release Argoth.

Argoth twisted and chopped down with his good hand. Then he was free. He turned, lunged for the barrel.

“Stop!” the Skir Master commanded.

Argoth froze, the sea fire inches away, his fingers blackening and blistering in the flame. The pain was immense.

The Skir Master strode toward Argoth, and horror overtook him: what had he done? How could he have betrayed his master? He almost fell to his knees. But there was one small part of him that wanted something else.

“Nettle,” he said.

“Down!” ordered the Skir Master.

Argoth faltered. Then he mustered all his strength. “Nettle,” he said. His son’s sacrifice would not be wasted. And suddenly the Skir Master’s command seemed less important than it had before.

“For Nettle,” he said more forcefully. This was for him and for Grace, Serentity, and Joy. For Serah. A battle cry rose within him, and he shouted his son’s name. “Nettle! For Nettle and light!”

His mind cleared momentarily and he thrust his burning fingers into the black liquid.

A blue-green fire raced over the surface.

Argoth almost faltered from the pain, but he snatched his hand back and wrapped it in his tunic, wiping off both flame and skin.

The seafire in the barrel spit, flashed, then, with a cracking thunder, flames exploded upward. Thick smoke poured forth and rolled along the ceiling.

The Skir Master took a step back.

Argoth retrieved the hatchet he’d stowed between the barrels earlier. He brought it up and swung it against the rope binding the barrel. It split cleanly.

Leaf had fallen to his knees, violently trying to wipe the seafire from his face with his tunic. The Skir Master leapt over Leaf.

Argoth grabbed the lip of the burning barrel with the head of the hatchet and pulled with all his weight.

The barrel tipped, fell over, and spilled the burning seafire over the deck, over the Master’s boots. It circled the man.

The blue flame raced over the surface of the widening pool.

Argoth backed away.

The Skir Master looked down at the spreading fire. Then the pool of seafire burst into flame and choked the passageway with smoke. And Argoth felt the Skir Master recede from his mind.

Clasping the hatchet, Argoth turned and ran. Men shouted from the stern. The cook stepped out holding a long knife and looked up the passageway. Argoth swung the flat of the hatchet and struck him in the face.

Argoth raced up the stairs to the main deck. Thick brown and yellow smoke billowed out of the hatches, the skir wind carrying it forward over the deck into the sailors who had recently been dancing. An officer shouted for a team to descend with barrels of sand.

Argoth leapt up the stairs to the aftercastle and raced to the stern. A dread-man stood by the helmsman. “The Skir Master!” Argoth shouted. “Help me get the ship’s boat in the water!”

The dreadman hesitated, then joined Argoth. He ran to the rope and pulleys of one of the davits, Argoth to the other. But Argoth had no time for an easy lowering. He hacked through the ropes and his end of the boat swung down and out.

The unexpected weight caught the dreadman off guard. The rope raced through his hands, burning them. He stumbled forward, cursed, and looked at Argoth with anger.

The boat had fallen, but not all the way. It dragged behind the ship, half of it still out of the water.

Argoth raced to the dreadman’s side. He acted as if he were going to hack through the tangle. Instead, he buried his hatchet in the man’s leg.

The dreadman yelled out.

Argoth pulled the hatchet out and kicked him overboard.

Men raced up the stairs to the aftercastle.

Then an explosion rocked the ship and the men racing up the stairs fell from the stairs or sprawled forward.

Argoth brought the hatchet down with all his might, cutting the rope, and the boat fell to rest of the distance to the water.

A man shouted blood-curdling intent behind him.

Argoth turned and saw a dreadman charging him, sword held high. A large eye had been tattooed on his bare chest.

Argoth brought up his hatchet and parried the blow, but the force of it knocked the hatchet out of Argoth’s hand.

The dreadman brought his sword back.

Argoth was no match for him, so he scuttled backward and over the edge of the stern. Then he was falling, watching the Ardent pull away and the dreadman looking on.

Argoth pulled his broken arm to his chest to protect it, bracing himself, thinking he was going to land on the boat.

But he did not land on the boat. He crashed heels over head into a shock of cold water and pain. He gasped in a lungful of water, rolled, then came to the surface choking.

Argoth turned, looking for the boat. A wave lifted him. He spotted it, and began to sidestroke with all his might, holding his useless arm at his chest.

The dreadman flashed down in the corner of his eye and splashed into the water.

At the crest of the next swell, he looked back. The dreadman was swimming after him, gaining on him.

Argoth swam with all his might. Two, four, eight strokes.

He looked back. The dreadman was only a few yards behind.

Another stroke and he touched the boat. Argoth reached up with his good hand, grasped the top wale, and swung his leg up.

Then it was over the wale and onto one of the thwarts.

He looked frantically about for a weapon. There was nothing but the length of rope that had attached the boat to the davit.

The dreadman’s hand grasped the wale behind him.

Argoth lunged for the rope where it lay under one of the thwarts.

The dreadman pulled himself up.

Argoth spun around, lunged at the man, and slipped a makeshift noose over his neck. He looped the rope about his body and heaved back.

The rope tightened about the dreadman’s neck and pulled him into the boat.

But Argoth knew that wouldn’t be enough. He turned, and before the dreadman could gain leverage to pull Argoth to him, Argoth took one bounding step and jumped off the side of the boat opposite the dreadman and into the water.