Voidhawk - Lost Soul by Jason Halstead

robe used magic to throw a stone from the ground and hit him in the head.”
    Something about the attack nagged at the back of Dexter’s mind. He’d never encountered anyone who could do something like that, had he?
    “He turned to me and I wanted to run, but I couldn’t. I just stood there. My friends were dead, just like that.” Celia searched Dexter’s eyes for understanding.
    “You had every right to be scared,” Dexter said. “Where there’s magic there’s bound to be a seasoned warrior ready to soil his armor. I once knew a man so strong there wasn’t a man nor beast that could kill him. Magic ended up being the only thing that could put him down.”
    She nodded. “Maybe, but I should have run.”
    “Maybe he’d paralyzed you as well?” Jenna suggested.
    Celia gasped, then her expression fell. “No, I could move. I just didn’t. He walked up to me and told me he needed me to do something for him, and if I refused he’d do to my family what he’d already done to my friends.”
    “And what did he want you to do?”
              She stared at her hands before answering. “He said he needed to talk to you about your daughter. I had to poke you with the ring he held out for me. He showed me how to flip the charm in it and warned me not to let it touch anyone else, or my family would suffer.”
    “What about the rest of it?”
    “The rest?”
    “Aye, the part about being a skilled deckhand and helmsman?”
    “She doesn’t have ‘Shira’s strength, but she’s as good on the deck as any we’ve ever had,” Jenna answered for her.
    Celia nodded. “I know things about ships, Captain. I meant everything I told you before…”
    Dexter nodded. “What now, then?”
    “What?” Celia’s mouth gaped open, confused by his question. “Whatever you’re going to do to me. I deserve it all. I didn’t ask for this, but I went along with it.”
    “Might just have turned out you done the best thing you could have, for all of us.”
    “What?” The question was asked by all three of Dexter’s tablemates.
    “I had a talk and it wasn’t much of one. He wants a port, but he didn’t say which one. Can’t be a port on a moon or a world, I’m thinking, so it’s got to be one of the elven flying salads or maybe something like a bandit sanctuary in the void. We’re supposed to head to Port Freedom and he’ll meet me there.”
    ”Maybe he wants Port Freedom,” Jenna said.
    “Thought about that,” Dexter said. “Maybe that’s what it is, too. He said he’d been planning this for years, then got kind of uppity when I told him you’d renounced your crown. He seemed to think we might could still help him out though.”
    “He’s got Jianna’s soul?” Xander asked.
    “Claims he does.”
    “Then we find a way to give him what he wants,” Jenna said with an air of finality.
    “Don’t let your sails get too full of wind,” Dexter said. “Seems like an awful lot of trouble to go through just to end up governor of some trading post floating through the void.”
    “Aye, but if we get Jia back, does it matter?”
    Dexter nodded, she made a good point. “We’ll see what we’ve got to do. We’ll get her back and deal with whatever we have to along the way. Celia, once you’re feeling up to it I need you back in the rotation. I’m adding you to the helm too. I’m right in thinking you’ll be working for me and only me this time?”
    Celia’s eyelids nearly opened wide enough to let her eyeballs fall onto the table. She nodded vigorously. “I…I can’t believe you’ll have me. Yes, Captain! Yes! I can’t go back, not now. Not after what happened.
    “Turns out you was working for me before too, but that’s hardly the point. When this is over and things settle down we’ll see about patching things up with your father, too.”
    Her elation dimmed somewhat. “Sir, if it’s all the same, I’d rather stay here.”
    Dexter glanced at Jenna and got a shrug in response. He