He whipped his head around to find Mitul and Saya. Both were still standing, though Mitul appeared to be in a state of shock with wide eyes and a gaping mouth. Amar grabbed him by the shoulder and shook him until the man’s eyes focused on his own. “Stay by me, all right?” he shouted above the din.
Mitul nodded.
“Oi! You three!” A broad-shouldered woman in an officer’s coat jabbed a finger at a nearby cannon. “Man that cannon. Come on, make yourselves useful.”
Amar swallowed. He didn’t have the first inkling of what manning the cannon might entail, but he shuffled forward anyway. Better to fight back than stand here waiting to be killed or maimed. The ship gave another lurch. Mitul stumbled into him from behind and they both went sprawling into the side of the cannon.
“Get up, man!” a sailor said, grabbing Amar by the scruff of his shirt and hauling him to his feet.
“What do you need us to do?”
“Grab these lines, quick now.”
Amar took up a position behind the sailor while Mitul and Saya went to the other side of the cannon and grabbed the rope there. A burly man was already loading the shot into the barrel. As soon as he was done, another man shoved in a rammer on a long wooden stick.
“Get ready, lads,” the first sailor said, tightening his grip on his own line.
Amar followed suit. Mitul and Saya did the same. Both of them looked like they were about to throw up.
As soon as the rammer was out, the first sailor put all his weight into pulling his line. “Heave!”
They did. Amar’s muscles strained from the effort. The rope slipped through his palms a little when another lurch shifted the cannon’s weight. He was going to have some painful blisters in the morning, assuming they lived through this.
He set his jaw. They would survive to see the morning. They had to.
With a few more shouts from the more experienced sailor in their group, they righted the cannon’s path and heaved again. It rolled forward to press against the wall, barrel protruding out the open gun port.
“Hold her steady, lads,” the sailor called.
At the rear end of the cannon, the officer who’d initially given their assignment stood by. She crouched to sight down the barrel, her hand wrapped around the cord of the gunlock. For the space of a single breath, nothing happened.
“Fire!” She yanked the cord. There was a massive blast, and the cannon shot backward with the recoil. At least a few of the other cannons had gone off at nearly the same time, and Amar’s very bones seemed to shake inside his body from the force of the volley.
A thunderous rumble came from outside as the enemy ship fired back. Wood cracked and splintered somewhere to his right, and he ducked as cries rang out. Suddenly, he was back on the battlefields of Kavora, ambushed by a group of enemy Tarja. His comrades fell around him one by one, their dying screams echoing in his ears until he fell, too.
He shook his head and blinked away the old memories. Another shot was already being loaded into the cannon. He glanced over at Mitul and Saya, both still alive and unharmed. Mitul’s lips curled up in a forced smile that looked more like a grimace, and Amar’s heart lurched. The man was an artist, not a warrior. He shouldn’t even be here. Were it not for Amar, he wouldn’t be.
“We’re going to be all right,” he called out to Mitul over the cannon. So help him, if they got out of this, he’d do everything in his power to make sure his friend never had to risk his life like this again.
The sailor called over his shoulder to them. “Ready, lads! Heave!”
Amar was more prepared for the deafening sound and the recoil that came with this blast. Over and over again, they repeated the process, their own attacks periodically interrupted by enemy fire. The air became hot and thick with the stench of sweat and gunpowder. Several of the men had already stripped off their shirts, and Amar did the same, but even that made little difference. His hair stuck to his forehead in damp clumps, and he wiped away the moisture that dripped down his face with the back of his hand.
A sudden cheer rose up from somewhere down the line of cannons. “What’s happening?” he asked the officer beside him. Sighting down the length of the cannon, she had the clearest view of the battle through the gun port.
She repositioned herself and let out a victorious cry of her own. “Their ship has caught fire! They can’t outmaneuver us with their sails all burned up like that.”
Lucian. It had to have been him who set the enemy’s sails ablaze. Amar grinned and joined in on the celebrations with a whoop. One of the officers called for a cease fire, and Mitul and Saya threw their arms around each other in a joyful embrace. Amar stepped around a sailor to get closer to the gun port and peered through the opening. The flaming pirate ship glowed like a giant torch against the darkness.
A flash of light came from one of the open gun ports, and a low rumble echoed through the night. One last parting shot from the enemy they’d already defeated. Amar jerked back, but the cannonball struck the Vindicator a few paces away from where he was standing.
Wood splintered all around him. He flew backwards with his limbs splayed out in front of him, until something hard broke his momentum and knocked all the air from his lungs. Black splotches crept over his vision, and all sound seemed to have been sucked from his surroundings. He tried to take a breath, but his lungs were on fire, useless.
He sat perfectly still where he’d landed. A sharp pain pulsed at the back of his head, but nothing else seemed to be injured. He’d been hurt a lot worse than this before. If he gave his body a little time to recover, he’d be all right.
Someone grabbed his shoulder, and Mitul’s face swam into full view as the dark splotches in his vision began to dissipate. “Amar?” The man’s voice cracked. “Please, say something!”
He took a slow, painful breath and croaked out a single word. “Hurts.”
Saya stooped over him. “What hurts? Do you need to see a healer?”
He groaned and shook his head. “I think I’ll be all right.”
“We’re taking you anyway,” Mitul said. “Can you stand?”
“I said I’m all right. Just give me a minute.”
Mitul nodded and inhaled a shaky breath. His eyes looked wet, but it was hard to tell for certain in the dim light.
“Are you crying?” Amar growled. “Please don’t tell me you’re crying over me.”
“You could have died,” he replied.
“I can’t die, remember?”
“You know what I mean.” He shoved Amar in the shoulder, but only with a fraction of the force he might have used in normal circumstances. “I just got you back. I don’t want you forgetting me all over again. I’d say that warrants a few tears, wouldn’t you?”
“I guess,” Amar said, forcing a little extra gruffness into his voice. Between the intensity of the skirmish and the reminders it brought of people he’d lost in battles past, he was starting to feel more than a little emotional himself. But now was not the time or place to let those feelings out.
He slowly raised himself to his feet. Mitul offered him an arm, and he took it gratefully. “Come on,” he said once he’d steadied himself. “We should check on Kesari.”
36
Kesari
At some point, the Vindicator’s intermittent shudders and jarring lurches stopped, but the sick bay remained in a state of tumultuous chaos as the wounded continued to be brought in for treatment. Kesari had sunk into a rhythm while she worked and was so absorbed in what she was doing that she didn’t even notice Lucian had come in until his voice startled her from behind.
“You’re doing well here.”
“I’m trying,” she replied, heading for a nearby washbasin to rinse her hands. They turned the already-pink water a deeper shade of red. “Is the fighting really over?”
“Yes. We won.”
She let out a grunt. It was hard to see anything that involved this much pain and suffering as a victory. “I suppose you helped with that?”
“I set the ship on fire, but it took longer than I wanted it to. I ran into a bit of trouble with that Visan woman and her Spirit Tarja.”
Kesari raised her eyebrows. “They’re here?”
“On the pirate ship. We can assume they were the ones to organize the attack.”
“They’re still coming after Amar,” she said, drying her hands on a nearby rag that looked relatively clean. “Did you tell the others?”
“No. I wanted to check on you first, make sure you were all right.” He grinned. “And look at you! I can feel the magic all around this room. You’ve done a lot of good here tonight.”
Kesari gazed around at all the bandaged sailors, the bloodied rags, the red-stained floor. The pained cries of earlier had subsided to a few, quiet moans, and aside from that, the room felt almost peaceful. Lucian was right—magic practically thrummed in the air around her, pulsing against her own altma. She’d channeled more of it tonight than she’d even allowed herself to feel in the last two years combined.
What had she been thinking?
The rhythmic trance she’d fallen into snapped, and whatever had kept her going until now suddenly drained out of her. Her bottom lip trembled, and her legs started to shake. She backed up against the wall and slid to the floor before her body collapsed. Her heart started to race as familiar waves of panic washed over her.
“I was so afraid,” she said, tears forming in her eyes. “I didn’t know what I was doing. I needed you here.”
“I’m sorry. I would have stayed with you if I’d known, but I thought I’d be more useful out there.” He hovered a little lower until his gaze met hers. “But Kes, you didn’t need me. You did all this on your own.”
“What if I’d messed up? I could have hurt someone.”
“You didn’t, though.”
“But I could have.”
“Look at me, Kes.” She did, and he smiled at her. “You didn’t hurt anyone. You helped them. I’m sure you saved some of their lives. Your magic did that.”
She wasn’t sure why those words made her cry even harder, but they did. Her magic had helped this time, and that was exactly what she’d wanted so desperately ever since she was a child. But what about next time? What if she lost control again?
For a while, she sat there on the floor with her arms wrapped around her legs and her entire body shaking. Amar, Mitul, and Saya found her like that. They gathered around her, raised her up with gentle touches and soothing words, but she barely heard them. In a daze, she followed them back to her bunk, where she lay with her knees curled up beneath her chin as tears continued to roll down her cheeks.
Lucian hovered above, whispering to her that she was safe, that she had done well. The others whispered too, and she caught her own name in worried tones among their words. They probably thought she was pathetic. They probably thought she was losing her mind. They were probably right, on some level, but she was too exhausted to care.
She closed her eyes and forced herself to take slow, deep breaths until the tears stopped, and she finally succumbed to a mercifully dreamless sleep.
37
Aleida
The muscles in Aleida’s arms burned as she rowed a derelict little dinghy away from the Hound’s Hatred, but the sensation was nothing compared to the vehement rage and disbelief that burned within her. She’d come so close only to have Amar slip away once again. Those idiot pirates! If they’d just listened to her and taken the Vindicator before focusing their attention on the Golden Raven, she might have captured Amar, and they’d all have what they wanted.
Captain Cutter had gotten himself killed mere minutes into the fight, and the crew spent the rest of the battle in disarray trying to prevent the Hound’s Hatred from being pummeled by the Vindicator’s cannons. Aleida had hoped to help them get the upper hand using magic, but even that had failed. She and Valkyra had instead been forced to focus their attention on the firey Spirit Tarja, who had eventually succeeded in setting the entire ship aflame.
Before long, relentless cannon fire left the Hound’s Hatred crippled and taking on water at an alarming rate. Aleida had been reluctant to give up, but at Valkyra’s urging and seeing no other option, she decided to abandon ship. They’d hurried down to the brig to retrieve Jameson, already up to his waist in seawater. While the pirates were still fighting, the three of them managed to lower a dinghy into the ocean and escaped before the entire ship went down. Now, Aleida could barely make out the dark silhouettes of the Vindicator and the Golden Raven in the moonlight. There was nothing left to be seen of the pirate vessel.
Valkyra lay coiled in Aleida’s lap. Her cold gray eyes watched the Wizard Jameson for any sign of mutiny. He sat across from them, hunched and shivering in soaked robes. “How far until we reach land?” he asked between chattering teeth.
“Not far,” Aleida replied. The Vindicator had traveled a northeast route right up the coastline, so they weren’t too far out to sea. But her arms were already shaking with exhaustion, and she didn’t trust her own emotions enough right now to ease the rowing by channeling altma. Instead, she thrust the oars at her prisoner with a harsh growl. “Your turn.”
“Oh, I’m not really cut out for this sort of work,” he replied nonchalantly. “If only you hadn’t taken away my magic. I know a few tricks that could make this a lot easier.”
“And I know a few tricks that could make your life miserable if you don’t cooperate,” she snapped back. “Now row.”
With a sigh, Jameson wrapped his hands around the oars and began to row. Aleida continued to glare at him with barely contained rage as the true object of her fury sailed farther and farther away aboard another ship.
It was nearly dawn by the time they reached land. They rode the breaking waves right up to the shore and stumbled out of the dinghy unceremoniously. Jameson tripped and collapsed onto the sand, where he lay motionless without even the slightest attempt to get back up. Every muscle in Aleida’s arms and back screamed at her to lie down and rest, but she refused to listen.
She nudged the man’s feet with her toe. “Get up. We need to keep moving.”
“Agreed,” Valkyra said. “If any of those pirates managed to get off the ship, they’ll be coming ashore soon, too. They won’t appreciate us stealing one of their boats and abandoning them in the middle of the ocean.”
Jameson groaned in protest but pushed himself up anyway. When Aleida pulled out the soaked bundle of daravak to dose him again, he barely put up a fight. All she had to do was let a few crackles of lightning jump between her fingertips, and he inhaled the stuff on his own.
They walked inland, heading northwest away from the beach. Valkyra guessed they were somewhere north of Libera, a suspicion that was confirmed when they came to the edge of a river delta shortly after noon. Only then did they stop to rest. Jameson flopped onto the ground beneath the shade of a large tree and fell asleep within seconds.
Aleida took a few minutes to spread out the contents of her pack in the sun. Most of them were starting to dry already, but the papers and art supplies in her leather case had been soaked through. She clenched her jaw in frustration as she carefully pulled apart Tyrus’ letters and her own drawings of Amar and his companions. Her charcoal sketches were smeared into shapes that were beyond recognition in most places, and the ink from Tyrus’ letters bled across the paper in such a way that both the words and his drawings were indecipherable. She put her fingers to the pages and used magic to pull as much moisture out of them as she could, though that did little to improve their appearance. Defeated and drained, she propped herself up against the trunk of a tree, crossed her arms, and went to sleep.
It was dark when she awoke. Her eyes immediately went to the spot where she’d last seen Jameson. He was still there, snoring heavily. It took her a few seconds longer to spot Valkyra. She perched on a boulder near the river, moonlight reflecting off her white feathers and the silver scales of two large fish at her side.
The dragon stared into the wa
ter, completely motionless. She might have been carved from marble were it not for the soft fluttering of her fur in the breeze. Then, in a sudden graceful maneuver, she dove, her wings pressed flat against her lithe body. She made no sound and barely more than a ripple when she broke the water’s surface. When she reemerged, she carried another writhing fish in her claws. It was bigger than she was, and her wings strained with effort as she lifted it onto the boulder. She pinned it there until its movements ceased.
Aleida stood and walked down to her. Valkyra shook the water from her fur, the movement starting at her head and rippling down to the end of her tail. “I thought you might be hungry,” she said, nodding to the fish.
“Starving,” Aleida replied. Now that she’d rested, hunger was her most immediate concern. “I’ll make a fire.”
She carried the fish back up the riverbank and set about collecting fallen twigs and branches. It didn’t take long to get a good blaze going, and when Valkyra came to join her in front of the fire, she carried some freshly harvested daravak to replenish Aleida’s stores. Aleida dosed Jameson with it again while he was still sleeping.
He began to stir and woke soon after, sniffing the air as he stretched his lanky arms over his head. “Mmm, that smells good. I’m so hungry I could eat a whole ocean full of fish.”
Aleida said nothing. The meal would take a while longer to cook, so she began to gather up her papers still spread over the ground. They were dry now, the pages crisp and warped. She studied one of the drawings Tyrus had sent and frowned. She could barely tell what it was anymore. He must have spent so much time trying to get it right. It would have taken him a great deal of effort, given the state his hands were in. He probably shouldn’t have bothered, but he had, for her. Their drawings were all they had of each other when they couldn’t be together.
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