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Slowly, I turned to look at her. Whatever she saw in my eyes made the color drain from her face.
Prisca hiccupped, and I strode to her, clamping her close to my body as I studied the scene in front of us. As I’d hoped, some of Regner’s ships were fleeing—cutting through the water to the west.
Not long ago, I might have destroyed every ship, drowned every human—all in the name of expediency. I would have felt nothing, except a sense of grim satisfaction for living up to my name as the Bloodthirsty Prince.
The man I’d been was the same man who had once left the woman in my arms to die without a second thought—a fact that still occasionally made me wake in a cold sweat.
I was a better man now. Because of her.
No longer trapped in the inlet, Daharak’s ships unfurled their sails and surged forward as one, racing for the gap opened by the melee. Yet thirty or forty of Regner’s ships were hanging back, ready to strike. Prisca would still need to use her power.
“Now!” Daharak roared at us.
Prisca’s hand clutched the hourglass, and she focused on Regner’s remaining ships.
There was something…disconcerting about the way the hourglass stole a piece of her when she was using it. She went into a kind of trance, occasionally unable to stop using her power without intervention. Some part of me worried that one day she wouldn’t come all the way back.
I would smash that hourglass to pieces before I let that happen.
All sound seemed to pause for a single moment as the pirates surrounding us realized what had happened.
“Time magic,” one of them muttered.
“The hybrid heir.”
“Witch— Ow, what was that for?”
I glanced over my shoulder. Galon had slapped one of Daharak’s pirates over the head.
Prisca strained, and I knew she was fighting with the hourglass, which urged her to use all of her power in a single, devastating blow. But she needed to hold time for perhaps the longest she had ever held it.
Daharak had prepared her captains, and they streamed through the gap, sailing past us, all of them avoiding the hidden coral reef Daharak had marked.
Prisca began to shudder. “How much longer?” I asked Daharak.
Daharak’s eyes were alight with triumph. “Not long. It will take them a while to recover from the shock when they see my ships disappear and reappear at their backs.”
Prisca gasped, the sound filled with pain. My hand found hers. “Let go.”
Daharak let out a hiss, and Galon stepped close to her. “I suggest you think carefully,” he said.
“Prisca, it’s over. I need you,” I said.
That did it. She released the hourglass, swaying woozily. I clamped down on the urge to haul her into my arms, well aware that she’d be upset at the thought of appearing weak in front of so many people.
“Did we do it?” Prisca asked.
Daharak let out a wild laugh. “We did. Consider our vow complete.”
Prisca smiled down at her palm as the thin line disappeared. When she looked up at me, I couldn’t resist lowering my head and taking her mouth. She let out a tiny hum that made me pull her even closer.
“Captain, we have a problem.”
I lifted my head as one of Daharak’s pirates sprinted in her direction. He pointed at a ship in the distance.
“It’s not part of the original blockade,” he said. “It must have been nearby.”
Daharak reached for a spyglass. “The Sea Shadow.” She frowned.
