So instead, she asked him, “How did you find me?”
Dax opened his mouth to answer. But his eyes fell on Eris and he said, “Who’s this?”
Safire looked to the Death Dancer, who’d gone uncharacteristically quiet.
“This...” But what could she say?
The girl who’d burned down this temple along with everyone in it?
The thief who intended to hunt down Asha and deliver her to the deadliest pirate on the Silver Sea?
The empress’s fugitive?
Safire took a step back, putting space between herself and Eris. Because of course, Eris was all of those things. “Never mind that right now. There are pirates nearby and I’d rather avoid them if we can.”
“They’ve already been dealt with.”
Safire tilted her head at Dax. “You caught them?”
He nodded, his gaze flicking from her to Eris and back. “They’re being taken to the ship as we speak.”
He glanced over his shoulder, motioning for guards Safire couldn’t see until they stepped out of the shadows and into the starlight. The four soldats moved in, blades drawn, surrounding Safire’s captive. “We can take her from here, commandant.”
But Safire shook her head. “This girl is the worst kind of criminal,” she told them, grabbing Eris’s shoulder and pulling her away from the wall. “She remains with me.”
There was no way she was entrusting Eris to anyone else’s care. Now that she’d captured the Death Dancer, she couldn’t let her escape.
Asha’s safety depended on it.
A Breaking
For seven years, Skye had waited for him. Watching the shore, the cliffs, the trees. Wanting her friend and confidant.
How dare he return today—of all days—only to leave her for good.
Skye did not return to her wedding festivities. Instead, she hauled her dory down to the shore and rowed it out to sea. Pulling hard on her oars, she swore to herself she wouldn’t come back until she’d rowed out all her fury and grief. Until she was so tired and sore, she no longer cared about the shadow called Crow.
The sky darkened above her.
Skye kept rowing.
The sea swelled around her.
Skye rowed harder.
The wind screamed its warnings. The rain tried to drive her back. But Skye was a fisherman’s daughter. She’d spent her whole life on the sea.
She wasn’t afraid of a little rain.
And then, far from shore, she felt it: power surging beneath her. Coming up from the depths.
The storm had brought something with it.
Skye stopped rowing.
“Crow?” she whispered.
Had he changed his mind? Had he come back for her?
