Esmyra nodded and looked at Jenli. “You still have the velsinyte shard, right?”
Jenli nodded, reached into her pocket, and pulled it out, wrapped in a black cloth.
“Good,” Esmyra said with a sigh of relief. “Now all I have to do is get close enough to Syrena to?—”
The ship suddenly lurched violently to one side. The floor pitched beneath them, books sliding from the shelves, maps and ink bottles skittering across the table and crashing down onto the ground.
Draevyn braced a hand against the wall, catching Esmyra before she toppled. Jak slammed into the shelves while Jenli grabbed the edge of the desk, everyone’s eyes going wide.
The room went still as the waves roared just beyond the cabin’s window.
“What the fuck was that?” Esmyra demanded, her hands clutching Draevyn’s arms as she tried to steady herself.
“A reef?” Jak guessed, though the look in his eyes made Draevyn think he didn’t believe it for a second.
Another thunderous crack rippled through the ship as if they were slammed into by some invisible force. The walls shuddered, dust sifting down from the beams overhead. A glass ink bottle tipped and shattered, its dark liquid spreading like blood across the maps.
“That—” Draevyn’s voice was sharp, eyes flashing toward the door, “—was no reef.”
Esmyra’s face had drained of color. “Whatever it is, it’s not beneath us.”
The crew’s shouts rose faintly from below deck, the panic filtering up through the planks. They all exchanged a look as their confusion rapidly sparked into alarm.
A third jolt snapped them into motion. Draevyn threw open the office door, and the four of them burst through and onto the deck. The sea air was filled with shouts, the thundering of feet, and the groan ofValor’stimbers under strain.
They raced out just as the crew came flooding up from below, half-dressed and weapons in hand.
Then he saw it.
Dark silhouettes ringed the twilight horizon, closing in like wolves on a cornered prey. These ships, however, were unlike any Draevyn had ever seen. The vessels were long with narrowed hulls, and instead of sails, they each possessed translucent, teal, fan-like wings that jutted out on each side. They looked like the webs between Esmyra’s fingers when in her siren form.
Dozens of these sleek ships surrounded them. The nearest one loomed so close they could make out the wet gleam of scaled armor on the soldiers patrolling its deck.
Maerinys had found them.
“They’ve caught up to us.” Draevyn’s hand hovered at the hilt of his sword, his whole body coiled to fight.
A heavy silence fell across their own crew for half a heartbeat, the horror of it settling in. Then the shouting erupted all at once—men cursing, weapons being drawn, ropes pulled tight as though bracing against an inevitable storm.
Draevyn looked to Esmyra. Her jaw ticked, eyes darting from ship to ship as their enemies spread across the waves like a closing net. The pressure in the air pulsated around them, that hum of her power in the sea itself, like she was just waiting to come alive and tear them all apart.
“Do you have orders, Captain?!” Ren shouted from the rigging.
But Esmyra didn’t move a muscle, still as a statue.
“Captain!” Riven barked as he unsheathed his sword.
Finally, she whirled toward them and faced her crew. “It’s time to do what we do best, gentlemen.”
CHAPTER 58
Esmyra
Valor’sdeck erupted at Esmyra’s command.
The crew surged forward, every man finding their place as some moved to the rigging, some to the rails, some back below deck to man the cannons. Beside her, fire burst to life. Draevyn’s hands flared in an instant, twin infernos spilling from his palms, casting his face in molten gold.
Every inch of him emanated The Phoenix.
