Page 37 of A Sea of Fate and Starfire

Bruises littered their faces. Their wrists were bound, their hair disheveled. They glared ahead, the fight behind their eyes rabid with fury.

Several feet from us, the backs of Dimas, Aren, and Leal emerged from the siren crowd.

“Give us the witch,” Kazimir’s voice rang against the cold. He lifted his blade enough to force Hadrian to raise his chin. “I don’t see her within the hour, I’ll take your heir’s life.”

Kye pulled me along as he moved into Aren’s side, alerting the junior captain with the subtle press of his hand against Aren’s arm. Aren's snowy-white dog, Fox, thumped his bushy tail against the wintery ground.

Aren glanced at us and quickly refocused ahead. “We’re not sure how long Rivea’s had them,” he said, voice low. “We found Maren’s crew twenty minutes ago. Tried to head south on our way back to avoid running into the bastards, but apparently not far enough. When they said they had prisoners, we thought they meant you.”

The near darkness carved deep shadows under Diara’s cheeks. She wore a man’s coat—Hadrian’s, I assumed, by the lack of fur and leather from his shoulders, though of the two prisoners, it was she who shivered against the cold.

“Your general is negotiating,” Leal said. It took me a moment to realize he was speaking to me. “The scary one.”

I’m here, Nori, I said, prodding my Oculos’s wall with a bit more intensity.

The slight flinch between her shoulders gave her position away. The general of my small army, she stood in the front. Closest to Kazimir. The Rivean’s attention lingered on her, though it roamed the crowd of Juilean Naiads every few seconds, searching the dim light.

“I grow impatient,” Kazimir shouted. Dried blood splattered down his cheeks and neck, stark even from here. He glanced to the fading light in the west. “You have until sundown to hand her over.”

Kye’s grasp on my arm firmed.

Dimas looked over his shoulder at him. “The women seem unwilling to negotiate.”

“Leihani is their queen,” Kye replied.

Dimas’s eyes slid to mine. Beside him, Aren and Leal turned their heads at me in surprise.

“Well,” Leal said, clearing his throat. “What’s the plan, if Princess Maren’s army won’t concede? The four of us against the thousands of them?”

The wrinkle between Kye’s dark brows deepened. “I’m thinking.”

I glanced up. The stars glimmered, thawing from the frozen sky. Without a moon, they shone twice as bright.

Without a moon, I was crippled.

I searched the water in the air. Electrolytes were easy to find. They reminded me of the ocean on my tongue. Bitter, salty, slightly metallic. The mountainside was saturated with them. Invisible to the naked eye, but primed and ready to hold a charge, to hurl a thread of white fire at a target.

The perfect source of fuel.

The worst supplier of aim.

I couldn’t send lightning at them without risking my bolt hitting Diara or Hadrian. That didn’t stop the wind from sizzling, small pops of light igniting around my arms. One of them caught Kye, and he recoiled in shock, hand leaving my arm.

Without his tether, my feet began to churn.

A muttered curse followed, snow crunching behind me.

But as tired as I was, I was fast. My steps were deliberate. My pulse was calm.

One hundred Naiads is not very many. I passed them in no time, my eyes fixed on Kazimir. A little closer. And closer still. He spotted me before I moved to the front of the lines.

Beside me, Nori gazed at the Riveans, though she bared her teeth. “Useless human,” she shot at Kye.

He ignored her.

I squared with the man who had killed my husband in another life. The tattoos along my arms gleamed under my skin. Lines and tallies, ancient symbols of Juile.

“I hope you realize you are dead,” I said.