Page 45 of Tempest

Jasper Fell would always grasp at his own advancement, jumping at any opportunity, eager to climb. His hands were on the ladder now.

She only hoped she could climb with him.

Or kick him down the rungs.

Scoffing, Carley glanced over his shoulder. “Percy’s seven met a storm off Fortune Bay and were separated. But it will not be long until the last ship returns, the storm was small enough—”

Cat stood quickly from her seat, her mussed skirts pooling around her.

“A storm off Fortune Bay?” she balked, making a show of her disbelief for the governor. “Big enough to scatter a convoy? At this time of year? It is not yet the season.”

To her left, Fell took a step so they stood side by side. A united front. Under different circumstances, Cat would have shoved him away. Now she only wanted to keep him close.

“Have any other ships gone missing from the fleet?” he demanded.

Carley pursed his lips, annoyed.

But Osprin stood too, unfolding from his chair to rise like a thunderhead. He was shorter than Carley, but the captain quailed before the governor.

“Well, Carley?” Osprin prodded, his eyes narrowing into slits.

The captain of the Revel gave an appeasing bow, hat in hand.

“I will have to check our records and communications, Your Lordship,” he said, glancing sidelong at his lieutenant.

Groust was quick with an answer, which was perhaps all the more embarrassing for his captain. He turned a page in his notebook, eager to impress.

“Two ships lost in the Furies in the last month, Your Lordship. The Alliance and the Paladin. Both separated from their squadrons by storms, also near Fortune Bay.”

Cat felt such a storm whirling inside her, threatening to tear her apart. Part of her wanted to let it. It was simply too much to bear, the weight of this place, and all she had done to keep herself alive in it. And keep Valerian alive in it too.

My head or theirs. My head or his.

In contrast, Fell seemed intrigued. “Lost or sunk?”

Groust shrugged. “No wrecks were found, but they may yet arrive in their ports, the squadrons are new to these waters—”

The governor gave a low grunt, cutting Groust off with a slice of his hand. “What of bodies?”

Groust softly closed his notebook. “I do not know.”

Side by side, Cat and Fell exchanged heavy glances. She remembered what he told her in the dungeons of the fort. Two bodies washed up on shore, bullets in their heads. Two sailors of the fleet. It was not just the Paladin and the Alliance missing, but other ships too. Taken by violence, not storms or tides or any other danger in the Lyrian Sea.

Taken by him.

Cat cleared her throat as a lady would, the sound soft and gentle and delicate. It was a sound any Meridian officer or lord would know well, even a sailor long separated from fine dinner parties and court intrigues. Every eye snapped to her, black eyes and silver-gray, mud brown and sickly green. Cat faced them all down.

“Your crews are dead, but those ships still sail,” she said evenly. “Kane knows this sea better than any navigator you have. He knows the tides, he knows the wind, he knows the storms. And he’s using them to steal Meridian ships right out from under your nose.”

She let the weight of her words settle. Even pompous Carley had nothing to say, his face still blotchy pink.

But Cat only had eyes for the governor, holding his furious gaze.

“He’s building an armada of his own,” she murmured, landing the killing blow.

Behind his desk, Osprin’s cold facade threatened to burn, his face washing scarlet with rage. She did not miss the way his fists clenched, old scars standing out at his knuckles.

“You were never going to starve out Kane.” Cat stepped forwards to lean on the governor’s desk. The maps and parchments slid under her hands, the wax of the King’s golden seal cool to the touch.