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I had no weapon, nor knowledge of how to use it, save shoving the pointy end in the bad guy’s body, but I was done running and hiding.

“With your magic?” Fiorge asked, narrowing his good eye, shot through with spidery veins of red.

“Maybe,” I answered, not wanting to admit my failure moments earlier. “But either way, we should get out there before someone stabs you in the back.”

Fiorge’s answering smile told me something was wrong—more of something than the boat being under attack by outside forces. “It’s kind of you to care, but I’m not worried about that, Your Highness.”

Cold, familiar fear clenched around my heart as I began struggling against his hold. His answer was to press harder into me, making it apparent just how much he enjoyed my writhing. I forced myself to stop and calm down. Instinct alone drove me.

“Good girl,” he cooed, running his fingertips down the side of my face. “You already know who’s going ta win this fight, don’t ya?”

I tried to call fire. To make my eyes glow with malice. I tried to reach for a wave or bend a board below him. Nothing. Panic closed my throat, and I fought the urge to do what I always did and retreat inside my mind.

Maybe if I called Nyah, she could fight⁠—

I hadn’t noticed him take out the collar—I’d been trying too hard to think of a way out. But he snapped the cold metal around my throat, his grin growing larger. “So pretty like that.”

I glared back at him, keeping it to myself that he hadn’t needed the collar. If my magic had been working, he’d already be off me and possibly dead. He ground his hips against me again, and I drew a sharp breath in through my nose as he laughed.

“Let’s get you down below,” he said, spinning me toward the dark opening.

He shoved me forward to the edge of the stairs, where I would have fallen again had he not gripped my shoulders and steered me down the darkened hole. One last glance over my shoulder showed several of our people either fallen and bleeding or on their knees, wrists tied and collars around their throats.

“You can’t win this fight,” I told him, trying to be brave and stave off the tears that threatened to break through. “Torvo and Rivven will never allow it.”

“We’ll see,” he said, shoving me into a wooden seat and squeezing my shoulders from behind to keep me in place. I stared ahead at where the steps tilted back and forth in the turbulent ocean, willing Torvo to come down here and strike down my captor.

“Let’s watch the show,” Fiorge said, then thrust a small, dirty mirror in front of us. He murmured some elvish words—probably a spell he’d bought on the black market—and the image shimmered before settling into a view of what was happening above.

“You fancy the big bird, don’t ya?” he asked, hot breath wafting over my cheek. As if in response, the image shifted to show my prince, beautiful wings spread wide as he swung a blade toward a man clinging to the mast of the ship.

It would have been an easy dispatch for Torvo had he not had multiple ropes lassoed around his waist, leg, and neck. Three men yanked hard on the other ends of the bindings, and my heart lurched. I couldn’t help but lean toward the image as though I could somehow travel through the glass and help him. What little use I was. I couldn’t even hope to overpower the man behind me.

The tears did escape then, as I watched Torvo grasp the rope around his throat tight with one hand while he battled with the other. His muscles strained against the bonds as they dragged him slowly backward toward the deck. The man on the mast took advantage of his distraction and knocked the blade from his hand.

Torvo’s massive wings pumped hard, dragging the three men forward on the deck below, but they dug in their heels and used the various equipment as leverage until they’d wrestled him to the surface. When one of the men stomped on his wing, and he arched up in pain, I cried out. Fiorge laughed, patting my head.

Just beyond where the men worked to wrap Torvo in bonds, neck to feet, one wing crumpled and bent at an awkward angle, I saw another of the pirates clamping a collar on an unconscious Galan’s neck. Beyond that, Kredo held one pirate aloft by the neck as he scrambled for footing. Behind him, Sharlyne huddled, head whipping to and fro in an effort to keep her sights on them all. I smiled, relieved someone was winning.

But even as Kredo strangled his opponent, the other men had wrestled a bound Torvo to his feet and dragged him to the railing. I leaned forward again, at the edge of my seat. What were they doing?

“Bye-bye, lover,” Fiorge said, fingers digging into my shoulder to keep me in place. And the three on deck heaved Torvo up and over the edge.

The strangled scream that came from my lips echoed the shattering of my heart. I reached for my magic and prayed to the goddess, but the sea wouldn’t answer my call.

I stared at the spot where they’d tossed him over like a piece of cargo. I watched the line of rope attached to his bonds unspool far too long. I stared as the empty railing swayed on the rough sea and the three men rushed to take on Kredo, one bringing the giant down by piercing his heart.

“No.” This time my word was a whisper. Torvo wasn’t climbing back up. He wasn’t flying from the water, wings spread like an avenging angel.

He was…gone.

“No.” I said it again, losing all strength in my body and sinking back into the chair.

Rivven rushed forward, covered in blood and swinging his curved blade. He cut down two of the men who’d felled Kredo, but the third had the edge of a dagger to Sharlyne’s throat. Where were the others? The Captain and Kendara and Dev?

More of the pirates surrounded my friends from behind, wrestling the sword from Rivven’s hands. They clamped a metal collar on both him and his sister. A fire flared to life, engulfing the closest sail and one of the pirates with it. One of the men waved a hand, and water rose over the side of the boat to douse the blackened sail and the body of his companion.

Fiorge lowered the mirror and backed away, letting my broken sobs fill the space.