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Their faces lifted, anticipation rising in their eyes, but she knew the greatest hurdle was to come.
“Yet when Aren came to our Empress to ask for our help, she turned him away.”
Zarrah waited, allowing the information to sink in. “Rather than seeing this as an opportunity for Valcotta to wrong a right, she sees it as an opportunity to strike a blow against an enemy. As an opportunity to attack Maridrina while its back is turned, and enact upon it the same carnage as our cowardice brought to Ithicana.”
Silence.
No one on the ship deck spoke. No one stirred. No one seemed to even breathe.
“We could follow her wishes and sail down the coast, killing and burning as we go.” Her voice carried over them, filling the void. “Or we can sail to Ithicana and stand by its king and fight for liberty. For decency. For honor!”
Zarrah surveyed her soldiers, praying to the stars that she’d judged them rightly as she shouted, “I give you the choice: Will you fight and kill innocents to strike a blow at Silas Veliant? Or will you fight and kill to protect the innocents that Silas Veliant seeks to destroy?”
No one said a word, and a prickle of fear wormed its way up Zarrah’s spine. Because if she’d been wrong, Aren and Ithicana would pay the price…
The captain of the ship stepped forward and shouted, “I will stand with Ithicana!”
Then one of her soldiers lifted his fist into the air. “I will stand with Ithicana!”
A woman drew her sword. “I will stand with Ithicana! I will fight for them!”
And then it was a roar of voices, all shouting the same thing, all wanting the same thing.
So Zarrah stepped forward, lifting her own weapon in the air. “Let us to war!”
83
ZARRAH
“No ships at the dock.” A bead of sweat ran down the side of the captain’s face, betraying his nerves. “Looks quiet.”
Southwatchdidlook quiet, only a handful of soldiers visible, but well Zarrah knew that appearances could be deceiving. The vessel she stood on looked like a Maridrinian merchantman, the sailors disguised, but below deck, two hundred armed Valcottan soldiers waited to attack.
They drifted closer, the Maridrinians standing on the pier appearing unconcerned as they waited to tie the ship off.
Sweat beaded on her spine as she discreetly gave the signal for her strongest swimmers to enter the water. They’d swim under the ship and up beneath the pier. There, they’d find the tunnels Jor had mapped, which would lead into the storehouses Aren had described. When Zarrah and her soldiers swarmed the pier, the swimmers would attack from behind to disable the shipbreakers, allowing her other two vessels to sail in and join the fight.
Her pulse throbbed in a steady beat, her staff held in one hand below the ship’s railing, a hood pulled forward to protect her from the light rain sufficient to disguise her skin color.
“Slowly,” she muttered to the captain. “Give the swimmers time to reach the tunnels.”
The ship bumped against the dock, and her crew moved to toss down ropes. But one of the Maridrinians shouted, “We’re not taking cargo. Southwatch is closed—no one allowed on the island. Turn back to Vencia.”
This is strange,she thought, searching for any signs that the Maridrinians had prepared for an attack, but there was nothing.
She kicked the captain in the ankle, knowing that if she spoke, it would raise alarm, as Maridrinians didn’t have female sailors. Clearing his throat, the captain said, “We’ve got grain purchased by His Majesty for his soldiers up from Nerastis.”
“Don’t care if you’ve got a hold full of solid gold. You’re not stepping foot on this island.”
Something was wrong.
Zarrah’s skin crawled as she listened to the captain argue with the man, the ship rising and falling on the growing surf, rain soaking her clothes.
There is a storm coming.
Thunder rolled in the east, and a gust of wind tore across the ship deck.
On the pier, the Maridrinian’s eyes widened in horror.
