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The minutes stretched, each one more painful than the last. Corayne almost wondered if theTempestbornwas holding back, inching along at the perfect pace, closing the distance so slowly it might drive them all mad. She stood at the bow of the Ibalet galley, beneath the Heir’s blue-and-gold flag. It flapped over her, its shadow wagging back and forth, dragging Corayne between sunlight and shade. The Spindleblade dug into her back, bared to the world.
Her gaze never wavered, fixed on the galley a hundred yards off. Glorious as the ship was, she saw signs of its battle with a kraken. One of the masts was new, and there were long sections of replaced railing. The prow ram was gone entirely, probably snapped off by a curling tentacle. But Corayne still knew the hull,the ropes, the wine-dark sails. She knew exactly how many rowers sweated below deck, how large the boarding party was, and how fearsome the crew.
She could almost see them, the familiar faces crowding theTempestborn, the most familiar of all at the helm.
“Hell Mel,” she heard one of the Ibalet sailors cry, his voice stricken. The rest of the crew mirrored his dismay, the message carrying down the ship.
Her mother’s reputation was known throughout the Long Sea to sailors of many kingdoms. The Ibalets were no exception.
When the captain joined her in the forecastle, a sword belted to his hip, she knew the time had come. There would be no outrunning theTempestborn.
Corayne wanted to scream. Even after the Spindle in Nezri, the blood she’d spilled, Taristan’s torn face, Erida’s betrayal—no matter how far she’d come, she was no match for her own mother.You don’t have the spine for it,Meliz had told her once. It felt like another life, and yet here it was again, catching up with every passing second. Corayne heard her voice now, the words surrounding her like the bars of a cage.
“You won’t need that,” Corayne said to the captain.
The captain blanched, putting a hand to his blade. “I don’t intend to surrender my ship.”
“She doesn’t want your ship; she wants me.”
Corayne pushed past him, numbness stealing over her. She took measured steps back down to the deck, her fingers shaking on the rail.
“Take up no arms and no harm will come to your crew,” shecalled over her shoulder, loud enough for the captain and his sailors to hear.
“Do as she says,” Sorasa snarled, the Amhara assassin shouting down any opposition before the sailors could think to voice it. “Even Hell Mel would not attack her own child.”
Dom fell in next to Sorasa and Corayne. He had his sword too. Despite his nausea, he was still an imposing sight. “But she will try to take her.”
“Not if we have anything to say about it,” Sorasa spat back, her copper eyes flashing. She tightened the belts around her body, checking her daggers. There wouldn’t be any need for blades, but Corayne suspected they were a comfort all the same.
Even Valtik seemed on edge, slumped against the mast, her bare feet splayed out in front of her.
“You should get below deck,” Corayne muttered, looking down at the witch. She tried not to flinch as Dom and Sorasa took up her flanks, and Sigil the rear.
Valtik leered up, smiling her manic grin. “The bones will not speak,” she chuckled. One gnarled finger pointed, not to theTempestborn, but across the deck at the empty north sky. “The way beyond is bleak.”
“Enough, Witch,” Sorasa grumbled.
“Enough, Forsaken,” Valtik shot back, her lurid blue eyes like two blades. Sorasa flinched, feeling their bite, and dropped her gaze, a child scolded. Satisfied, the witch looked back to Corayne. “You are not mistaken.”
“About what,Gaeda?” she said. Her eyes darted betweenValtik and theTempestborngliding closer and closer. The oars pulled in. Neither galley needed them anymore. Slowly, theTempestborn’s shadow fell across the Ibalet ship, its sail blocking out the sun.
“You walk a different line.” Still grinning, Valtik slashed her bony finger through the air. “You hold a different spine.”
No spine.A cold jolt shot through Corayne. She started forward, meaning to kneel.How could she know?
“Valtik—”
“Prepare to be boarded!” someone shouted, his voice carrying the short distance between the two ships.
It was Kireem, the navigator of theTempestborn. He stood at the galley’s rail, one boot planted, a rope in hand. He looked better than he had in Adira, when Corayne saw him last, battered and bewildered by the kraken that had nearly destroyed the ship. His single good eye found Corayne among the crew, and his black brow furrowed.
The Ibalet captain stepped forward. Though clearly outnumbered, he showed no fear. “This is the royal galley of Their Serene Highness, the Heir of Ibal. You have no right nor cause to waylay us in our voyage.”
“I have both right and cause, Captain.”
Meliz an-Amarat’s voice carried all the storms her ship was named for. She climbed up the rail alongside Kireem, using the ropes for balance. Her salt-worn coat was gone, leaving only breeches, boots, and a light shirt. Nothing marked her as the captain of theTempestborn, but no man alive could have mistaken herfor anything less. The sun blazed at her back and she cut a terrible silhouette, her black hair wild around her face, the edges going red. She leaned into the space between the two galleys, her teeth bared. She seemed more tiger than woman.
Corayne couldn’t help but tremble under her gaze.
