Thirteen
BY MIDDAY, EVERYTHING of value had been transferred to the abandoned pirate ship. Charis stood on the deck of the Caleran boat facing her entire crew one last time, feeling as hollow and delicate as spun glass. The small leather pouch of moriarthy dust she’d retrieved from Holland was tied to her belt.
There was no point putting off the inevitable. There was only her duty and the force of willpower it took to see it through.
“I’m proud of you,” she said, grateful her voice didn’t shake. “You carry the hope of Calera with you.”
Rithni made a strangled noise and began sobbing into her hands. Several other crew members looked near tears themselves.
“I know some of you believed I was the salvation of our kingdom, but the truth is that, as long as there are loyal Calerans willing to fight for our people, we have hope. You have a very important task ahead of you. I hope to be alive to see you all in Calera again, but if Lord Farragin and I perish, you will have a new queen in Lady Nalani Farragin, and she is kind, fair, and committed to justice for every Caleran.”
Her throat closed, and she paused while she worked to take one deep breath and then another. Beside her, Orayn sniffled, and the bruise in Charis’s heart seemed to spread to her veins until she ached from head to toe.
Reaching out, she placed a hand on the big man’s shoulder and squeezed gently. “Your captain was a close friend of my father’s. Orayn is capable, wise, and loyal, and he will guide you all to Verace and then on to northern Calera, where King Alaric and his army will be waiting. I hereby transfer my authority to Orayn for as long as you are at sea. Obey him, respect him, and work hard for him, and you will be hailed as the heroes you are.”
Turning to her right, she looked at Holland, Reuben, Dec, Grim, and the four other crew members who had elected to sail with their queen to bait their enemies into an attack. She’d been surprised when the Montevallian spies had volunteered, but they seemed to believe serving her best interests would make their traitor of a prince happy, and as it meant that two more Calerans got to stay on the newly acquired pirate ship, she didn’t argue.
The Montevallians looked determined, as did the rest of the skeletal crew. Even Holland appeared somber.
To them, she said, “Each of you are heroes as well. Without your brave sacrifice, we couldn’t fool our enemy into leaving the rest of our crew alone. Without you, the weapon that will destroy them would sink to the bottom of the sea.” Her mouth was dry, her hands shaking. The weight of their faith in her—their willingness to follow her, even to an early grave—sat on her chest like a boulder.
When she was sure she could speak with the confidence their faith in her deserved, she said, “I thank you for your service to me and to Calera. Because of you, Calera will one day be free again.”
Her gaze met Holland’s, and he drew his sword from its sheath and raised it high. “For the queen and for Calera!”
His shout echoed across the lagoon. The rest of the crew raised their weapons and shouted, “For the queen and for Calera!”
For a moment, their fury, grief, and stalwart faith seemed to shimmer in the air like a living thing.
It should never have come to this. She shouldn’t be choosing which of her people would be tasked with carrying a weapon to Verace and which would help her sail their boat into the arms of their enemy. She shouldn’t be so far from home with a crew of Calerans who’d all lost loved ones to the invaders.
None of them should be facing death.
With everything in her, she wished she could undo it all. Wind back time to the moments before the Rakuuna set their sights on Calera as the bargaining chip that would give them access to the jewels in Montevallo.
But wishes were distractions, and she couldn’t afford to lose sight of what was at stake. She had one move left in the deadly chess match she was waging against her enemy. It was time to let them take the queen and assume they’d won the war.
“Go in strength and fortitude,” she said, holding herself as rigid as stone, an immovable pillar worthy of her people’s faith. When the last of the crew had crossed the ramp from her boat to theirs, she turned to Orayn. “Thank you for everything, my friend. I’m trusting them to you.”
Tears glittered in his eyes, and he bowed low. “It’s an honor to be your subject, Your Majesty.”
When Orayn was across the ramp, her crew disengaged from the pirate vessel and then turned to her. “All of you except Lord Farragin and Reuben, to the oars. Full speed ahead.”
It took four hours to navigate their way through the warren of tunnels and back onto the open sea. Snakes rose, coiling and hissing along the tunnel ledges. Charis spent the entire time hunched over the map Orayn left for her, carefully choosing her course while Reuben worked the depth finder to keep them from running aground, and Holland remained on guard in case a snake fell onto the deck.
With only half their usual rowing crew they moved slowly, and the strain of knowing what waited for them once they cleared the cave stretched Charis’s nerves to the breaking point. She focused on the map, whispering calculations to herself as she made small adjustments based on Reuben’s depth finder. It was better to focus on one curve, one tunnel, one small turn of the helm than to think about the Rakuuna.
When at last the dim haze of the tunnels began to lighten, and the map before her showed the exit, Charis’s knees gave out. She sank to the deck in front of the helm, her body shaking as though a hurricane was trapped within.
It was impossible to think, to stand, to breathe.
There was a ringing in her ears. A pressure in her chest.
She wanted Calera. She wanted Father.
She wanted Tal.
The thought of Tal in the midst of her panic lit a fuse in the corner of her heart where she kept her rage. He’d betrayed her trust and broken her heart. He didn’t deserve to be the last person she thought about before she faced her enemy.
“Take my hand, Your Majesty.” Reuben stood beside her, hard eyes pinned to hers, his hand extended.
She pressed her lips together in a thin line. She was queen of Calera. She did not go to meet her fate huddled on the ground like a baby rabbit frightened of a hawk. She was the hawk, and the Rakuuna were her prey. They might be about to swallow her whole, but she was the poison that would kill them from the inside out.
“Your Majesty, the exit is approaching.” Reuben’s voice held the same implacable expectation of perfection that Mother’s had.
Charis was not going to face the Rakuuna looking anything less than the queen she’d been raised to be. Ignoring Reuben’s hand, she climbed to her feet, grabbed the helm with fingers as cold as the sea itself, and raised her chin.
As the bow pierced the curtain of vines that hung over the exit, Holland braced his feet, prepared for an immediate attack. Charis and Reuben did the same.
Wintery sunlight gilded the deck in a wash of pale gold as the boat nosed its way out of the cave and onto the open sea. A stiff wind snatched at the mast, filling it almost immediately. Charis squinted against the light and searched the seas around them. They were empty.
“We’ve come out the other side, Your Majesty,” Reuben said. “It’s possible the Rakuuna ship is still by the entrance.”
“It’s possible,” she said, though that made little sense. It was more likely that her enemy hadn’t been sure which gap they’d sail from as there were multiple options on every side of the mountain. “We act like all is normal. Call up the rowers. I want the masts filled while I plot a course south.”
Holland stalked the starboard side, searching the water beneath them for trouble while Reuben called the rowers to the deck.
“Anything?” Charis called to Holland.
“Not even a baby kraken.” He sounded disappointed, and for once she understood.
It was agony to wait for what they knew was coming. It was even worse to wonder if the Rakuuna would miss the bait and go for the other ship instead.
As the rowers rushed onto the deck, Holland issued orders to trim the sails and secure the rigging. They hurried to obey, though their faces were grim and their voices muted.
Charis adjusted the helm, turning the ship to catch enough wind to push them south. Maybe this was better. They could put distance between themselves and the other ship so that there was even less chance of the Rakuuna remaining near the basilisk cave once they came for Charis.
She was just making a final adjustment, fighting hard to keep the ship from drifting into the rapid current of the western sea, when Holland shouted, “Ship, ahoy!”
An instant later, something thudded against their vessel, sending Charis tumbling to her knees as the boat rocked precariously. Her crew grabbed their weapons and shouted to each other, rallying beside Holland, whose dark eyes were wild with the thrill of facing death.
Charis scrambled to her feet as a high-pitched wail pierced the air, sending an ache through her teeth and scraping against her eardrums. As the wail tapered off into a sound like dry bones tumbling across cobblestones, a long, nearly translucent hand grabbed the railing on the port side of the ship.
“Port side!” Charis yelled, abandoning the helm and drawing her sword.
Holland and her crew pivoted as a Rakuuna with long, ragged, gray-white hair, a beard that reached his waist, and gleaming black eyes leaped onto the deck. Three more immediately followed, their too-long limbs making the task of scaling the boat and flinging themselves over the railing look easy.
“How dare you trespass upon the vessel of her Royal Majesty, Queen Charis Willowthorn!” Holland bellowed, his sword aimed at the first Rakuuna who’d come aboard.
One of the crew members, a middle-aged man named Losh, dove for the creature closest to him. The Rakuuna batted away Losh’s sword, grasped his wrist, and twisted until the bones cracked. Losh screamed, and his sword clattered to the deck.
“We take the queen,” the bearded Rakuuna spoke in halting Caleran, his voice as brittle and dry as autumn leaves.
“Over my dead body,” Holland snarled.
“We accept your terms.” The Rakuuna lunged for Holland.
“Wait!” Charis held herself still, though she longed to rush down the stairs and put herself between Holland and the attacker. The Rakuuna paused, his head swiveling around like an owl’s until his black eyes met hers. “He does not bargain for me. If your queen has an offer, I will hear it.”
A strange sound came out of the four Rakuuna, like pebbles scraping over tin in a windstorm. It took a moment for Charis to realize they were laughing. Her eyes narrowed.
“No offer. We take the queen,” the leader said.
“And if we refuse to give her up?” Reuben asked, looking two seconds away from throwing his body between Charis and the monsters.
“Then we kill everyone except the queen, and we still take the queen. She stays alive until Calera.”
Until Calera.
Charis froze, a statue on the outside as everything inside of her tumbled and fell.
She wasn’t being brought back to Calera as a bargaining chip for Alaric, then. She was being brought home to be publicly executed, to drain the fire out of the rebellion. They’d killed the Rullenvor High Emperor when they’d taken over his kingdom. The only reason Charis had been spared was Tal’s fierce bargain for her life.
If that bargain no longer held, then the Rakuuna either had what they wanted from Alaric, or they’d realized the Caleran people would be difficult to subdue as long as she was still alive.
The Rakuuna turned toward Charis, and her crew instantly moved to place themselves between the monsters and their queen.
“Kill them,” the lead Rakuuna said as casually as if he was stating what he wanted for breakfast.
A Rakuuna with thick white braids wrapped in a circle around her head and a bluish tint to her scaled skin leaped past her leader, snatched a crew member named Wenshel off his feet, and tore out his throat. Another ran straight for Holland.
“I surrender!” The words tore their way out of her, born of desperation and fury. “Let them live. I surrender.”
She laid her sword down and then descended the stairs, every inch the regal queen she’d been trained to be. Surrender was strategy, not defeat. It kept her alive to learn her enemy’s weaknesses and exploit them. And it saved her brave crew members, especially her fearless cousin, from death.
The bearded Rakuuna smiled, revealing both rows of fangs, and unease sank into her stomach.
Why so amused? He’d known he could tear through her people and take her. Her surrender did nothing more than speed the process along.
She paused at the bottom of the stairs, her mind racing.
He hadn’t promised to spare her people’s lives. He’d said there was no offer. They were going to take her, surrender or not. He’d said nothing about the fate of everyone else.
Already the other Rakuuna were spreading out, surrounding her crew, black eyes glowing as they flexed their long fingers and bared their fangs.
Frantically, she grasped at her spinning thoughts, hunting for a way to save her people. The Rakuuna didn’t value human life. They’d demonstrated that over and over. So what did they value?
Power. Jewels from Montevallo. Having unimpeded access to the throne of any kingdom they invaded.
“I surrender my heirs, the heirs of Montevallo, and my uncle as well,” she said crisply, giving Holland a look that ordered him, for once in his life, to keep his thoughts to himself.
Holland simply raised one brow and looked around him as if wondering which of the other crew members was posing as Charis’s uncle.
The bearded Rakuuna studied her, tilting his head so far that his chin nearly pointed toward the sky. She really wished he’d stop.
“Heirs?”
“Surely your queen understood that the entire royal family fled from Calera, with the help of several heirs from Montevallo.” She gestured at the crew and went for the jugular. “Of course, I suppose you could kill them now. They’ve already gained quite a reputation among the rebels in Calera. Killing them would turn them into martyrs for a cause that needs very little spark to turn into a firestorm you have no hope of extinguishing.”
The Rakuuna blinked, and Charis gritted her teeth. How much of that had he understood?
“She means if you kill us, the rebellion gets bad.” Reuben stepped forward, his wiry body somehow managing to look threatening even in the face of the monster before him.
“Rebellion bad?” The Rakuuna looked at the group and then chittered to the others in their language.
“King Alaric won’t give you what you want if you kill his family,” Grim said, the boldness of his words somewhat marred by the shakiness in his voice.
The Rakuuna spoke rapidly among themselves for a moment, and then the leader said, “We take all and sink the ship. Go.”
Before any of them could react, each Rakuuna grabbed the humans closest to them and flung them over the railing and into the sea. The bearded Rakuuna wrapped his chilly webbed fingers around Charis’s arms, lifted her as though she was a feather, and dove into the water with her in his grasp.
The shock of the icy water stole the breath in her lungs, and then she was plunging forward beneath the waves, dragged at incredible speed by the lead Rakuuna. In his other hand, he held Holland’s wrist.
She needed air. Desperately. Fighting the Rakuuna’s grip on her, she kicked and flailed, straining for the surface. The male turned his head, translucent skin glowing beneath the waves, dark eyes evaluating her struggles. Finally he soared upward, breaking the surface with a splash and pulling Charis and Holland up with him. They were beside a gray-green, barnacle-encrusted hull.
She choked on sea water, coughing and retching until she was hoarse. Before she could properly catch her breath or look to see if the rest of her crew had avoided drowning, she was hauled unceremoniously up the side of the ship and dumped onto the deck.
In seconds, Holland was dumped beside her. All around, she heard thuds as other crew members were tossed onto the ship. She drew in a ragged breath, coughed again, and then turned to make sure Holland was in one piece. His black hair was plastered to his face, and he was coughing violently, but he was alive.
A tremendous crack split the air, and she clambered to her feet, her clothes sticking to her, rivulets of water pouring out of her hair. In the distance, her little smuggler’s ship rocked violently. The main mast was slowly falling toward the sea, still tangled in the rigging. As she watched, a swarm of pale bodies climbed out of the sea and up the sides, tearing chunks out of the boards and tossing them into the water.
Her eyes stung and a lump formed in her throat as the boat listed hard to port and began to sink.
“We go to Calera now,” the bearded Rakuuna spoke from behind her. “You and other royals stay in rooms. Go this hallway, the deck, and the dining hall, but nowhere else. Try nothing against us, or die.”
She watched her boat sink until all that remained was a constellation of debris floating on the swells, and then slowly turned to face her captor. He smiled again, and she returned his smile as viciously as she knew how.
His smile disappeared. “To the rooms.”
Latching on to her arm, he reached for Holland as well and dragged them both down the stairs and into a long corridor with a mess hall at one end and twelve cabin doors staggered at regular intervals. “You and your heir live here.” He flung open the first door, as other Rakuuna dumped her crew members into adjacent cabins.
“I stay with my queen—with my niece,” Reuben said firmly.
The Rakuuna who held his arm ignored him, shoving him into the cabin beside Charis’s. She and Holland tumbled into the room, and the door slammed shut behind them.
Shut but not locked. As the Rakuuna had said—they were free to wander about the ship. What did it matter? The Rakuuna believed they had no reason to fear the humans. They’d even left them with their weapons.
She pressed her arm against her belt, where her small satchel of moriarthy dust hung limply.
The Rakuuna didn’t know it yet, but they had plenty of reason to fear her.
A whisper of sound behind her had her spinning to face the inside of the cabin. The world tilted, and her breath seemed to scorch her lungs as Tal walked into view.