Chapter 11
Chapter
Eleven
“Sound the bells!” Augustus shouted. “Prepare for battle!”
Wind tore through the sails as his voice cracked like thunder across the deck. From the crow’s nest came the answering call: iron on iron, sharp and insistent. The call would echo across Castona Bay, but whether the Perean Navy would come to their aid…?
Thank the gods Selene wasn’t here. Safe inside the palace, far from the line of fire. If he died today, his only regret would be that he’d left her with silence instead of an apology.
Augustus scanned the decks with his captain’s eye and frowned. They were barely crewed, and he had no idea what Omar’s family was capable of. As far as he knew, they were mere merchants, not pirates. Laborers. Family.
Not killers.
Even so. That was no reason to underestimate him.
“Lili!” he shouted over the rising wind. “We can stop at least one of those ships from boarding us, yes?”
“Aye.” Grinning, she turned for the helm in full command of her vessel. “Where are my riggers? Men on sails! Weigh anchor!”
Augustus kicked the lids off weapons crates. Swords. Axes. Crossbows. The crew wasted no time filling their hands.
Omar bounded down the stairs to the main deck, his attention on a triplet of young adults, no older than six and ten. “Fish. Rook. Bee.” His lips widened into a smile that caught the flint in his dark eyes. “Make trouble.”
With matching grins, they answered, “Aye, aye, Old Salt,” then shot below deck.
“Make trouble?” Augustus echoed, baffled. Never in his life had he heard such a reckless order.
“You’ll see.” Omar’s grin widened. “You’re not the only ruthless predator on this ship, Captain.”
Then Omar fell back into the chaos, shouting further orders at names like Nails, Sharp, and Hawk. His people fell into an easy rhythm—they’d done this before—and appeared more than ready to take on whatever came next.
Hopefully, that would involve one ship less.
At the helm, Lili gripped the wheel, a woman Omar had called North Star braced beside her. The two moved in sync, angling the Entia’s serpent figurehead like a spear at one of the approaching vessels. The maneuver was meant to block the ship from sliding along its port side.
And that ship?
Too fast to stop. Too stupid to turn.
Just fine with him.
Augustus pivoted and immediately found himself facing Felix and Pavle.
“Orders, Captain,” Felix said, calm and ready.
“What would you two say to a little chaos?”
The men smiled.
Augustus yanked a fuse-wrapped bundle from a crate. The mingled scents of sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal burned up his nose. “Get these distributed, Boatswain.” He pointed. “Along the waistline and stern. Fast.”
The sails snapped taut, and the Entia lurched. She groaned, then powered into her charge, bowsprit a lance with one goal: the enemy’s port side.
Augustus stepped up to the railing, his shirt snapping in the wind. He unsheathed his sword and raised it overhead. “This is your moment!” he shouted to the crew. “Make it count. Send these bastards screaming into the sea!”
Cheers erupted. War cries howled. Bloodlust stirred in their scant numbers.
At the prow, Cassia’s spirit stood with her shoulders square, her long black coat snapping in the wind. She dipped a nod once.
The Entia was his ship now.
And she was hungry.
“Prepare for impact!”
The distant bells in the bay begged for Selene’s attention.
No bell rang like that without chaos chasing behind it.
She had her own storm to survive, and no bell to ring for help. Only the pounding heartbeat in her ears, and the tight clench of Petrina’s hold on her arm.
Pirates.
Five that she could make out. Cutlasses belted to their hips. Loose shirts and trousers. Identical sashes in a deep shade of violet.
She’d seen them before and had promptly dismissed them. The market was crawling with travelers. People came and went.
But these men had stayed.
Petrina adjusted her hood over her tightly plaited hair. “They’ve been watching you for weeks. One or two here and there. Never this many at once.”
Selene’s pulse leapt. “They’re ready.”
For what, exactly, she didn’t know. It didn’t matter. Only that she was their target.
A low, rumbling growl vibrated atop her shoulder through the dronsian’s underbelly.
Petrina scanned the rooftops. “They’ve been coming and going from the three ships with Flaming Sphinxes on them.”
Selene retreated into the alley’s shadow and put her back to the wall. “Why are you helping me?”
Petrina’s expression sharpened like drawn steel. “It doesn’t matter. I’ve warned you, and now I leave you to deal with it.”
The Eye turned sharply to exit the backside of the alley—
She froze.
A man in a violet sash appeared and unsheathed his cutlass.
The dronsian fluttered his wings and growled. Vague thoughts came over her, tripping over themselves in meaning. One said to flee. Another to fight.
Selene didn’t have much of a choice. In the end, she would have to fight.
“Find Augustus,” she told the dronsian. “Go.”
The beast gave a low whimper, but leapt from her shoulder with a snap of his wings. He vanished into the sun like a shot arrow.
Petrina pulled Selene into the market street. “Come on.”
Selene followed, Augustus’s cruel remarks buzzing in the back of her head. “Could you even take a life if it came to it?”
She didn’t know.
Something told her she was about to find out.
Only a step ahead, Petrina wound through the swelling crowds, stalls, and crates. Merchants shouted the usual greetings, and Oskar’s voice filled her head. “Act natural, but never take your eyes off the target. Be aware of everything all at once.”
She’d dismissed the suggestion with a laugh at the time. Impossible to notice everything.
And yet, she returned the greetings and still found herself too aware of every shadow. Every shift. She felt the violet sashes closing like a noose, and no attempt at misdirection helped.
They reached a busy intersection. Petrina turned one way.
Selene pulled her another. “Not that way. Follow me.”
“Suddenly, you know what you’re doing?” the Eye asked.
“The Blades keep to areas where the City Guard was most active.”
Petrina didn’t argue. They needed help.
They turned a corner—
A pirate slammed into them and shoved them both backward.
Selene stumbled.
Petrina whirled and drew a pair of blades in a blink.
The pirate brought a cutlass down on her crossed steel.
Violet blurred in her peripheral. Selene spun toward it, unsheathing her Kopis knives. Metal clashed. Vibrations shot up her arms. A man with rotten breath grunted and thrust all his weight forward.
She ducked. Spun. Dragged her right-handed blade across the man’s side. His blood sprayed up the arm of her shirt.
He stumbled with a pained cry, shirt open to a long, bloody line of open skin.
A rolling silence went through the market.
The men filled the spaces like an acid fog, appearing in alleyways and cross-streets. Leaping from rooftops and from around stall lines.
A dozen. More.
Petrina put her back to Selene’s. Blood dripped from her blade. “What the fuck did you do?”
“I—”
He came through the parting crowd like a man who owned, not just the sea, but the world.
Handsome. Older, but no trace of gray in his short brown hair or thick beard shadow. He wore a brown leather waistcoat over an open-collared shirt. Hands loose at his sides. Smile loose on his lips.
A gentleman with teeth.
He paused only paces from Selene. Angled his head. Bowed. “Hello, Selene.”
Standing in his presence was like standing in the gaping maw of a shark. One with patience and time.
Selene adjusted the grip of her knives. “Who are you?”
His smile lengthened. “Captain Tristan Thorne.”
A chill rolled down her spine.
Suddenly, she was back inside a tavern room with Augustus and his parents, learning that Augustus had deserted his fleet to find her. Augustus had said something about…
“And what of Captain Thorne? His threat to our family? Are we ignoring that now, too?”
Cassia, from atop Mettius’s lap, had responded with bite. “Tristan Thorne will get what he is due when I am good and ready to deliver it. He can wait.”
Apparently, he’d stopped waiting.
Selene’s voice landed flat between them. “What do you want?”
Thorne’s teeth gleamed as he answered. “Retribution.”
Augustus braced for collision. Eyes open. Teeth bared.
The ship’s impact thundered. The splinter of wood rent through the air, and waves surged high against the hull.
One down.
The other enemy ship veered hard, swinging to their starboard side. Gangplanks arced, grating, iron-rimmed, launched like blades across the water.
“Felix!” Augustus shouted. “Now!”
Fuses lit in unison.
Across the waistline and stern, bundles hissed and popped, then soared across the water, landing all over the enemy’s deck. There was no explosion—that wasn’t the point.
Chaos was.
Smoke, dense and black, curled up their rigging and masts, cloaking the deck in a dense, black shroud. One second, there were men. The next…nothing.
Only sound. Coughing. Shouts. Panic.
Grappling hooks and ropes arced out of the black cloud—
Too wide.
Gangplanks splashed into the bay. The planks that did land turned into exits, not entrances.
Good. These were numbers Augustus could handle.
Steel rang. Cries rose. Weapons gleamed. Omar’s family came aboard as merchants. They would leave as pirates. They charged in with wild grins and bloody fists, howls as savage as any crew Augustus had ever known.
Augustus let go of all the noise—the bell, the wind, the groan of ships—and gave over to his body’s natural instinct. He turned into every shift of air with arcing steel. Blood sprayed. Bodies became stepping stones.
He savored the burn in his shoulders and the wetness on his face. He inhaled the acrid blend of sulfur and smoke like a drug.
Augustus unleashed every ounce of pent-up rage. For Cassia. For the warning she’d died to give him. For the silence her death carved into him like rot.