Chapter Nineteen #2
Emmaline’s brow furrowed and she shook her head.
Her mother had been clear from the beginning that she wanted nothing to do with Everett.
Whenever Emmaline had asked about him, Mama always said: “We’re happier without him.
” In her letter, she’d described Everett as: cruel, calculating, and determined.
Regardless of Emmaline’s own complicated feelings toward him, she knew her mother would never be happy by his side.
“No, Mama’s with Archer. She’s safe with him—”
“For now,” Everett interrupted. “Varro’s men will get her back.” The soft lines of his smile hardened as his jaw clenched. “Though they lost her once before, so I won’t put all my faith in him.” He gestured to the fighting on the shore. “For his blunder, he only gets half my men.”
Emmaline glanced at the fighting, her heart aching at all the unnecessary bloodshed. How many people had already died because of her father’s deal with Varro? How much worse would it have been if all his men were here? “Please,” she murmured, “don’t do this.”
Everett eyed Emmaline for a moment, then nodded.
The ache in her heart lessened as she smiled at him, happy to see him willing to listen.
He clasped her shoulders and rubbed soothing circles with his thumbs, his gaze turning thoughtful.
“Now that you’re here, your mother will come find me herself.
” Slowly, he nudged her toward the stairs below desk.
“Wait!” Emmaline exclaimed, trying to wriggle out of his hold, but his grip only tightened until his fingers dug into her muscles. “Call your men off first! Then I’ll leave with you, I promise.” If remaining with her father could save even a few lives, she would gladly make the sacrifice.
“My deal with Varro stands,” he informed her tersely. “Once you bargain with a traitor, you finish the job or end up on the wrong end of a noose. The king will die, and a new one will rise in his place, one who rewards those who helped him take the throne.”
Captain Moira’s words filled Emmaline’s head: ransacked shores; every building burned to the ground; Silas’ head impaled on a pike for all to see.
Her father spoke of treason so casually, as if his hands were too steeped in blood for one more betrayal to make a difference.
“Mama was right,” Emmaline whispered. She wrenched out of his arms and backed toward the railing.
If she jumped into the water, she could escape him—return to shore, get lost in the chaos of the battle. “You’re a monster.”
Fury flashed in his eyes. “Your mother is a na?ve girl who understands nothing of the real world!” He lunged for her and she tried to dodge to the side, but he caught one of her wrists and yanked her forward.
“Real power isn’t in her silly spells and healing magic.
It’s in the men who control the world. She may have run away from me, but she can’t run from the truth. ”
Emmaline tried to find the weak spot in his fist, but his hand surrounded her wrist so completely that she couldn’t shake off his hold. “I’m glad she escaped you—”
“Enough!” Pain burst across her cheek before she’d even seen his other hand move.
No one had ever struck her so hard before.
Is this how he treated Mama? Too dazed to fight back, she fell limp in her father’s arms. Was this man really her father?
He was nothing like the kind soldiers who entertained her as a child.
Nothing like Archer, strong and stoic as he oversaw a struggling kingdom.
Or Penn, who traded his own safety in exchange for hers.
Everett’s hunger for power, for control, meant more to him than the lives around him. Every new thing she learned about him stabbed her heart like a thorn.
Thorns. When Everett looked at Emmaline—at her mother—he only saw the beautiful flowers. If he looked deeper, he would see the thorns protecting her.
As Emmaline’s eyes refocused, she saw Silas across the ship’s deck.
She remembered him sitting in her mother’s cottage, crafting a mental shield that would one day defeat even someone as strong as Alistair.
His experiments had led her to strengthen her own shields until they broke the bars of her cage.
Now, she called up those same thorns to protect herself against her father.
Shadowy vines formed at the edge of her vision, difficult to see if she tried to look at them straight on, but there all the same.
Real, sturdy, and sharp enough to draw blood.
They surrounded her in a protective barrier, but it wasn’t enough to deter her father.
Given time, he would simply cut through them.
Emmaline pictured one of the spiny vines lashing out at her father. The sensation of it whipping through the air drew a startled gasp from her—the shield was more tangible than she’d ever felt before. The thorns sliced into her father’s face and arms, spraying blood into the air.
A deep bellow of pain followed and the hands around Emmaline finally loosened, dropping her onto the deck. She looked up at her father’s hands, anger fading to shock as she saw the raw, ripped flesh. Bone peeked through the deepest cuts on his fingers.
The shadow of her mental shield still writhed around her father, prepared to slice into him again if he made a single threatening move toward her. Emmaline pushed herself to her feet and forced her voice to remain steady as she said, “I won’t let you hurt anyone else.”
“What she said,” panted a voice nearby, strained and exhausted.
The words startled Emmaline, and she turned to find Echo standing behind her.
Blood and filth soaked their underclothes, as if they’d carved their way through the battlefield to reach her.
Instead of engaging her father in another fight, they grabbed Emmaline’s hand and tugged her toward the rail.
Before she knew it, they were jumping into the water.
The cold water soothed her flushed skin.
At some point, she lost hold of Echo, but she could feel them beside her.
When she surfaced, she coughed and sputtered and treaded water until she spotted Echo a few feet away.
Thinking of how quickly they had stepped in to fight her father, she asked, “How long were you standing there?”
“Long enough to watch you wreck him!” Echo replied, hazel eyes wide and gleeful. “Brilliant move, Em.”
An odd warmth filled her at Echo’s praise and the knowledge they had allowed her to handle the situation herself. She didn’t like the thought of drawing blood, even in self-defense, but she was still proud to have protected herself.
All around them, her father’s ships abandoned the fight. She didn’t know if her father had given some order, or if the pirates and soldiers protecting Bellacosta had proved too much of a challenge for his men. Even as they withdrew, the battle continued to rage on the harbor.
New determination filled Emmaline as she kicked her way to shore. There would be injuries, deaths, people who needed her.
And she would help them in whatever way she could.