“Why are you telling me all this?” Amber said.
“I have a proposition for you, Lady Amber.” He said her title sardonically. “If you admit to taking the high lord’s daughter, I will ensure you leave Rosarva alive. As you have learned,” he shrugged, “I am not without influence.”
Amber thought about the high lord’s golden-haired daughter. “And what will happen to Katerina?”
“Unfortunately, the current heir to Vezna will not be returning to the palace.”
“No.” Amber shook her head. “I won’t do it.”
“I’m sure some time in here will change your mind.”
Sergei’s clumping boots sounded, and he vanished for a time, leaving Amber alone with her predicament. Just when Amber thought he’d never come back, he returned, and she looked on in horror as Sergei held a shining green prism in his hands, glowing fiercely, nearly too bright to look at. “As for your reflector, this is a better place for it, don’t you think?”
Sergei grunted and threw the quartz pyramid, sending it tumbling down the corridor. “Good-bye, Lady Amber. Don’t try to escape. The Juno Bridge is hungry this time of year.”
Sergei tossed the last words over his shoulder as he departed, his footsteps echoing from the dank walls of the dungeons below the Borlag.
Even with the prism far down the corridor, Amber could still see the glow of green light. In the darkness of her cell it was the only thing Amber could focus on. Everything was washed with green: the walls, the bars, the floor, even the bucket. The color of Altura told Amber her homeland was under attack.
The light continued to shine. Though the device required a reasonable line of sight to activate, now that it had, it would continue to glow.
Amber put her head in her hands.
23
Miro stood at the wooden dock of Castlemere’s harbor, feeling the sea breeze cool on his skin and watching Deniz as he tacked back and forth, bringing the Seekrieger into the harbor against the wind. He heard the Veldrin commodore’s crisp commands as he barked orders, the crew reefing the sails and taking them in all the way, bringing the ship up against the dock with a gentle nudge.
Deniz’s men lowered a gangway, and Miro walked up to the foot of the ramp, waiting impatiently. “What news?” Miro demanded as the commodore came down to meet him.
“They’re two day’s sailing away,” Deniz said. “We could see the command ships—they’re the ones flying golden pennants—but we stayed clear of them. We had a brief engagement.”
“You were supposed to wait for support . . .” Miro interrupted.
“We know what we’re doing,” Deniz stated. “Some of their ships were drifting. Easy pickings. We sank two, and we took a prisoner.”
Deniz motioned and two of his men dragged a struggling, disheveled, pale-skinned man in a gray robe down the gangway. Miro’s eyed widened when he recognized an Akari necromancer. The pale-skinned man glared at Miro and spat a curse. Miro heard something about the Nightlord taking him but closed his ears to the rest.
“You want him?” Deniz said.
Miro smiled grimly. “Apologies,” he said. “Well done. We certainly do.”
Miro gestured and two bladesingers came forward to take the necromancer from the Veldrins. “Take him up to the main camp, behind the killing ground,” Miro said to the two men in green armorsilk.
“Be careful,” Deniz said. “He’s a handful.”
“Don’t worry,” Miro said. He grinned at Deniz. “We know what we’re doing.”
Miro left the prisoner in Beorn’s capable hands while he discussed strategy with Scherlic and Deniz. When dawn came, the two men would lead their forces against the armada.
In just a few hours, the naval defense of the Empire would begin.
Miro kept turning to ask Beorn’s opinion, forgetting he was absent. He tried not to think about the grisly task he’d assigned his loyal commander.
“Our chances are not good,” Scherlic said. “We have eight Buchalanti vessels, and the commodore here has fourteen Veldrin warships. Twenty-two in our two squadrons all told, fighting an opposing force five or six times that number.”
“We have a few advantages,” Deniz said. “Their ships are heavy in the water. When we sank the two ships today, revenants spilled out; each ship carries hundreds of them. We were able to outsail them and broadside them with our cannon before they could react. They are heavily armed, though, and their warships have more cannon than ours. They sail in proper formation, with fast scouts at the sides and cruisers deployed around the warships. The occasional ship drifts, but someone among them knows naval tactics.”
“How is that possible?” Miro said. “I can understand using revenants to man the cannon, but naval strategy?”
“I don’t know.” Deniz shrugged. “But we’ll soon find out.”
“Do you think we can stop them in the sea?”