House of Sky and Breath (Crescent City, #2)

It was likely chock-full of gorsian bullets. They’d bring her down in seconds.

The Hind’s golden eyes glowed like coals in the dimness. Sofie gauged the distance to the end of the dock, the rope Silver had thrown down, trailing with every inch the Bodegraven chugged toward the open water.

The Hind inclined her head in challenge. A deceptively calm voice slid from between her red lips. “Are you faster than a bullet, thunderbird?”

Sofie didn’t wait to banter. As swift as a wind through the fjords of her native land, she hurtled down the dock. She knew the sniper’s rifle tracked her.

The end of the dock, the dark harbor beyond, loomed.

The rifle cracked.

Silver’s roar cleaved the night before Sofie hit the wood planks, splinters cutting into her face, the impact ricocheting through one eye. Pain burst through her right thigh, leaving a wake of shredded flesh and shattered bone, so violent it robbed even the scream from her lungs.

Silver’s bellow stopped abruptly—and then he yelled to the captain, “Go, go, go, go!”

Facedown on the dock, Sofie knew it was bad. She lifted her head, swallowing her shriek of pain, blood leaking from her nose. The droning hum of an Omega-boat’s energy rocked through her even before she spied the approaching lights beneath the harbor’s surface.

Four imperial submersible warships converged like sharks on the Bodegraven.

Pippa Spetsos stood aboard the rebel ship Orrae, the Haldren Sea a dark expanse around her. In the distance, the firstlights of the towns along Pangera’s northern coast twinkled like gold stars.

But her attention remained fixed on the gleam of Servast. On the little light sailing toward them.

The Bodegraven was on time.

Pippa pressed a hand against the cold, hard armor covering her breast, right above the sinking sun insignia of the Lightfall unit. She would not loose that final breath of relief—not until she saw Sofie. Until she’d secured the assets Sofie carried with her: the boy and the intel.

Then she’d demonstrate to Sofie precisely how Command felt about being manipulated.

Agent Silverbow, the arrogant bastard, had followed the woman he loved. She knew the asset Sofie brought with her meant little to him. The fool. But the possibility of the intel that Sofie claimed to have spent years covertly gathering for Ophion … even Silverbow would want that.

Captain Richmond stepped up beside her. “Report,” she ordered.

He’d learned the hard way not to disobey her. Learned exactly who in Command supported her, and would rain down Hel on her behalf. Monitoring the approaching vessel, Richmond said, “We’ve made radio contact. Your operative is not on that ship.”

Pippa went still. “The brother?”

“The boy is there. And eleven other children from Kavalla. Sofie Renast stayed behind to buy them time. I’m sorry.”

Sorry. Pippa had lost track of how many times she’d heard that fucking word.

But right now … Emile had made it to the ship. Was gaining him worth losing Sofie?

It was the gamble they’d taken in even allowing Sofie to go into Kavalla: possibly losing one valuable asset in the quest to seize another. But that was before Sofie had left—and then informed them, right before entering the camp, that she’d attained vital intel on their enemies. To lose Sofie now, with that crucial intel on the line …

She hissed at the captain, “I want—”

A human sailor barreled out the glass-enclosed bridge door, skin eerily pale in the moonlight. He faced the captain, then Pippa, uncertain whom to report to. “The Bodegraven’s got four Omegas on her tail, closing in fast. Agent Silverbow is down—gorsian bullet to the shoulder.”

Pippa’s blood chilled. Silverbow wouldn’t be any help with a gorsian bullet in him. “They’re going to sink that ship, rather than let those children go.”

She had not yet become so numb to the horrors of this world that it didn’t roil her stomach. Captain Richmond swore softly.

Pippa ordered, “Prepare the gunners.” Even if the odds were slim that they would survive an assault by the Omegas, they could provide a distraction. The captain grunted his agreement. But the sailor who’d come rushing out of the bridge gasped and pointed.

On the horizon, each and every light in Servast was winking out. The wave of darkness swept inland.

“What in Hel—”

“Not Hel,” Pippa murmured as the blackout spread.

Sofie. Or … Her eyes narrowed on the Bodegraven.

Pippa ran for the bridge’s better view. She arrived, panting, Richmond beside her, in time to see the Bodegraven racing for them—the submerged lights of the four Omega-boats flickering behind, closing in.

But as they did, a mighty white light soared beneath the surface. It wrapped its long arms around the nearest Omega.

The white light leapt away a moment later, flying for the next boat. No submersible lights glowed in its wake. On the radar before her, the Omega-boat vanished.

“Holy gods,” Richmond said.

Something like that, Pippa wanted to say. It was Sofie’s strange gift: not only electricity, but firstlight power, too. Energy of any type was hers to command, to suck into herself. Her kind had been hunted to extinction by the Asteri centuries ago because of that mighty, unconquerable gift—or so it had seemed.

But now there were two of them.

Sofie said her brother’s powers dwarfed her own. Powers Pippa now witnessed as the light leapt from the second boat—another blackout—and raced for the third.

She could make out no sign of Emile on the Bodegraven’s deck, but he had to be there.

“What can bring down an Omega with no torpedoes?” murmured one of the sailors. Closer now, the light swept beneath the surface for the third boat, and even with the distance, Pippa could see the core of long, bright white tendrils streaming from it—like wings.

“An angel?” someone whispered. Pippa scoffed privately. There were no angels among the few Vanir in Ophion. If Pippa had her way, there’d be no Vanir among them at all … save for ones like this. Vanir powers, but a human soul and body.

Emile was a great prize for the rebellion—Command would be pleased indeed.

The third Omega submersible went black, vanishing into the inky deep. Pippa’s blood sang at the terrible glory of it. Only one Omega left.

“Come on,” Pippa breathed. “Come on …” Too much rested on that boat. The balance of this war might hang on it.

“Two brimstone torpedoes fired from the remaining Omega,” a sailor shouted.

But the white light slammed into the Omega, miles’ worth of firstlight sending the final ship spiraling into a watery abyss.

And then a leap outward, a whip of light illuminating the waves above it to turquoise. A stretching hand.

A sailor reported hoarsely, awe and anticipation in every word, “Brimstone torpedoes are gone from the radar. Vanished.”

Only the lights of the Bodegraven remained, like dim stars in a sea of darkness.