The wind was up, propelling the ship with enough force to send up a spray of mist that shimmered where it caught the light.
The sails snapped in the breeze, and Lila tipped her head back, brown eyes squinting at the sky. A stranger would never know that one of those eyes was real and one was fake. Would never know that the one she’d lost hadn’t been brown at all, but black as pitch, carved out by a two-bit doctor back in London, England—the only London she’d known of, then—when she was just a child. As if it had been a poisoned thing, a spreading rot, and not a sign of strength, a marker of extraordinary power, once-in-a-generation magic.
If only she’d been born in this world, the one that worshipped magic, instead of the one that had forgotten it. But she was here now.
She held out her hand, calling the water to her.
“Tyger, tyger,” she murmured, even though she no longer needed words to focus her power. She simply curled her fingers, and the water answered, drew itself around her wrist and hardened there into an icy bangle. Easy, effortless. As natural as breathing.
Lila smiled.
Over the years, she had been many things.
A con artist. A captain. A traveler. A mage.
Once upon a time—and a world away—she’d been nothing but an orphan, a pickpocket, a thief with dreams of stealing a ship and sailing away. Dreams of becoming a pirate, laying claim to foreign seas. Dreams of fine knives and good coins, and more than anything, of freedom.
It had been hard-won, bought and paid for in years and battle and blood—not always her own—but at last, she had it all.
She flicked her fingers, and the icy bangle shattered with enough force that a few bits of ice drove into the rail. She plucked them out, and dropped them over the side. In her head, she heard Alucard muttering about his ship. But of course, it wasn’t his ship, not anymore.
She had rechristened it, much to the old captain’s displeasure, but the Night Spire had had its time at sea; now it was the Grey Barron’s turn.
The Barron had spent its first few years as an independent vessel, under no flag but its own. It had been pleasant enough, to sail for the sake of sailing, to discover new ports, new markets, new seas. But Lila had spent the first nineteen years of her life with one goal, and in its wake, she found herself coveting a new purpose. She was almost relieved when the rumors began to spread, first of more trouble with the empire’s reluctant allies, Faro and Vesk, and then, worse still, of trouble at home. So Alucard had asked her to put the ship to use. To go where no royal vessel could, and do what no royal vessel would.
To spy. To sack. To sabotage. To plunder, and sink, and fight, and steal.
To plunge in like a knife, and disappear again before anyone knew they had been cut, let alone that they were bleeding out.
Now and then, when it suited, the Grey Barron would still don the Spire’s black sails, become the shadow on the sea again, but today, its sails were white, its hull a nondescript grey. With luck, they would blend right in with all the other smugglers and thieves traveling down the Blood Coast.
Some places earned their names by dint of nature—they had black sands, perhaps, red silt, green tides—but the Blood Coast was not one of them. No, when the powers carved up Arnes and Faro and Vesk centuries before, there was a seam, a single juncture where all three empires met. No one could agree on the exact boundary, and so, after decades of discontent, of sabotage and sunken ships, the stretch had earned its moniker.
And they were bound for the capital, the infamous port of Verose.
Lila scanned the horizon, waiting for the jagged line of the city’s pale cliffs to take shape on the horizon. The Arnesian guard had done their best to clean up Verose decades before, to drive out the worst of the violence and impose a kind of order—the old king, Rhy’s father, Maxim Maresh, had even served a stint as captain of its base. But Verose had proved a lawless place, by nature or by choice.
And Lila loved it.
It was the kind of place where blood spilled often, every gathering was always one drawn blade away from a brawl, and—
A bottle shattered somewhere behind her on the deck, followed by a raucous cheer. Lila sighed, and turned toward her crew. Tav and Vasry were jostling, while the usually stern-faced Stross barked in laughter, all three faces red. The only one missing was Vasry’s wife, Raya. Lila craned her head and scanned the rigging until she found the woman, black-haired and pale as marble, perched on the masthead. The sun was high, and hot, but the woman didn’t seem to mind. Her gaze dropped to Lila, her eyes the same icy blue as the glacier she’d come from.
“Didn’t think I could do it, did you?” Vasry was whooping in Arnesian, and it was clear from the volume of his voice and the way he swayed that he had emptied the bottle before breaking it. “But I’ve been practicing.”
Lila looked down at the shards of glass littering her deck. “Practicing what, exactly?” she asked.
Tav made a small explosive gesture with both hands, and mouthed the word boom. Lila raised a brow. Vasry was a wind mage by nature, though he had never been a very good one. As far as she could tell, he’d gotten far more use out of his looks than his magic. His hair was a tawny gold, his eyes fringed thick with lashes, and, obnoxiously, he seemed to be getting more handsome with age instead of less, which came in handy when someone needed charming, less so when their ship could use a strong gust.
“Here, here,” he said, handing Stross another bottle. “Give this one some air.”
“That better be empty,” said Lila the second before her first mate hurled the bottle up over the side of the ship. Vasry’s hand shot out, eyes narrowed and lips moving. Clearly he meant to hit the glass with some concussive force, but he missed, and the bottle simply arced, and fell, untouched, landing with a quiet plop in the surf below.
“Oops,” he said, and after a moment of silence, all three men broke out laughing again. Vasry hiccupped. Lila shook her head.
“I think you’ve all had enough.”
Tav spread his arms. “But Captain,” he said, with mock sincerity, “this is meant to be a pleasure vessel.”
“Charted for a lark,” added Vasry.
“That’s right,” grumbled Stross, suddenly defensive. “We’re just being thorough.”
In that moment, she regretted letting them pick the Barron’s cover for this particular mission, even as she took up the last of the bottles waiting on the crate. She went to take a swig, only to find it empty.
Lila gritted her teeth. “Tell me there’s still liquor somewhere on this ship.”
The three men had the decency to look at least a little guilty. “Should still be some in the hold.”
She sighed, then turned and tossed the empty bottle up into the air.
Instead of splaying her hand, she closed it, not into a fist but a pistol. Thumb up, finger pointed. She followed the bottle’s arc with her finger, and squeezed the imaginary trigger.
The bottle shattered with a bang. The crew whooped and cheered, and the captain stifled a small smile as she strode away, the sounds following her down into the hold.
II
Lila hummed as she moved between the crates, her voice echoing faintly against the hull.
The Grey Barron’s hold was home to many things. There were stores, of course, enough supplies that they could stay at sea for weeks without calling into port. But there was also plenty to trade, or keep—bolts of fine cloth and scrying stones; Veskan masks and Faroan mantles; books of poetry, histories, and spells; and of course, a fair number of weapons stashed among the crates, since her burgeoning collection had long overflowed her private quarters. Everyone deserved a hobby, and just because Lila sailed for the crown didn’t mean she couldn’t serve herself.