He tries to push that out of his mind, to concentrate on sinking into the moment. The merrows are perhaps five feet from him and seven feet from Wren when he attacks.
He slashes the throat of the first, spraying the deck with thin, greenish blood. Twisting around, he sinks the edge of the cutlass into the second merrow’s thigh, slicing open the vein. More blood. So much blood. The deck is slippery with it.
Arrows fly. The massive harpoons fire.
Oak runs across the deck toward the four bearing down on Wren. A pair of her falcons match blades with one merrow. A lone falcon flies up in bird form and lands behind another, transforming in time to stab a knife into his back. Wren herself has thrown a knife at one fleeing across the deck. Oak gets there in time to dispatch the last by cleaving his head clean from his shoulders.
There are a lot of screams.
From the top of the mast, Bogdana descends on black wings. Oak glances toward Wren.
In that moment of inattention, he is knocked off his hooves by a sinuous tentacle that wraps around his calf. He tries to pull free, but it yanks him across the deck fast enough that his head slams against the wooden boards.
He kicks out with a hoof at the same time he stabs the blade of his cutlass deep into Sablecoil’s rubbery flesh, pinning the tentacle to the deck. Writhing, it drops the prince. He stumbles to his hooves.
Tiernan hacks at the tentacle, trying to sever it from the body of the monster.
With a shudder, it rips free from the deck. The cutlass is still stuck in it when it wraps around Tiernan. Then it hauls him backward into the sea.
“Tiernan!” Oak runs to the gunwale of the ship, but Tiernan has disappeared beneath the waves.
“Where is he?” Hyacinthe shouts. There’s black blood smeared across his face and a bow in his hand.
Before Oak can get any words out, Hyacinthe has dropped the bow and jumped off the side. The ocean swallows him whole.
No, no, no. Oak is wild with panic. He can swim, but certainly not well enough to haul both of them out.
All around him, there’s fighting. The fleeing merrow is cut down. The Ghost slashes at another enormous tentacle, battling to save one of the fallen falcons. Three more tentacles curl around the prow. From everywhere, there are cries. From some places, screams.
Oak wants to scream, too. If Tiernan dies, it will be because of Oak.
This is why he never wanted a bodyguard. This is why he should never have been given one.
The prince loosens a rope from a cleat, wrapping one end around his waist and knotting it there. Once tied, the prince gives a hard tug to test whether it can bear his weight.
He looks into the waves. This close, he can see shapes moving in the deep.
He sucks in a breath and prepares to join them when a crack of lightning draws his attention back to the deck. Fog is rolling toward the ship, along with higher swells.
Bogdana has brought a storm.
Well, that seems completely unhelpful.
Taking another breath, Oak drops himself down, rappelling off the side of the boat. As his hoof hits the water, Hyacinthe surfaces, Tiernan limp in his arms. Oak reaches for him automatically, afraid it’s too late.
“Highness,” Hyacinthe says, relief in his voice. Tiernan’s head lolls against his shoulder.
Waves splash Oak’s face as he grabs hold of his bodyguard. The sky overhead has darkened. He hears a crack of thunder behind him and sees another bright streak of lightning reflecting in Hyacinthe’s eyes.
Tiernan’s body is heavy in his arms. He tries to find a way to hold him securely enough that he won’t slip, tries to find a way to haul them all back up onto the deck.
He lifts himself upward, one-handed. He gets a few inches higher, but it’s slow and he’s not sure his strength will hold.
And then Garrett is there, peering down.
“Hold on,” he calls. “Hold him.”
Swells roll against the side of the ship. The Ghost is stronger than he seems, and yet Oak can see how hard it is to pull them up. As soon as he’s over the gunwale, the prince rolls himself and Tiernan onto the deck. A sailor is already tossing another rope over the side to Hyacinthe.
Tiernan coughs up water, then lies still again.
When Oak looks up, he sees one of the tentacles slide across the deck toward Wren. The wind steals his cry of warning. He tries to rise to his hooves in time, but he is too slow and has no sword anyway. Hyacinthe, just making it over the side, shouts in horror.
Wren lifts her hand. As she does, the skin of Sablecoil peels back from the muscle, the tentacle going limp and shriveled. A horrible shuddering goes through the ship as all the tentacles detach at once. The boards creak.
The last of the merrows disappears beneath the waves, whatever last taunt he may have spoken dying on his lips.
The storm hag, in vulture form, makes a guttural sound as she Bies. The wind rises higher, blowing all around them, as though she is conjuring a shield of rain and wind.
Wren stumbles, reaching for Oak’s arm. He puts it around her waist, holding her upright.
“I killed it.” Already, her skin has a waxy appearance.
He thinks about Bogdana’s story. About how if Wren’s power really works like matches, she keeps taking handfuls of them and setting them alight. “Killing is my thing,” he tells her. “You should get your own thing.”
Her lip quirks. Her gaze seems a little unfocused.
The wind lifts the sail, snapping ropes that were already frayed. The hull of the ship seems to rise above the slap of the waves.
Oak’s gaze goes to Tiernan, still as stone, with Hyacinthe bent over him. To the blood washing the deck. To the wounded falcons and knights and sailors. Then to the purpling cast, not unlike a bruise, creeping over Wren’s pale blue skin.
The ship rises higher. Abruptly, Oak realizes that it’s above the waves. Bogdana has used her storm to make their ship fly.
If she devoured the remains of Mab’s bones, perhaps she really did have a large portion of her old power back. And perhaps she really was first among hags.
Wren leans more heavily against him, the only warning before she collapses. He catches her in time to swing her up into his arms, her head lying against his chest. Her eyes remain open, but they are fever bright, and though she blinks up at him, he’s not sure she sees him.
A few of her guards frown, but not even Straun tries to stop Oak from pushing the door of her room open with one hoof and carrying her inside.
Her sofa and the small table have been tipped over. The rug beneath them is wet, and shards of pottery are scattered over it—the remains of her teapot have joined her broken teacup.
Oak crosses the room and places Wren down gently on her coverlets, her long hair spreading over the pillow. Her deep green eyes are still glassy. He recalls what Hyacinthe said about her power. The more she unmakes, the more she is unmade.
A moment later, her hand comes up, running over his cheek. Her fingers push into his hair, then slip over his nape to his shoulder. He goes very still, afraid that if he moves, it will startle her into pulling back. She has never touched him this way, as though things could be easy between them.
“You must stop,” she says, her voice little more than a whisper. Her expression is fond.
He frowns in puzzlement. Her hand has dipped down to his chest, and even as she speaks, she opens her palm over his heart. He has barely moved. “Stop what?”
“Being kind to me. I can’t bear it.”
He tenses.
She withdraws her hand, letting it fall to the coverlet. The blue stone in the ring he gave her glints up at him. “I’m not . . . I am not good at pretending. Not like you.”
If she is speaking of her coldness toward him, she is far better than she believes. “We can stop. We can call a truce.”
“For now,” she says.
“Then today, my lady, speak freely,” he tells her with what he hopes is a reassuring smile. “You can deny me tomorrow.”