A towering, ash-haired figure loped over the main deck toward Merik. He dodged several swabbing sailors, stretched his long legs over a crate, and then swept a stiff bow before his prince. It was Merik’s Threadbrother, Kullen Ikray—who was also first mate on the Jana.
“You’re back early,” Kullen said. When he rose, Merik didn’t miss the red spots on Kullen’s pale cheeks, or the slight hitch in his breath. It meant the possibility of a breathing attack.
“Are you ill?” Merik asked, careful to keep his voice low.
Kullen pretended not to hear—though the air around them chilled. A sure sign Kullen wanted to drop the subject.
At first glance, nothing about Merik’s Threadbrother seemed particularly fit for life at sea: he was too tall to fit comfortably belowdecks, his fair skin burned with shameful ease, and he wasn’t fond of swordplay. Not to mention, his thick white eyebrows showed far too much expression for any respectable seaman.
But, by Noden, if Kullen couldn’t control a wind.
Unlike Merik, Kullen’s elemental magic wasn’t exclusive to air currents—he was a full Airwitch, able to control a man’s lungs, able to dominate the heat and the storms, and once, he’d even stopped a full-blown hurricane. Witches like Merik were common enough and with varying degrees of mastery over the wind, but as far as Merik knew, Kullen was the only living person with complete control over all aspects of the air.
Yet it wasn’t Kullen’s magic that Merik most valued. It was his mind, sharp as nails, and his steadiness, constant as the tide to the sea.
“How was the lunch?” Kullen asked, the air around him warming as he bared his usual terrifying smile. He wasn’t very good at smiling.
“It was a waste of time,” Merik replied. He marched over the deck, his boot heels clacking on the oak. Sailors paused to salute, their fists pounding their hearts. Merik nodded absently at each.
Then he remembered something in his pocket. He withdrew the napkins and handed them off to Kullen.
Several breaths passed. Then, “Leftovers?”
“I was making a point,” Merik muttered, and his footsteps clipped out harder. “A stupid point that missed its mark. Is there any word from Lovats?”
“Yes—but,” Kullen hastened to add, hands lifting, “it had nothing to do with the King’s health. All I heard was that he’s still confined to bed.”
Frustration towed at Merik’s shoulders. He hadn’t heard any specifics about his father’s disease in weeks. “And my aunt? Is she back from the healer’s?”
“Hye.”
“Good.” Merik nodded—at least satisfied with that. “Send Aunt Evrane to my cabin. I want to ask her about the Gold Guild…” He trailed off, feet grinding to a halt. “What is it? You only squint at me like that when something’s wrong.”
“Hye,” Kullen acknowledged, scratching at the back of his neck. His eyes flicked toward the massive wind-drum on the quarterdeck. A new recruit—whose name Merik could never remember—was cleaning the drum’s two mallets. The magicked mallet, for producing cannon-like bursts of wind. The standard mallet, for messages and shanty-beats.
“We should discuss it in private,” Kullen finally finished. “It’s about your sister. Something … arrived for her.”
Merik smothered an oath, and his shoulders rose higher. Ever since Serafin had named Merik as the Truce Summit’s Nubrevnan envoy—meaning he was also temporarily Admiral of the Royal Navy—Vivia had tried a thousand different ways to seize control from afar.
Merik stomped into his cabin, footsteps echoing off the whitewashed ceiling beams as he aimed for the screwed-down bed in the right corner.
Kullen, meanwhile, moved to the long table for charts and bookkeeping at the center of the room. It was also bolted down, and a three-inch rim kept papers from flying during rough seas.
Sunlight cut through windows all around, reflecting on King Serafin’s sword collection, meticulously displayed on the back wall—the perfect place for Merik to accidentally touch one in his sleep and leave permanent fingerprints.
At the moment, this ship might have been Merik’s, but Merik had no illusions that it would stay that way. During times of war, the Queen ruled the land and the King ruled the seas. Thus, the Jana was Merik’s father’s ship, named after the dead Queen, and it would be Serafin’s ship once more when he healed.
If he healed—and he had to. Otherwise, Vivia was next in line for the throne … and that wasn’t something Merik wanted to imagine yet. Or deal with. Vivia was not the sort of person content with only ruling land or sea. She wanted control of both—and beyond—and she made no effort to pretend otherwise.
Merik knelt beside his only personal item on the ship: a trunk, roped tightly to the wall. After a quick rummage, he found a clean shirt and his storm-blue admiral’s uniform. He wanted to get out of his dress suit as quickly as possible, for there was nothing to deflate a man’s ego like a bit of frill around the collar.