The Jana slipped through coastal waters with barely a peep from her usually groaning wood. Merik stood at the weatherworn tiller, gripping it tight and steering the warship, while beside him on the quarterdeck were Kullen and three Tidewitch officers.
As one, Kullen and the officers chanted below their breaths, their eyes wide behind wind-spectacles. The lenses protected them from the bewitched air while the sea shanty on their tongues kept them focused. Normally Ryber would pound the wind-drum—with the unbewitched mallet—to give the men a beat to sing by. And normally, the entire crew would bellow a shanty.
But tonight, quiet and stealth were required, so the four men sang alone while the wind and tides they summoned hauled the ship onward. The remainder of Merik’s crew sat across the main deck, nothing to do when magic did all the work for them.
Merik glanced at Kullen every few moments, though he knew his Threadbrother hated it. Yet Merik hated seeing Kullen’s lungs seize up and his mouth bob like a fish—and the attacks always seemed to happen when Kullen summoned more magic than he ought.
Right now, the way the Jana skimmed across the sea’s surface, Merik had no doubt Kullen was calling on heaps of power.
Merik and his men had left the Doge’s palace earlier than planned. After the disastrous Nubrevnan four-step, Merik had wanted to be anywhere but the party. His magic had been out of control, his temper exploding in his veins—and it was all because of that stormy-eyed Cartorran.
Not that he would ever admit that, of course. Instead, he’d blamed the early departure on his new job for Dom Eron fon Hasstrel.
That man had arrived at the perfect moment, and the conversation that had followed had been more fruitful than Merik could have dared hope.
Dom Eron was a soldier—everything in his bearing and gruff voice had indicated that, and Merik had instantly liked him.
What Eron was not was a keen businessman, and for all that Merik might’ve warmed to the man, he was hardly going to point out that Dom Eron’s proposal was heavily in Merik’s favor.
All Merik had to do was carry a single passenger—Dom Eron’s niece or daughter or something like that—to an abandoned port city at the westernmost tip of the Hundred Isles. As long as the woman reached Lejna unharmed (he’d been especially emphatic about the “unharmed” part), then the bewitched document now sitting on Merik’s table would be considered fulfilled. Negotiations for trade could begin with the Hasstrel farmers.
It was a miracle. Trade would change everything for his nation—from how many people died of starvation to how negotiations at the Truce Summit went. Merik didn’t even mind that he would have to sail right back to Ve?aza City after dropping this Hasstrel girl off on the Lejna pier. What were Tide and Windwitches for, if not crossing the Jadansi in days?
So Merik had signed the contract alongside Dom Eron, and then the instant the man was gone, Merik had summoned Hermin back to his cabin. “Inform Vivia that the piracy endeavor is no more—and also mention that the Dalmotti trade ship is only just leaving the Ve?azan harbor. Just in case she decides she won’t back down.”
As Merik had anticipated, Vivia wasn’t ready to give up her scheme—but that was fine. Merik could continue to lie. Soon enough he would have trade with someone, and that was all that mattered.
“Admiral!” Ryber’s high-pitched voice cut through Merik’s thoughts.
Kullen and the other witches flinched—and Merik swore. He had ordered silence, and his crew knew how he punished disobedience.
“Don’t stop,” Merik muttered to Kullen, and with his fingers fidgeting with his shirttails, he marched around the steering wheel and off the quarterdeck. Wide-eyed sailors gawked as he stomped past. Several men ogled up at the crow’s nest, where Ryber was waving her arms frantically—as if Merik didn’t know exactly where the ship’s girl was stationed.
Oh, Merik would most certainly put Ryber in the leg irons tomorrow. He didn’t care if she and Kullen were Heart-Threads so long as Ryber remained a reliable sailor. This, however, was direct disobedience, and it would earn her six hours strapped in the irons with no water, food, or shade.
“Admiral!” A new voice rattled over the deck. It was a salt-wasted sound—Hermin. “Admiral!” he bellowed again.
And Merik almost lost control of his own voice. Two of his best sailors breaking the rules? Ten hours in the leg irons. For each of them.
Ryber’s bare feet hit the deck. “There’s a battle going on, sir! At an old lighthouse nearby.”
Merik didn’t care about old lighthouses. Whatever battle Ryber had seen was not his problem.
“Sir,” Hermin huffed as he hobbled toward Merik. The Voicewitch’s lame foot could barely keep up with his good one, yet he pushed himself as fast as he could. “Sir, we got a message from Eron fon Hasstrel’s Voicewitch.” He gulped in air. “Our passenger is on the run. Last seen on horseback north of the city and aiming for an old lighthouse. The Hasstrel’s men can’t get to the domna in time. So it’s up to us.”