“What you just did, pinning me like that. Teach me, so I won’t make the same mistake again.”
“We don’t have time for that.” He shook his head, and then with great deliberation, he turned his back on the Threadwitch.
She attacked.
And Aeduan smiled.
TWENTY-SIX
Despite her strongest attempts not to, Safi had fallen asleep. All through the night and into the next day, she’d slept. Food, a bath, and a taro game—it had been too much for her body, and she’d curled up beside Vaness on the bed. Her eyes had seared shut. Then the Hell-Bards and the empress and the Pirate Republic of Saldonica had drifted away.
Until the knock sounded at the door.
That jerked Safi awake so fast that she fell from the bed. Her limbs tangled in the new silk-wrapped ropes that Lev had, quite apologetically, tied around her ankles after the trip into Red Sails territory.
The Hell-Bards had knives and hatchets drawn before Safi could right herself, and by the time she did struggle to her feet, Lev—the only one in full armor—was creeping toward the door with a blade outstretched.
A second knock. Efficient, determined. Safi glanced at the empress, who sat calmly near the close-slatted shutters. Hands folded upon her lap, posture perfect atop the lone stool.
“You should not have come here!” shouted a man in Marstoki.
The empress’s nostrils flared with a poorly concealed smile—which meant this must be part of her plan. If Safi only knew what it actually entailed.
The Hell-Bards were clearly as lost as she, for Lev and Zander ogled Caden, waiting for a command that wasn’t coming.
“Do you speak Marstoki?” the empress asked, so prim. Too prim. She pushed to her feet, the collar at her neck seeming light as dandelions for all it slowed her rise. “They said that we should not have come here.”
Caden lifted one hand, a knife flashing. Then he sniffed at the air, his narrowed eyes fixing on the window. “Smoke,” he said.
As one, everyone’s heads yanked toward the shutters, where sure enough, gray was just starting to trickle through.
“Hell pits,” Lev swore at the same moment Zander rumbled, “I warded against Firewitched flames!”
“Yes, but these are not magic flames,” Vaness inserted, beaming now. A hungry smile. “They are alchemical, for that is Baedyed seafire.”
“But we’re not at sea,” Lev muttered. “And why burn the entire inn? I thought they wanted only you.” She threw a look at the empress.
“Do you not want the Empress of Marstok?” Caden shouted, still using Cartorran. “She will die if you do not let us free.”
“She deserves no less!” came the muffled reply. Then an impassioned, “Why should we take only pieces of the Sand Sea when we could have all of Marstok instead?”
A moment of crackling silence while the blood seemed to drained from Vaness’s face.
Then a choked cry split her lips. She lurched from her stool and to the window. Before anyone could stop her, she had the shutters yanked open. “Stand down!” she shrieked as smoke billowed in. “As your empress, I order you to stand down!”
“For the Sand Sea! For the Sand Sea!”
A flash of light tore through the room, rushing over Safi in a burst of magic. Three more flashes, and then Zander was hauling the empress away from the window. Squinting through the bright onslaught, Safi realized crossbow bolts flew against the wards and ricocheted backward.
The protective magic was working—at least against the attack outside. Smoke, though, was coiling in. Hot, choking, and all too familiar. Too recent and too fresh, it set Safi’s throat to tightening. Smoke. Flames. Death.
“Expand the wards against real fire,” Caden barked at Zander. He turned next to Lev. “We need to keep the smoke out as long as possible.” Then together, he and Lev tore the wool coverlet off the bed and with a practiced speed set to billowing it like a topsail.
White light cracked through the room, and smoke burned in Safi’s tear ducts. She dragged herself to the wall where Vaness cowered.
None of the empress’s perfect mask remained now. Through the haze and the blasting lights, Safi found a wide-eyed empress. Her fingers were white-knuckled around the collar as she tugged it, arms shaking. Everything shaking.
“They betrayed me,” she mumbled, her quivering eyes fixing on Safi. “They betrayed me.” It was all she would say, over and over again, “They betrayed me.”
Abruptly, the flashing light stopped. No more bolts cracked against the ward, and Caden and Lev had reached the window with their waving banner. Safi hardly noticed, for now Vaness was wrenching at her collar with such desperation that her nose had begun to bleed. A downward seep from one nostril.