One person tried to pull water toward her. Tried to tow herself back to the water-bridge. Vivia. She fell to her death, leaving Merik with only two choices.
Save the city.
Or save his sister.
The answer, he knew, was obvious. One for the sake of many—he had lived his entire life by that creed, sacrificing himself, giving up Safi, and ultimately losing Kullen for what he’d thought would be the greater good.
It hadn’t worked, though.
It never worked. Merik had always been left empty-handed, with a darkness digging ever deeper. Soon, there would be nothing left inside him, nothing left to give.
Merik saw that now. What did he know of this city? What did he know of the vizers or the navy? He’d tried—Noden knew he’d tried to be what his people needed, but the payoff had only ever been ashes and dust.
Vivia, though … the sister Merik had never understood and forgotten how to love, the Nihar who could lead this nation to safety, to prosperity, who could—who would—stare down the empires as easily as she stared down a tide …
Vivia was meant to be queen. She’d been born to it; she’d been honed for it.
“Come,” Kullen commanded, summoning Merik’s attention. Winds and frost pulsed across the Threads that bound them. “It is time to remind men that I am always watching.”
The need to obey crystallized in Merik’s bones. The need to use Kullen’s cyclone, to succumb to the endless power. To break and scream and shred and ruin.
But Merik fought it. This time, he dug deep inside himself. Until he found the temper. The kindling of Nihar rage. That was his magic—weak and tiny but wholly his own. It would have to be enough.
Otherwise, Merik would never catch his sister before the hungry Hagfishes.
So with that thought, Meirk turned away from Kullen, using only his own magic, only his own will.
Many for the sake of one.
* * *
The escape from Baile’s Slaughter was a blur of steel and blood and magic. Safi’s steel. Others’ blood. Vaness’s magic.
Near the main exit out of the arena, they rejoined with Zander and Lev, who still had most of the Cartorran crew trailing behind them.
“Piss-pies,” Safi swore once they were outside—for somehow, the bedlam around the arena was even worse than what had warred within.
“Piss-pies,” Caden agreed. The single road toward the wharf overflowed with people, fleeing and fighting. Two bridges had collapsed from too much weight while three more were engulfed in flames.
The final kick in the kidneys, though, were the waters circling the arena. They foamed with blood and movement. With crocodiles writhing and rolling and snapping up any person, living or dead.
“There is absolutely no way,” Safi hollered, “we can reach the harbor.”
Caden tossed her a smirk of absolute smugness. “This is nothing,” he said. Then he shouted, “Hell-Bards! In formation! Everyone else, get behind! You”—he pointed at the empress—“We need three shields. Big ones.”
Vaness matched his smirk, and with the same control that marked all her movements, all her magic, she swooped up her arms. Three iron shields—big ones—gathered and formed from any iron nearby. Safi’s own sword wriggled from her hands before reshaping into a curved chest-high shield for Caden.
“Move behind!” Caden shouted.
Safi moved behind.
“Move out!”
Immediately, the Hell-Bards triangulated themselves. Zander at the fore, Caden and Lev just behind. Then they shot forward in a full-speed charge.
Followed by a pause.
Followed by a charge.
Safi had never seen anything like it. They worked in perfect concert. Charge. Pause. Charge. Pause. While a brave few assaulted their formation from the sides or rear, the sailors were well trained.
In this pattern, the Cartorrans crossed the marsh. Time lost all meaning. It went from seconds and breaths to bursts and lulls. To blades arcing up and jaws snarling near. Charge. Pause. Charge. Pause. On and on beneath a perfect, cloudless sky.
Until at last, they reached the harbor.
Until at last, they reached a ship.
They weren’t the only ones to reach the Cartorran cutter at the end of the dock. Sailors already crawled across its deck while a woman with gray hair trumpeted orders from the stern.
She saw them approach before her crew did. She smiled—a false thing that scuttled over Safi’s magic—and then trilled, “You’re too late to reclaim your ship, lovelies!”
One by one, her men swiveled about to see who’d arrived. And one by one, they drew knives, cutlasses, and Firewitched pistols.
Vaness’s arms rose, and Safi saw exactly where this was headed. More fighting, more bloodshed, more wasted life.
Then she thought of initiative. Of bending and breaking, and she found herself shoving in front of the empress. In front of the Hell-Bards. “Wait!”
Kahina waited, eyebrows slinging high.
“We don’t have to do this,” Safi said. Merik might be dead—and countless others too—but that didn’t mean anyone else had to join him today.
“Walk away.” Kahina strode to the bulwark. Her own sword clanked against her hip. “I have no quarrel with you, but I claimed this ship. Now I keep it.”
“Play me for it.” The words tumbled out. Stupid—so stupid. But also something they would never see coming.
Caden and Vaness pivoted toward Safi, faces aghast.
Admiral Kahina, however, looked delighted. A feline smile spread over her face, and she leaned a hand onto the bulwark.