“You like this better?” Theodor gestured around our spare, damp room. As if to prove a point, a gust of wind rattled the bubbly panes of glass in the drafty windows.
“In a way. Here, we’re—well, we’re as close as we’ve ever been to equals. And we’re working together, as peers. And we’re—well, we might be risking an untimely death, but I can see my future with you more clearly than ever before.”
Theodor looked up, pain creasing the corners of his eyes. “I don’t know what I see when I look beyond tomorrow, beyond the next battle. I don’t know who I’m going to be anymore. I need to know.” He gripped my hands tightly in his. “What do you see?”
“In terms of titles and politics?” I leaned against him again. “I have no idea. But I see us standing together, our hands dirty with work, whether it’s farming a field or planting rose balsam in the greenhouse. I see us laughing with our friends over dinner, whether it’s in a cottage like this or a grand hall. I see us—” My breath caught, but I realized with a start that I meant it as I continued, “I see us raising children.”
“That is a beautiful future,” he murmured. I thought I saw the soft glint of tears in his eyes, but I wasn’t sure as he pulled me closer. “I can understand why you’d risk everything for it. I would, too.”
He buried his hands in my hair and drew me into the warmth of a deep kiss. I succumbed to the quiet comfort of his embrace, pulling his weight onto me, marveling at the thickening sinews of his arms, the roughness that a day without a shave had brought to his face. So much had changed, but we were changing together so that it was familiar, comfortable.
I drew my legs onto our bed, raising a haze of dust from the moldering straw, and the last of the day’s sunlight pierced it, radiating through the motes in a cloud of sparkle. Like a charm, I thought as Theodor’s kisses intensified and his lips pressed my neck, my collarbone, the half-ticklish spot beneath my ear. I raised my body toward his, the invitation he had waited for. The dust motes swirled around us like golden magic.
30
“ISN’T SHE GRAND?” ANNETTE TWIRLED LIKE A GIRL IN A BALLGOWN as her flagship sailed from the safety of Hazelwhite harbor. “She’s the prettiest of the ships.”
“You chose your flagship for looks alone?” I laughed.
“Hardly!” Annette ran a hand over the weathered wood of the railing. “She’s the swiftest, too, because she’s so pretty.” She saw my confusion. “She’s built well. Her lines are just perfection. And she cuts through the water like a porpoise.” She grinned. “But she’s also lovely to look at. That’s why I rechristened her the Nightingale.”
“What now?”
“Why, we patrol,” Annette said with an impish smile.
Annette’s plan was simple enough—in groups of three ships, our small navy sailed in separate directions, each assigned to a grid on the map. Each pod of porpoises, as Annette dubbed them, would be judicious in which ships they would approach, and were charged to outrun or evade any they thought themselves incapable of taking successfully, with minimal damage.
And minimal damage was what we needed—not only to our own ships, but to the prizes we captured. If we could take even a few large Galatine vessels, our firepower at sea would increase substantially, and we had a far better chance at pinioning the Royalist navy into the Galitha City harbor when we took the city.
On our fourth morning at sea, Annette called me to the deck. She pointed to a smudge of gray on the horizon.
“I want her,” Annette said, handing me the spyglass. “She’s a perfect little man-o’-war.”
“I will never get used to the gender of naval terms,” I said, peering at the ship through the spyglass. The Royalist man-o’-war was larger than any of the individual ships in our pod, but like a pack of wolves approaching prey, we could work in tandem to take her.
“And what do you need?” Annette snapped the spyglass shut.
“A place out of the way.” I wasn’t quite sure what, exactly, I would do once we engaged. The tactic I had discovered by accident on the Fenian ship might not be the best one to employ here—a chain reaction that ended with sinking our prize wasn’t what we hoped for.
“Then find it. Once we begin moving, we move quickly.” The refined princess was still apparent in the crispness of her movements, the precision of her commands, and her unflinching authority. But she was a confident captain, and watching her transform from my friend Annette to a formidable commander was nothing short of awe inspiring.
I hauled myself onto a raised part of the deck. At the stern, our signalman relayed Annette’s orders to the other two ships in our pod. The Nightingale moved ahead in position, sails unfurled and straining in the wind. Annette was right—the ship did slice through the waves like a sleek little porpoise.
The next few minutes were all confusion for me, though Annette shouted orders in a clear, calm voice and the sailors on board carried them out swiftly. We seemed to close the distance between the Royalist ship and ours in the space of a few breaths, though I knew it took longer.
The Nightingale was already charmed, burgeoning with protection spells, as were the others in our pod, which left one clear avenue I could pursue—cursing the Royalist ship. I scanned her, not knowing how to spot inherent weaknesses in a particular ship despite Annette’s tutelage. But I knew one weakness Annette would surely exploit, and that I could weaken further—the rigging and sails. Without maneuverability, the ship couldn’t turn and outrun us.
I began threading dark magic out of the ether, weaving it into a messy net of black fibers visible only to me. We were close enough, I thought, to try to cast the curse onto the ship’s sails. I forced the net toward the ship, and it stayed under my control as it slipped over the waves, as though borne on the same wind that filled our sails. My breath hitched in excitement—the black net hovered over the Royalist ship, farther away than any charm or curse I had managed to maintain.
I was getting better, I thought grimly as I pressed the curse into the canvas and ropes. I pulled more dark glinting curse and strengthened the spell, working rapidly as we closed the distance. It grew easier to manipulate the magic as we grew closer to the ship, but I knew that also meant my time was almost up.
As if on cue, the Nightingale’s guns opened on the Royalist ship, the reports echoing across the water as the first shots tore through the rigging. I blinked—either the gunner’s calculations were impeccable, or the dark sparkle in the Royalist rigging had drawn the chain shot from our guns the same way the big magnet I kept on the worktable in my shop pulled at pins.
That damage done, I scanned the ship for my next move. Her gunports were still closed—I had a mad idea, and threw dark layers of curse across the ports themselves, gritting my teeth as I forced them into the wood. I didn’t dare curse the guns themselves—not like I had while on board the Fenian ship—but what if a good number of cannons couldn’t be employed because the ports wouldn’t open?
Moments later, the Royalist ship’s cannons showed their charcoal-dark maws. A few ports jammed, but I was swiftly reminded that my abilities weren’t storybook magic. I couldn’t close a door with a wink of my eye and a magic word. What next? I pulled more curse magic into a loosely woven mat. The nearness and sheer quantity of it was beginning to foul my mouth with bile and tease a headache at my temples, like it had long months before, working in curse magic for the first time. I forced myself to continue.