“Yes,” Iseult told Esme, scratching her weasel ears. “When we get to Poznin that is exactly what I will do.”
NINE
Thirty-four naval ships floated across the Veñaza City harbor. Spindrift and humidity thickened the night, casting everything in a ghostly haze. While Vivia stood at the Iris’s tiller, spyglass to her eye, the royal Nubrevnan flag snapped and waved on the mainmast.
“Why are they not moving?” the Empress asked. She stood beside Vivia, having traded in her golden gown for one of Vivia’s old naval uniforms, though the navy coat swallowed her and only her iron belt kept her beige breeches high.
Vivia ignored her, lowering her spyglass and beckoning her Voicewitch near. Ginna, a round-faced woman with coloring brown as fresh clay, hurried over. Meanwhile, every sailor on the Iris waited poised and ready. Some at oars, some in the rigging, and some simply watching the blockaded horizon from the narrow windows belowdecks. Their shadows stretched over patches of swaying lamplight.
“Find the nearest Dalmotti Voicewitch,” Vivia commanded. “Ask them why they do not move aside the blockade for a royal Nubrevnan ship.”
“Hye,” Ginna murmured, and instantly, her eyes turned glassy and pink. A sign her magic had stretched wide like a fisher’s net. Four long breaths trickled by with only the moist wind on Vivia’s hair and the rhythmic creak of the Iris to fill the weighted silence. Then Ginna’s voice dropped to a baritone: “This is Captain Kadossi of the Lioness. You are ordered to return to the Southern Wharves, Your Highness.”
“Turn back?” Vaness demanded before Vivia could speak. “On whose orders and what grounds?”
Vivia’s shoulders tensed upward. This was not the first time Vaness had taken the lead despite Vivia being the captain here.
“By order of the Doge, you must return to the Southern Wharves. Dock your ship and come ashore immediately.”
Vaness’s lips parted, but Vivia thrust up a flat hand. “Don’t,” she ordered. “I am captain.” Then to Ginna: “What will you do if we disobey?”
“We have orders to stop you by any means necessary.”
“Is that a threat?” the Empress spat before Vivia could intervene.
“Merely a warning,” the captain replied.
“How dare he,” Vaness snarled beneath her breath. She glared at Vivia. “He would not truly shoot us down. We are worth more alive.”
“Are we?” Vivia was not so sure. She was also going to throttle the Empress if she interrupted again. “We thought the Doge would aid us. He did not, and I suspect these warnings are genuine.”
Vaness recoiled. “Are you suggesting we return to the city?”
“No.” Vivia found Ginna’s unseeing eyes. Then she wet her lips and chose her words carefully. “Tell this captain that we will be passing his blockade, and at any sign of force, we will retaliate to the maximum of our abilities.”
The Voicewitch quickly passed along these words, and moments later, her eyes stopped glowing. The pink faded. She was herself again. “He ended the communication,” she said, and Vivia nodded. She had expected as much. “The maximum of our abilities?” Vivia asked. “What does that even mean?”
“It means we have one cannon on our main deck stolen from you two months ago.” Vivia pointed to the lone iron machine. “And it means you are the Destroyer of Kendura Pass. Take your station, Empress, and get ready to fight.”
For half a moment, Vaness’s face paled, almost as if in fear. Which of course made no sense, but Vivia had no time to question or repeat her order. There was much to do and a blockade closing in fast. Plus, she was the only Tidewitch on board, and even with three Windwitches to flank her, it was less than her usual forces.
“Leeri!” Vivia barked, flying down the main deck toward the stern. “Give us a beat to sail by, boy, and make it a quick one. Witches, take your positions, and Sotar, you’re on the tiller.” She sprinted for the ship’s end, her magic already rising. These waves belonged to her.
“I want full power in the sails,” she ordered as her witches gathered in a row beside her. Then louder, for the rest of her crew: “Battle stations, everyone! We are punching our way through.”
She did not wait to see if her crew obeyed. Punishment was now Sotar’s domain. Even Vaness was at his mercy, though Vivia prayed to Noden that the Empress did not make trouble.
She needed that Iron Bitch right about now.
At the ship’s stern, Vivia grabbed the balustrade. Already the waves licked toward her, hungry and ready. Command us, they said. We are yours. And Vivia smiled. She was a sea fox, she was a Tidewitch, and the Doge had chosen the wrong queen to anchor down.
“Prepare your winds,” she roared at her officers while she called the waves to her. Up, up, a catapult ready to launch. Air gusted around her. Swirling, charged, and powered by three witches as eager and as powerful as she.
Almost as powerful, anyway.
Two heartbeats boomed, wild against her chest, and the wind-drum began. No one sang—this was not a sailing beat. It was a battle beat, and it thrummed in Vivia’s very bones. Boom-da-boom-da-boom. Faster, faster, while the winds around her churned stronger and the waves below her readied.
“Make way!”
The ship gave a groan to split ears. The Iris launched forward, an arrow from its bow, a dog from its kennel, a firepot erupting that flew over the harbor’s easy waves—waves that Vivia now commanded. Magic poured through her, swelling out from her fingertips and into every droplet of sea beneath, around, beside. She was a conduit for power, a vessel that nudged the water in ways it already wanted to move.
Yes, it seemed to tell her. Faster, faster, forward, faster.
“Warship ahead!” Sotar’s deep voice bellowed above the Iris’s creaking skeleton and Cam’s frantic drumbeat. Over the winds and ceaseless waves. “Cannons are aimed at us!”
Vivia did not respond. She couldn’t. She was the water, and it was up to Sotar to heave the tiller and guide the Iris where she needed to be. A cannon fired; Vivia heard its distant thunder, heard Sotar bark at Vaness to intervene.
Faster, she commanded the waves. Faster, faster—
An explosion blasted behind her. Noise and splinters slashed into her. Vivia slammed against the balustrade. Then she fell overboard entirely. She crashed into the water, headfirst. So fast, she couldn’t comprehend what had happened. So fast, she could not gather breath before she plummeted beneath the waves.
But the water welcomed her—it always welcomed her—and without fully realizing what she did, she gathered her tides to her and launched upward again. Toward the sky, out of the sea, then through the air, droplets shedding.
She hit the deck and found a hole splintered through the main deck. Vaness was sprinting toward it, her arms out, her eyes huge and hair wild. A second later, the cannonball roared upward from the hole. Vaness spun, a whirling dance, and the shot launched back toward the Lioness.
“It … did not … break through,” she panted, her gaze briefly catching Vivia’s. “We will not sink.”
Before Vivia could ask why it had hit them in the first place, Vaness was rushing toward the bow and cannon again. All the while, the wind-drum still pulsed ba-doom-ba-doom and the Windwitches still heaved their power into the sails.