Vivia smiled.
* * *
When at last Vivia and Vaness reached the canal street outside the Doge’s palace, the sun had reached its peak. Heat rose from the cobblestones, carrying the morning’s rain and the stink of sulfur and fish. Gone were the jasmine and rose; gone were the guards and attendants.
The main gate clamored shut behind them, final and disapproving.
A lone four-horse carriage waited nearby—an extravagance that had cost Vivia and Vaness most of the pitiful funding Vizer Sotar had graciously donated to their cause. They’d thought the price worth it at dawn, when they’d still believed they might turn an empire to their cause.
Now, all Vivia saw was more waste. More failure.
If Vaness felt as defeated as Vivia, she gave no indication while she waited, posture perfect, for the carriage to rattle their way. Soon it was before them, and the nearest door popped wide. Their lone attendant—if he could really be called that—scampered out with a stepping-stool.
That stool had cost an extra ten piestras.
“Majesties,” Cam Leeri said, offering a clumsy bow. “Did it go well?”
Vaness gave no answer; Vivia simply sighed.
And Cam winced. The reaction was short-lived, though, as it always seemed to be for the boy. With his dappled brown skin and its golden undertones, as well as his doe-dark eyes and quick smile, he was easily the most optimistic person Vivia had ever met. Sometimes it grated on her, but most of the time, it was refreshing to have someone so determined to see good.
It wasn’t until the carriage jolted to a start that Vaness finally spoke. “You know,” she said, gazing out the open window, “I understand your brother better now.” Wind tousled her hair. “Two months ago, when he lost his temper at the Truce Summit luncheon and blasted his winds, I thought him childish. Now I see the empires are unfeeling, and Nubrevna…” Vaness tore her gaze off the canals. Her dark eyes settled on Vivia’s. “You have always been at their mercy. At my mercy, which I did not give.”
“No,” Vivia said. “You did not.” And there was nothing else to say. Vaness was right. She had shown no mercy for almost twenty years, and now she was tasting the poison she’d once dispensed.
Cam cleared his throat. Outside, traffic and voices and horses filled the day, filled Vivia’s ears. But she didn’t tear her gaze from the Empress. One month they had been together, yet somehow, she felt she scarcely knew the other woman. Vaness had far fewer masks than Vivia—only one, in fact. Yet that Iron Bitch facade so rarely budged, so rarely revealed.
Even now, after a confession, there was only steel in her eyes.
After finding Vaness in the Lovats under-city, badly injured and surrounded by raiders—and after flooding those raiders and leaving them for the Royal Soil-Bound and Navy to handle—Vivia had fled Lovats on her old ship, the Iris. Stealing, her father had called it, and traitor, he had called her. He’d even gone so far as to offer a bounty to anyone who brought her back to the city. Two thousand gold martens that he certainly could not afford, but that would certainly entice the hungriest and most desperate of Nubrevnans.
She and Vaness had taken to the sea right away, only a skeleton crew to sail with—but enough loyalty in all of the sailors to fill an armada. After sailing aimlessly for two weeks, they had finally arrived here in Dalmotti, hoping to forge an alliance with the Guildmasters and find some sort of help in their quests to reclaim their thrones.
Vivia hadn’t expected them to fail quite so quickly.
She was the first to break the stare with Vaness, and she could feel Cam practically melt with relief beside her. “Leeri,” she said, angling toward the boy. He wore the Sotar livery—the same salmon-red broadcloth as Vivia’s uniform.
Not that his appearance or hers had helped them any more than this carriage had.
“How quickly until the crew can set sail?”
“Right away, Majesty.” His dark eyebrows lifted. His left hand—missing its pinkie—rapped against his knee. “I told them to be ready, just in case.”
Just in case. So even the boy had had little faith in their mission. Vivia hated how much her stomach dropped just thinking that. While she had hardly possessed Vaness’s certainty, she’d at least had some hope.
No regrets. Keep moving.
As the carriage rolled into the Southern Wharves, the Iris came into view. A two-masted half-galley with the sharp, beak-like bow of all Nubrevnan naval ships. A sleek creature with her oars stowed and sails furled, and just seeing her made the knots in Vivia’s chest—knots that never fully went away—loosen. The Iris had served Vivia for years, first on the rivers of Nubrevna, then briefly at sea …
And now upon the Jadansi. The only home she and Vaness had. The extent of their holdings, the breadth of their empires.
The horses and carriage clopped to a halt, and Cam hastily helped his royal charges exit. Vivia didn’t need the aid, but she accepted it anyway. Vaness, she noted, did not. The Empress had retreated entirely behind her cold exterior, and if Vivia had to guess, she would speak little for the rest of the day. Perhaps even for the rest of their journey.
Vivia stalked across the gangway. Tar and salt mingled in her nose. The sea’s breeze fingered her hair, trailed across her skin. She inhaled deeply. Smiled at the nearest sailor and then the ship’s girl after that.
Cam and Vaness followed, but Vivia scarcely noticed. Her eyes were scanning the deck for her first mate … There. Broad-shouldered and broader-chested, he too wore the warm coral red of his family’s livery.
It had become the color of Vivia’s cause. The color of her small but loyal crew.
Vizer Erril Sotar hurried toward Vivia. He did not ask how the meeting had gone, and Vivia could see in his dark eyes that he too had not expected any progress. There came the knots again.
“Sotar,” she said, aiming for her main quarters. “I want to make way tonight. If we are lucky, we might escape this cursed place before the moon reaches her peak.”
“Where will we go?” His voice was a warm baritone. Familiar and kind.
“Away. Far away.” It was a nonanswer, but the best she could give. Nubrevna was not an option. Marstok even less so. The only harbor they might safely lay anchor in was the Pirate Republic of Saldonica, and though Vivia had been willing to dabble in piracy in the past—given the right target—she’d also seen Lovats almost destroyed by Red Sails and Baedyeds. Twice.
She had no interest in allying herself with true raiders.
“Then away it is, Captain.” Sotar pressed his fist to his chest before striding ahead to open her cabin door. Though Vivia had told him over and over and over again that he didn’t need to open doors, he still did it. Every time.
And every time, it made the little rip in Vivia’s heart stretch wider. It used to be Stix opening that door for her. And Stix taking her commands. But Stix had disappeared a month and a half ago, and though Cam had explained a hundred times—backward and forward and every direction Vivia had demanded—that her former first mate and Threadsister was inside a mountain in the Sirmayans … that she’d had memories that were not her own and was now with a Sightwitch named Ryber …
None of it had ever made any sense.
Then again, nothing ever made sense anymore. Vivia’s brother, Merik, had been declared dead, but then he’d appeared in Lovats quite alive. Her father, whom she’d spent her entire life trying to appease and prove herself to, had betrayed her and claimed the throne she had worked so hard for. And then magic doors had mysteriously opened inside the under-city of Lovats, and raiders had poured through, followed by the Empress of Marstok, dethroned but not broken.