The Lakelander ships aren’t as sleek as ours. Our manufacturing capabilities are better than those in the Lakelands, thanks in very large part to the tech slums that Mare is intent on destroying.
Even with her ships and my own, our guns are few, and anything we might use against the city will certainly meet resistance from magnetrons and newbloods, if not my foul brother himself. Only the Harbor Bay battleship, Iris’s for now, has any kind of artillery that could be of use this far out.
I glare at it, the steel craft anchored alongside Cenra’s ship. It casts a long, jagged shadow, planted firmly between the Lakelander queen and the coast. My scheming queen is using it as a shield. A very expensive shield.
I growl to myself as I board her ship, careful to keep my feet when I step from one deck to the next. My own Sentinels flank me as we walk, too close for comfort. I keep my hands at my sides, ungloved, fingers bare in threat.
“This way, Your Majesty,” a single Lakelander says, beckoning from an open door bolted with rivets and a wheel lock. “The queens are waiting.”
“Tell them the king waits on deck,” I reply, turning aside to walk the edge of the ship.
This isn’t a pleasure cruise, and there aren’t many places to stand, let alone congregate. But I’d rather stay on deck than go below, to be trapped behind steel with a pair of nymphs. My Sentinels walk ahead of me, careful to keep in formation, as we climb a set of stairs to a landing overlooking the prow.
It doesn’t take the queens long to appear, moving in tandem.
Cenra wears a flowing uniform, dark blue with silver and gold chasing. A black sash divides her body from shoulder to hip, clasped in precious sapphire. In mourning still. I don’t think Mother wore her mourning clothes for more than a few days. Perhaps the Lakelander queen cared for her husband. How strange. She watches me, storm-eyed, her skin a cold bronze washed gold by the setting sun.
I feel as if I can read the battle on Iris. Her blue sleeves are charred to the elbow, the threads stained in two kinds of blood. And her long black hair is undone, still wet, brushed over one shoulder. A healer trails her, tentatively working on Iris’s arms as she walks, smoothing away burns and cuts.
Keeping her at an arm’s length has been a wise decision. I want little to do with my wife, who would probably prefer to kill me. But like Reds, she can be controlled by fear. And need. She has both in equal measure.
So does Cenra. It’s why she dared to leave her borders. She knows I hold her daughter in the palm of my hand. I don’t doubt she wants to extricate Iris from our marriage. But she needs this alliance as much as I do. Without me, she faces Cal and his band of traitors and criminals. A united front against her. I’m her shield, as she is mine.
“My queens,” I say, bowing slightly to them both as they approach.
Her daughter looks more like a soldier than a queen made and princess born.
The queen of the Lakelands dips into a shallow curtsy. Her sleeves brush the deck. “Your Majesty,” she replies.
I turn my face to the horizon. “Harbor Bay has fallen.”
“For now,” Cenra says, her voice offensively calm.
“Oh?” I sneer, raising an eyebrow “You think we can win it back? Tonight, perhaps.”
Again, she dips her head. “In time.”
I finish for her. “When the rest of your armada arrives.”
Queen Cenra grits her teeth. “Yes, of course,” she reluctantly grinds out. “But—”
“But?” I ask. The sea air feels cold on my bared teeth.
“We do have our own shores to guard,” she says. At her side, Iris looks smug, glad to let her mother fight this battle. “The Lakes must remain defended, especially from Montfort. They can cross Prairie and strike our western border easily. As can the Kingdom of the Rift on our east.”
I have to laugh. Sneering, I wave a hand at the horizon. Full of Samos traitors and Montfort usurpers, all beneath my brother’s idiot command. “Strike your border with what army? The one currently occupying my city?”
Cenra flares her nostrils and a flush heats her face, dusting over her cliff-like cheekbones. “Samos has the Nortan Air Fleet, one of the biggest on the continent. Not to mention Montfort’s own capabilities, whatever they are. Your brother has the advantage from the air, and he has the speed. Anywhere could be at risk of attack.” She speaks slowly, as if I am a child who needs his hand held through war. It tingles my fingers. “That cannot be ignored, Your Majesty.”
As if on wretched cue, a battalion of airjets races over the coast in formation. The distant scream of them reaches us slowly, a dull and stretching roar. I fold my arms over my chest, tucking away my hands lest they ignite.
“Bracken’s Air Fleet should be enough to hold them off,” I mutter, keeping my eyes on the jets as they move. Circling the city. Protective maneuvers.
Iris finally finds her voice. “The bulk of his fleet was cannibalized by the Montfort occupation. They can’t match what we’re up against.” She clearly delights in correcting me. I let her take this small comfort instead of losing my temper.
To look powerful is to be powerful. Mother said that too many times to count. Look calm, still, strong. Assured of yourself and your victory.
“Which is why we have to return to a place of strength,” Cenra says. “We’re no good out here on the waves, waiting to be picked off from the sky. Even the nymphs of Cygnet Line are not invincible.”
Of course they aren’t, you proud nit.
Instead I blink at her, trying to burn through her with my eyes. “You suggest a retreat?”
“We’ve already retreated,” Iris snaps. The healer at her side steps back a little, cowed by her anger. “Harbor Bay is one city—”
I clench a fist and a burst of heat ripples on the air. “Harbor Bay is not the only piece of my country lost to my brother,” I say quietly, slowly. Low enough that they must strain to hear. “The south is his, the Rift and Delphie. He took Corvium from me. And now he has Fort Patriot too.”
My sneering queen doesn’t quail against my checked fury. “Fort Patriot will be of little use to them for a long time,” she says, looking like a satisfied cat after a particularly big dinner.
“Oh?” I reply. “And why is that?”
She glances sidelong at her mother, sharing a look I cannot decipher. “When it became clear the city was lost, and that Tiberias would win the day, I flooded the fort as much as I could,” Iris explains, proud and still. “The seawall came down. Half of it is underwater, and the rest is cut off from land. I would have sunk the battleships if I could, but the escape took too much out of me. Still, the repairs will slow them down, and I’ve taken valuable resources from their effort.”
And from me. Even if we win back the city now, the fort is destroyed. What a waste. Jets, the War Port docks, arms and ammunition, simple infrastructure.
I hold her gaze, letting a bit of my mask slip. Letting her know that I realize what she’s doing. Iris and her mother will incapacitate me little by little, cutting me off from my own resources.
The nymph queens are cunning. They don’t have to put me in the water to drown me.
It’s simply a question of how long that will take, and how to balance their actions against my own. They’re letting Cal and me waste ourselves on each other, hoping to face the wounded victor in later days.