“Let me save you a trip,” Celestine said, her voice like a cutlass. “There’s nothing left of Tarvos. I’ve burned out that nest of vermin and driven your crew of wharf rats into the sea.”
Tarvos is gone? Evan’s gut clenched as images swam through his head. There was the small room in Strangward’s compound where Evan stayed while in port. It held nothing more than a rope bed and a trunk with his belongings, but it was his. It looked out onto the courtyard, so he could hear the splashing fountain from his bed. The deep-blue harbor surrounded by sand-colored cliffs. The weekend markets filled with fish and bright rugs and candies made with piñon. Plenty to eat, every day.
Tarvos had given him a name and a safe harbor when he’d needed one—and now it was gone.
2STORMCASTER
Strangward stared at Celestine for a long moment, then said, “You shouldn’t have done that.”
“You should have left well enough alone,” the empress said. “Better men, and more powerful mages, have accepted the cards dealt to them with a lot more grace. You call yourself a stormlord, but your dead brother was the one with the talent.” She straightened, resting her hands on the rail. “Surrender, Strangward, and I’ll let your crew be. They can continue on with Cloud Spirit. I’ll simply send over a new captain.”
With that, someone emerged from the shadow of the wheelhouse and came up to stand next to the empress. Someone with a familiar swagger and stance. And, behind him, the handful of Cloud Spirit crew who’d sailed off with him.
“Tully!” Evan and Brody said in unison, as surprise and dismay rumbled through the deck crew.
Celestine ran her fingers down Tully’s arm. “I told Captain Samara he could have Cloud Spirit if he could arrange this meeting,” she said. “He’s done his part.”
“Lay down your weapons,” Tully called. “There’s no need for bloodshed. Here’s a chance to sign on with the new ruler of the Desert Coast.”
Tully had always been ambitious, but this took ambition to a new level. Evan noticed that he didn’t glow purple like the rest of the empress’s fighters. Like their former shipmates now did.
Brody noticed, too. “So you sold us out for a ship, did you?” he shouted. “Maybe we don’t want to be blood slaves.”
The crew grumbled agreement. Not one of them laid down his weapon. Tully flushed with embarrassment and slid a look at Celestine. So much for showing off in front of your new boss, Evan thought.
Shaking her head as if disappointment was nothing new, the empress gestured to her crew. Grappling hooks arced through the air, trailing lines, and thudded onto the deck.
Despite the numbers, Cloud Spirit’s sailors went at it with a will, manning the rails to drive off the swarms of Celestine’s fighters who were attempting to board. They swung their blades and cut the lines that came snaking between the two ships. Blood spattered the deck as they cut down the pirates who made it as far as the railing. Yet the purple-shrouded crew kept coming, even when seemingly mortally wounded, as if they’d lost their fear of dying.
Nobody was paying attention to Evan, so he pulled a watch cap down over his head, lifted a sword from a dead man, and joined in the fighting.
By the time the ship’s bell sounded the half hour, there were only a handful of Cloud Spirit’s crew left. Strangward still stood exposed on the quarterdeck, chin up, a blade in each hand, cutting down any who came too close. Evan couldn’t help wondering why the empress hadn’t flamed him and put an end to the standoff.
Then it came to him. He’s protecting the ship by standing in the line of fire. He knows that the empress wants to take him alive, that he has information she wants. That’s another reason she hasn’t fired on us. She’s worried she’ll kill him and the information will die with him.
But that protection didn’t extend to everyone, and the empress seemed to be losing patience. Celestine lowered her arm so that she aimed directly at Brody. “I’m weary of this game,” she said. “Now, surrender, or I’ll incinerate what’s left of your crew, one by one, starting with this handsome sailor.”
Brody froze like a rabbit under the eye of a snake.
“No!” Evan shouted, leaping forward so he stood next to Brody, even though his neck burned like fury. “Captain Strangward said to shove off. You’d better do it or your fancy ship’ll be nothing but splinters on the beach.” To his mortification, his voice cracked and trembled.
The empress crowed with laughter. “Who’s this, now, Strangward? Your smallest bodyguard? Someone with a harder spine than you?”
With that, Evan drew his throwing knife and sent it flying. It was a good throw, and it would have hit Siren’s deck, anyway, had it not slammed into the empress’s invisible barrier and gone pinging off into the sea.
Strangward was not amused. “Get below, boy, before I break every bone in your body,” he roared, backhanding him across the face. “Abhayi! Get this whelpling out of my sight.”
Somehow, Evan was back on his feet again, seized with a cold fury. He could feel blood trickling down his chin, his lip swelling, his magemark ablaze. None of it mattered. Raising his curved Carthian blade, he adopted a fighting stance.
The empress stood, head cocked, like a patron watching a disappointing act at the fair. Then sent flame roaring straight at him. Evan lifted both his hands and desperately pushed out, as if he could shove death away.
As it turned out, he could. The torrent of flames slowed, like a ship sailing into a stiff opposing wind. They piled higher and higher, then crested and flooded back toward the Siren, grazing her side and
