by Chloe Neill
Kit reached her, eyes closed and hair floating, the need for air a tightening band around Kit’s chest. Kit shook her, got no response. Kit grabbed her hand, prepared to make the upward push. And for a moment, felt the lure of the sea calling her back. It was a trick of her Alignment, she knew, made stronger by the lethargy that cold and air deprivation was bringing.
She could stay down here, was her absent thought, where the song was constant, and where she would be surrounded by magic, buoyed by it.
But she knew that was folly, that she didn’t belong to the sea, no matter her connection. Her body longed for the surface, and she had to bite down on her tongue to stanch the instinctive demand that she open her mouth underwater, breathe in.
She squeezed her fingers around Watson’s wrist, nails digging in to ensure she’d keep her hold, and she made her silent Dastes. And she reached out once more toward the power, this time looking for the quiet spot—the least turbulent water—or the updraft that would help push her to the surface, show her the way toward wind and sky. She found it, another shadow against the slightly brighter current, and used her last energy, the hand that pulled Watson clenched and shaking.
She broke the water like a sea dragon, sucking in air, managed rain and seawater with it, and pulled Watson’s head above water, thumped her back.
“Watson!” Kit shouted, feet scrambling to stay above the cacophonous waves. “Breathe!” Two hard taps to the face, then one more thump on the back, and Watson was coughing.
Kit hardly had time to cry out in relief before arms pulled Watson up and away, and more arms grabbed Kit’s and pulled her out of the water. Wood scraped her ribs before she landed hard in the swaying jolly boat, soaked to the bone.
Lightning streaked across the sky, illuminating Grant’s face. He still held her arms, his eyes the same color as the jeweled water. The rain still fell, and he was soaked, water streaming through his hair, down his face.
Maybe it was because of the cold, or she’d been below too long. But all she could think was that he looked like a god of the sea, furious and strong and silhouetted against the swells.
“Kanos’s balls,” he said. “Are you insane?”
That wasn’t a very godlike question, Kit thought, and coughed up seawater, pushed wet hair from her eyes, and gave herself a moment to retrieve her senses.
“I’m captain of my ship,” she managed between great and glorious lungfuls of salty air. “I don’t lose my sailors to the sea.”
To other men, to cannon, to blades, perhaps.
But not to the sea.
* * *
The seas were so high, the troughs so deep, that it took half an hour to get everyone back into the boat; all considered it a miracle they survived the trip. By the time they reached the Diana’s deck, bodies steaming in the cold and wet, the rain had begun to diminish, the thunder sounding more sporadically. They’d passed the edge of the storm—or it had passed them.
Jin stayed at the helm while Watson was taken to her berth, and the rest of the damp sailors were shuffled into the officers’ mess, wet coats and boots pulled away, bodies wrapped in blankets, hot tea offered around. All the sailors but Grant, at any rate; Kit wasn’t sure where he’d gone.
She warmed her hands around her teacup, and when she finally found the energy to lift it, wept at the taste. It was the good tea, the queen’s tea, and Cook had added so much sugar it nearly made Kit’s teeth ache with joy.
She took another heartening sip, then turned an eye to Cook, who watched with concern from the doorway. “I knew you’d held some back,” she said.
Cook simply lifted a shoulder. “Emergency rations. This was an emergency. I’m glad you are alive.”
“I’m also glad I’m alive,” she said.
Grant appeared in the doorway when she’d just finished her cup of tea, wet shirt replaced with a dry one, untucked and sans coats, his hair tousled and damp. Not the state of dishabille a viscount typically adopted on land, she guessed. But there were different rules at sea. Which is how she justified not looking away. There was just . . . so much of him.
“We need to speak.”
Kit lifted her brows at the tone, hard and angry, presumed he had thoughts about the frigate captains or Forstadt. She was ready for dry clothes, so she nodded and rose, unwrapped the blanket she’d been bound in, and left it across her chair to dry. Then she walked to her quarters, looked longingly at the bed. Fatigue was dragging at her now, and she nearly jumped when Grant slammed the door.
Slowly, she looked back at him. “Problem, Colonel?”
His eyes flashed at her use of his title. “That was ridiculously dangerous.”
“Going into the water?” Kit asked, running a hand through her still-damp hair. “It was dangerous, but not ridiculously so. You saw me swim at Finistère. I’m a better swimmer than Watson. Better to take the risk to save a life.”
“Is it?”
She looked up at him. There was something different in his eyes now, and she wasn’t sure what it was. “If it’s my life I’m risking, absolutely.”
He stared at her for a moment, then stalked to the other end of the room, turned his angry gaze on the windows.
“The storm isn’t going to stop just because you give it one of your glares.”
He looked back at her, brows lifted. “Excuse me?”
“Your glares,” she repeated. “You have a way of looking at people as if you’d like to march them right into the sea. And right now, you’re giving the sea the same look.”
“There are many people who need to be marched right into the sea,” he said, then added, “Seven minutes.”
Kit blinked. “Seven minutes?”
He stalked back to her, looked down from his height. There was no bay rum now, just salt and linen and something she could only describe as male.
“You were in the water for seven minutes,” he said. “I counted. I’d taken my jacket off. Didn’t have my watch, so I counted. Seven minutes is a very long time.”
It was a long time, Kit thought, and didn’t know how she’d managed to hold her breath that long. Maybe the cold, maybe the adrenaline, maybe the effects of the magic. Probably the effects of the magic, but not his concern.
“I’m sorry that you had to wait—that everyone had to wait. I’ve been the one waiting before, and I know it’s difficult. But I’d do the same thing again. It’s my job.”
“Hardly. I know plenty of officers who’d define their roles much more narrowly.”
“I’m not one of those people.” She glared at him. “And given you walked into a pirate fortress to save Marcus Dunwood, I know you aren’t, either.”
“This is different.”
“Why?”
“Because it is!” Grant’s voice, heavy with concern, boomed against wood and glass, and before she could comment, his hands were on her arms, the contact shocking.
And then his mouth was on hers, and he was pulling her closer, and her body snapped against his like a sail pulled taut, every one of her nerves singing with the contact.
For a moment, she heard nothing but the ocean, the roar of the sea in her ears, and felt equally as comforted and breathless as she had beneath the waves. That familiarity eased her way. Kit moved closer, kissed him back. His groan was primal, victorious, his body a hard line of temptation.
His kisses were skillful—teasing and passionate. She’d been kissed before, if not often, and understood expertise. And she’d read enough penny novels to understand what could come next, and was as confident he’d be as skilled a lover as he was a kisser. So it took entirely too long for her mind to return to reality; he’d fogged her brain just as the sea had done. She stepped back, breaking the contact, putting space between them, and leaving a cold chill across her skin that she didn’t like. So she moved backward again.
“We can’t,” she said, sha
king her head. “You cannot kiss me. And I certainly can’t kiss you.”
Gods, but she wanted to. She wanted to grab that hair and push him back against the wall and have her very particular way with him. But she didn’t. Couldn’t.
Grant glared at her, frustration obvious. “Why the bloody hell not?”
“Because you’re a—” Brain fogged, she simply waved her arm in his direction.
“A viscount?” he asked dryly.
“Yes. That. A soldier, and a member of the Beau Monde, and the future husband to a viscountess. And I am certainly not a viscountess,” she said, with all the vehemence she could muster.
“No argument there,” Grant muttered.
“You’ve an estate and horses and Spiveys and a village. I have a ship and a crew and a million miles yet to sail. And even if all of that weren’t true, we’re attempting to stop a global effort to put a dictator back on the throne.”
“But that’s your only objection?” His voice was exceedingly dry, and the sound she made was mostly a growl.
Grant looked at her for a moment, jaw clenched. And then he gave a stiff nod. “Very well.” He walked toward the door, just close enough that their arms brushed.
She knew he’d done it intentionally. And that her knees actually felt weak at the contact made her furious at both of them.
“I’ve a dagger and sword,” she murmured, a reminder.
He slammed out of the room.
“Viscounts,” she muttered, meaning to make it a curse, and sat down at the table. She ran her fingertips across her lips, which still tingled from the abrasion of his unshaven skin, and indulged in a very dramatic sigh.
* * *
She was tired enough to sleep while standing, or on the deck, or on the forecastle floor. But even after the storm had shifted, the rain more akin to an Isles afternoon shower, she refused to leave the helm.
“We’re on a mission,” Kit said again, wondering if she was the only one who recalled that particular fact, and nearly pulled her dagger when Grant grunted nearby.
“You can sleep now,” Jin said, expression mild, “or you can sleep when we get to Forstadt. Which do you prefer?”
Because she couldn’t argue with that logic, she agreed to go below in exchange for his promise to wake her if the storm changed direction, or the frigates broke rank, or the island was sighted.
And when she reached her quarters again, and closed her door, she nearly fell into her berth.
Twenty-One
She slept for six hours, and woke squinting in sunlight, still wearing her clothes from the day before.
By the time she made it to the deck, Simon was at the helm, sailors on watch undertaking their morning tasks. She didn’t see Grant, which was probably just as well.
The wind was at their backs and just off port, the frigates in their tidy arrow behind the Diana, and the sun rising above the bow and over the bank of clouds along the eastern horizon. That was the storm, now bearing down over Frisia; she hoped anyone else on the water had time to prepare.
“Captain,” Simon said as she looked over the ship, checking for storm damage and finding none—or at least none that hadn’t already been repaired while she slept.
“Good morning,” she said. “Everything looks to be in fighting trim.”
Simon nodded. “Once the rain slowed, the storm moved quickly. We’re forty miles out from Forstadt by my reading.”
“Which is always accurate,” she said, and squeezed his shoulder. “Thank you for the sleep.”
“Thank you for Watson,” Simon said.
“How is she?”
“Good,” he said with a smile, then gestured toward the bow, where Watson upbraided a seaman for a very sloppy hitch.
Her ship was in order, her crew was safe, the sun was shining, and the wind was in their favor. There was little more a captain could ask for. Unless she was Aligned.
Kit glanced at the water. The sea was breaking, but it was bright, diamonds shimmering across its surface. Then she reached down, expecting to feel the current bright again, and found it . . . gone.
Not just broken. Not just pale. And not a null where there’d been no current. It was absent, its loss leaving a mark in the sea, in her mind.
She looked up toward the horizon, toward the direction of Forstadt.
What the hell had gone on there?
* * *
In silence, Grant and Jin and Simon and Kit—and Tamlin in the top—watched as a long green smear came into view toward the east. A low island of dark trees, wisps of fog drifting through them like serpents. No sails, no ships. And no sign of any recent habitation on the island.
But that was wrong. Not just because of Dunwood, of the dispatch, but because of the magic—or absence of it—leading them like an arrow to this place.
“Captain?” Simon asked.
“Circle it,” she said. “And keep a hard eye out for sails.”
“Aye,” Simon said with a nod.
They found what they were looking for on the eastern shore, protected as it was from the pounding waves of the Northern Sea—an inlet and sandy cove marked by the framework of scaffolds that would have held a ship in the process of its construction.
And there was no ship.
Kit cursed the captains, the weather, the damned Guild. But forced her anger down. They needed information, and she needed satisfaction regarding the source of the magic. They’d have to explore the island for that.
“Here,” Kit said as they rounded the inlet, had gone as close to the shore as they dared. “Signal the frigates to prepare their boats. We’ll meet on the cove.”
The sails were doused, the anchor weighed, the jolly boat prepared for launch.
“Jin, Grant, and Hobbes, with me. Be careful and be ready.” She looked at Simon. “You have the helm, and the same instructions. We’re close enough to Frisia and Aleman both that we need to be careful. Any sign of sails, of trouble, and you signal us.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said. “We’ll keep a watchful eye. You do the same.”
Kit’s small team piled into the boat, were dropped down into the water, and rowed toward the island.
Hobbes and Jin climbed out of the boat first, hopping down into foot-deep water. They pulled the boat onto the shore, found the sand hard packed, probably from the storm, a frilled lace of shell and seaweed several yards inland where the storm tide had reached.
Without waiting for the other boats, Kit climbed a wall of sand cut in by hard waves. The land above had scruffy grass and small shrubs, and led to a forest of trees. The storm damage was obvious. Detritus washed ashore, leaves stripped from the nearest trees.
And at the edge, the scaffolding she’d seen. Or, she belatedly realized, what would have been the scaffolding.
A dozen enormous wooden posts would have supported a boat during its construction. But only half that were still standing, and they looked like they’d been burned about the edges, which were charcoal dark. The rest were on the ground, scattered among chunks of wood and sawdust and bits of frazzled rope. They looked charred, too, and Kit imagined they’d have been smoking if the storm hadn’t doused the fire.
“Vas tiva es,” she heard Hobbes say, and looked up, as the taste of smoke—round and acrid—scratched the back of her throat. She wasn’t Aligned to the land, but—maybe because she was so close to the water—could feel that the island’s magic had been spent. Stripped away, just like the current.
Kit walked to Hobbes, would have asked what she’d found, but could see it for herself.
A man on his stomach, dead for at least a day or two, Kit guessed. She wasn’t sure what had done him in, not without moving him, but there were burns on his back, arms, legs, where simple and worn fabric had been burned away, left his skin singed.
“There are more,” Grant said behind her. “We’v
e counted four. All look to be workers here.”
“Burns?” Kit asked, without looking back.
“Yes,” was his simple reply. And he extended his hand. In his palm was a charred bit of metal, a round disk that could be folded over to slip onto a collar, through a buttonhole. She could just see the outline of an imperial eagle.
“A Guild trade token,” Kit said. A badge of protection and affiliation worn by Guildmembers.
Grant nodded, slipped it into his pocket. “One of the men was wearing it. The Guild is responsible for this.”
“Captain,” Hobbes said, voice quiet and stuck through with fear, “what happened here?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” she said. But she had an idea, because she knew what had happened at Contra Costa. She looked back at Grant, and saw the same knowledge in his face.
The other boats had landed, sailors dispersing to search the island. “Captain!” one of them called out, gesturing Preston closer. Unabashed, Kit and her crew followed, and found the sailor standing near a darkened circle of earth twenty feet across.
“A fire,” the sailor said. “They were burning wood?”
“No,” Grant said. “They weren’t burning anything. At least not on purpose.”
She could see Preston prepared to interrogate, to ask for more information, but she ignored him, looked at the sailors. “If any of you are Aligned to land, can you sense the magic here? Can you feel it?”
There was silence as sailors looked busily at the ground, the sky. Not entirely surprising, Kit thought, given Preston’s attitude. And Thornberry’s was probably similar.
“Jackson,” Smith said, “you’ve a land Alignment. Can you feel anything?”
A young man with dark skin and hair, looking slightly abashed at being called out, nodded firmly. “Captain. There’s no magic here.”
