* * *
Vivia found nothing new underground. Just more spiders and centipedes and amphibians on the run, and despite what had seemed like hours of moving stones from the cave-in, the rubble seemed as thick as ever.
Her frustration was good, though. She savored how it made her jaw work side to side as she strode down Hawk’s Way, through a halfhearted rainstorm. She used the frustration to sharpen her mask into an uncrossable sneer, and by the time she reached the largest of the city’s watchtowers, she was a Nihar once more.
She ascended the tower, nodding curtly as soldiers saluted one by one, fists against their hearts. It was so different from the Battle Room. No mocking stares. No waiting for her to trip and fall and fail. Vivia trusted these men with her life, and she knew they trusted her in turn.
“Bormin, Ferric,” she said, naming each man beside the door at the tower’s highest level before she strode outside into the rain. She crossed to the officer on deck: the tall, broad-shouldered Stacia Sotar—or Stix to those who knew her well enough to earn that privilege.
Stix’s black skin was slick with rain, her white, tied-back hair plastered against her skull. She waved to Vivia, and her Witchmark—an upside-down triangle that signified her as a full Waterwitch—stretched long.
While Vivia could control water in liquid form, Stix controlled all aspects of the element. From ice to steam to this storm dribbling down. And while Vivia needed water nearby to draw from, Stix could summon vapor from the very air.
As always, Stix squinted with nearsighted eyes as Vivia approached. Once she realized who was on deck, she saluted. “Sir.” She always called Vivia that—not Your Highness, not Princess. To Stix, Vivia was a ship’s captain.
To Vivia, Stix was … Too good for me.
Vivia adjusted her face to match Stix’s stern frown before she slipped her spyglass from her coat. Atop this tower, the highest point in the city, she could see clear across the mismatched rooftops and then straight across the valley and steppe farms in the distance. Even with the rain falling, the colorful farmhouses stood out amid all that brilliant green.
Vivia loved the sea. The never-ending swell of teal waves. The simplicity in knowing that all that stood between life and death was some tarred wood and faith in Noden’s benevolence.
But she loved this view so much more. The weight of Lovats beneath her. The verdant life rippling ahead.
This was home.
The sea allowed men and women to pass for a time, but it was an uneasy alliance. Her fickle temper might turn on a thunderhead’s whim. Like the Nihars. The land, though, welcomed men and women so long as they gave as much as they claimed. Partners. Friends. Thread-family.
Vivia wet her lips, swinging the spyglass left. Right. But no concerning thunderheads crossed her sight. Just gray, hazy gray all the way across the valley. Even the Sentries of Noden, at the end of the southern water-bridge, were crisp black silhouettes against the midday sky. The dam above the northern water-bridge looked as it always did: a featureless, sunlit wall with a shoddily mended fracture slicing down its heart.
One more thing the High Council refused to properly deal with.
Sighing, she raked her spyglass’s view across the Water-Bridges of Stefin-Ekart that spanned from the mountains around the valley to the Lovats Plateau, each as wide as the river that fed into them. They hovered so high above the valley that clouds wisped below or alongside the ships packed hull to hull.
So many ships, so many Nubrevnans, and nowhere left to put them. At least until I find the under-city.
Stix cleared her throat. “Are you all right, sir? You seem … off.”
Startled, Vivia almost dropped the glass. Her frown must have smoothed away. No regrets. Keep moving. With far too much force, she clacked shut the spyglass. “What news from the Foxes, First Mate?”
Stix ran her tongue over her teeth, as if contemplating why Vivia had ignored her question. But then her face relaxed, and she said, “Good news, sir. It just came in, actually. Our little pirate fleet captured two more trade ships today. One with Dalmotti grain and the other with Cartorran seeds.”
Oh thank Noden. Seeds were a victory. They would keep Nubrevna fed for years, so long as the land and the weather cooperated. Vivia couldn’t wait to tell her father.
Of course, she showed none of this to Stix.
“Excellent,” she said primly.
“I thought so too.” Stix flashed a sly grin, baring her perfect teeth with the tiny gap in front.
Vivia’s throat tightened. Too good for me. She turned away. “And … the missing ship?”
“Still no word, sir.”
Vivia swore, relieved when Stix winced. That was the reaction she needed. The reaction her father would have earned.
The smallest ship in the Fox fleet had gone quiet two days before. Vivia could only assume the worst. There was nothing to be done for it, though. The Foxes were a secret. A backup plan that she and Serafin had formulated to keep Nubrevna fed. The crews had been hand-selected and sworn to secrecy—they all knew what was at stake. Every one of them had lost someone to famine or to war, so they wanted the Foxes to succeed as badly as Vivia and Serafin did.
Until the scheme was successful, though, no one—especially not the High Council—could know. Piracy was not precisely legal.
“We’ve also had no word from our spies,” Stix said, words even and businesslike. “Whoever was behind the prince’s assassination, it does not appear to be one of the—”
The ground jolted. No warning, just a great lurch of the earth. So hard and so fast that Vivia’s knees cracked. She toppled toward Stix, who toppled backward, arms windmilling. Vivia grabbed her, yanking her upright before she could fall over the parapet. The two soldiers weren’t so lucky. They crashed to the stones.