“Our Voicewitches received word from Saldonica,” Sotar shouted, “that a ship was on its way with Baedyeds and seafire. We instantly halted all river traffic, but we were too late.” He pointed to where the river fed into the Northern Wharf. “The ship was already here, and when we tried to board for a search, a hose appeared. Seafire started spraying.”
“What ship?” Vivia demanded, having to pitch her voice louder. Having to cover her nose and mouth against the smoke. “How did it get past the Sentries?”
“It’s one of our ships, Highness! A two-masted warship—one that you had authorized yourself.”
Vivia recoiled. “I authorized it? I didn’t…” Oh. But she had. A Fox ship with two masts. A Fox ship that had gone missing off the cost of Saldonica.
“It’s sailing onto the water-bridge now!” Sotar continued. “We fear it heads for the dam, but we haven’t been able to stop it! Every Windwitch we’ve sent out there has not returned.”
Vivia nodded mutely. The rain, the smoke, the heat and the noise—it all settled into a dull background buzz.
No regrets, she tried to tell herself. Keep moving. There had to be a solution here. A way to stop the ship before it reached the dam. And yet …
For half a smoky heartbeat, the world around her smudged into a vague cityscape suffocating with jagged black flames. She doubled over. The cobblestones of Hawk’s Way wavered.
She did have regrets. Thousands of them, and the weight was too heavy for her to keep moving. She was a ship that could not sail, for its anchor—its thousands of anchors—locked it to the sea floor.
“Highness!” Sotar was beside her, saying something. Trying to lift her. She didn’t hear, she didn’t care.
Ever since her mother’s death, Vivia had tried to be something she was not. She had worn mask after mask, hoping one of them would eventually take root. Hoping one of them would force out the emptiness that lived inside her.
Instead, the regrets had built and gathered and swelled. Feeding the emptiness until it could not be denied.
And now … Now look at what Vivia had done. This conflagration, this death—it was her doing. She had started the Foxes. She had stolen the weapons that had allowed her fleet to grow too bold.
And she, Vivia Nihar, had left her brother to die. She couldn’t outrun that truth any longer. Just as she could not outrun these flames.
“Get a healer for her highness!” Sotar shouted. He tried again to lift her, but Vivia resisted. Anchored. Stuck.
Until she heard him say, “We already lost Prince Merik! We cannot lose the princess as well—get her to safety.”
Prince Merik. The name slipped through Vivia’s awareness, settled over her heart and stilled her muscles. For they had not lost Prince Merik, and Vivia had not lost her brother.
The one with true Nihar blood boiling in his veins was still alive and fighting, for Merik could no more sit still than she could. That remained true, and at least, in that one characteristic, Vivia was like her father. She was like Merik.
And there it was—that was who she was. Split right down the middle, she bore her father’s strength, her father’s drive. She carried her mother’s compassion, her mother’s love for Nubrevna.
As that certainty settled over Vivia’s heart, she knew exactly what she had to do. It was time to be the person she should have been all along.
She straightened, breaking free from Sotar’s grasp, and in a burst of speed, Vivia charged for the blockade. There was a gap in the stones on the left. She could pass through. She could reach the wharf. She could reach the ship before its seafire and rage spread any further.
Sotar hollered for her to stop. “The fire will kill you!”
Of course it would. Vivia knew that death awaited her on the water-bridge. Those black, unnatural flames would hit her skin and burn, unsated, until they hit the bone.
But Vivia also knew that she could not leave thousands of people—her people—to die. If the dam broke, the seafire would only spread. First the city would burn. Then the city would drown.
Vivia dove headfirst into the wharf. Through smoke, through flame, until she was too far below for the seafire’s bite to reach her.
Then she swam as fast as her magic would carry her onto the northern water-bridge.
THIRTY-FIVE
Iseult’s heart had never pounded harder.
Surely the men around her could hear it. Surely they saw it fluttering through her body, one booming beat after the next.
Twelve men stood around her. Nine from the shore, three from the trees. One had his boot planted mere paces away, and a sound like steel on a whetstone shivered into Iseult’s ears. He was sharpening his knife.
She had splayed her hair and lifted her collar as best she could to cover her pale skin. It didn’t keep away the flies. They crawled on her ears and hands. Even down the back of her neck and into her cloak.
She didn’t move. She just breathed as shallowly as she could through parted lips.
The men were silent, waiting. Then the final man joined them. Even with her eyes closed, Iseult sensed his Threads of violent gray and of flaming red. Firewitch. He was the man in charge, for the instant he arrived, the others’ Threads turned mossy green with deference.
The Firewitch tromped through the slaughter. “They have the child.”
“The Baedyeds?” asked the man with his boot nearby. He leaned deeper into his stance; bones crunched.
“Who else is there?” Heat curled out as the Firewitch spoke, as if he sent fire coiling along each word. His Threads certainly flashed with the orange tendrils of fire magic at play.