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“I do not need you to protect me.”

“We’re family! We protect each other.”

With a resigned sigh, he rolls his shoulders back. “Let’s go.”

The sea churns below as I float us to the flagship. “What are you doing?” I ask.

“Being ready for any eventuality.”

Hopefully, whatever he’s preparing on the seafloor won’t be necessary. Sailors back away as we approach, watching us wearily. I set us onto the deck like we own it. Penum will not come into our kingdom and see us cowed.

“We are the Prince and Princess of Alchos.” Rylan’s voice carries all the gravity of his position, even through the shield I have us wrapped in. “Who commands this fleet?”

“I do.” A man steps out in full regalia, his burgundy cloak billowing behind him from the obsidian clasps at his shoulders, the black leather of his boots polished to a high sheen. “I am King Kirnon of Penum.” The King himself—the one meant to marry our mother. His sharp sneer makes the hair on the back of my neck stand erect. Now, I’m even more grateful that she found her way out of that betrothal to marry her friend who has made such a loving father.

“It is unusual for a king to travel with such an escort into a foreign land.” Rylan avoids threatening him for now.

“When the foreign land is protected by dark magic, one must take precautions.”

Waves roil, jostling the ship, and I don’t have to look at my brother to confirm that a quake shook it up under us. “We do not possess dark magic,” I say.

“With that opinion, it is rather daring of you to venture here uninvited and unannounced.” Well, Rylan didn’t open with a threat.

“Indeed it is,” Kirnon agrees. “However, if ever there was a time to have a chance against you, it is now, with the powers divided as they are and your military scattered.”

I strengthen the shield around us. The troops sent to secure the border after our mess out there wouldn’t have been right here anyway, but now, they’re twice as far. “Was it your doing? Drawing our forces to Lambridge?”

The King grins, laughter in his eyes. “No, you did that.”

“But you attempted it to begin with!” My chest heaves. Of course it was our doing; we are the ones who wreaked havoc out there, but it came of the deceptive request.

“Yes, that’s true.” Kirnon steps to the taffrail leisurely. “I thought you were hindering my plans, but when you created a true reason to militarize the area, it opened up my timeline considerably.”

“So, you mean to war with us.” Rylan keeps his voice level, even as his shoulders tense.

“I already am.”

An arrow flies toward us, and I blow it away into the sea. He can’t possibly think it would be so easy. “Your archer has terrible aim. The next one might hit you.”

“You will have no further chances,” Rylan says. “Another act of aggression will result in the destruction of this fleet.”

“There are only two of you,” Kirnon says with a smile. “Only half the power of Alchos. Less, I suppose, if your witch of a queen still wields some.” We’ve always said Penum is jealous of our magic, but this is personal. Is this how Jamys would have spoken of me someday after I jilted him?

The nearest ship shudders and creaks, then a sea stack springs from the sea, splitting it in half. The explosive sounds of boards and beams breaking are accented by screams from the crew as the bow slides into the sea. The stern is pulled up with the land until it loses balance and goes crashing down on the other side.

Rylan’s glare doesn’t leave the King. “I shall be merciful and allow the rest of your ships to leave my shores. Do so immediately, and there won’t be any further loss of life.”

Kirnon’s smile is foxlike. “If only.”

Another pointless arrow makes its way toward us, only to be redirected into the arm of another Penuman sailor. I lift the archer off the ship and throw him into the sea. “I do hope he is a better swimmer than archer.” Despite my confident rhetoric, a tingling runs up my back—using my magic violently again grips my heart in a vice. Kirnon can’t possibly think to accomplish anything this way when Rylan can take out a ship without lifting a finger.

I raise us up off the ship. “Do not force us to destroy you.”

Rylan and I are well above the ship now, and someone calls out, “Spotted!”

“Fire,” the King responds.

Two booms announce cannonballs being shot into the air. I block the one heading toward us, hurling it through the deck of another ship. Another sails past us, and I drop it into the sea. I had been joking about the archer’s aim, but this shot really was— I look in the direction it was headed to see Nina and Marcus at the cliff’s edge.