Page 48 of The Queens and the Kings (The Isles #2)

PEDR

Britt spent most of her life countering Pedr in back-and-forth negotiations that would have frightened a lesser person. After their parents died, Pedr had been Britt’s main go-to point for anything stupid and dangerous, while Malcolm bore the brunt of responsibility and reasonable assertion.

Pedr didn’t mind—for the most part. Malcolm had his own rungs he needed knocking down from here and there. All the same, Pedr rarely withheld anything from Britt. Certainly not dangerous opportunities. When feasible, he’d let her participate and gain more experience.

Today?

Not.

Happening.

“Just hear me out, Pedr.”

“No.”

He loped toward the wheel, secured on their heading by commanding the arcane instead of the sails.

A current rose and sloshed around the ship.

He loathed using so much arcane for his own purposes—new currents wreaked havoc on marine life and general ocean flow.

He didn’t like to interrupt the natural course if he could avoid it.

Then again, if the Siren Queens had their way, there might not be marine life left to destroy.

“Pedr!” Britt cried. “Listen to me.”

“I’m listening. I’m also saying no in response. Your plan is terrible.”

Britt rolled her eyes, swirled around, and forced him to face her. “We’ve approached a ship of the line before!”

“You want to go into the ship and spy!”

“Well, don’t we need the information? The wings weren’t that bad. The problem was the storm. And the sailors. And the wind. And rain,” she tacked on, brow high. “I could land far more safely today. And, if you make me invisible, I can sneak around. Last time we didn’t even learn where they went!”

“Correction,” he snapped, “you flew to a ship, almost died, made it back only because the wyvern chose to bring you, and I swore I’d never let you do it again. I’m not going back on my word.”

She tossed her hands. “Details! The point is we’ve already done it. I know how to work the wings, and I made it work under those circumstances. So we could more easily do it under these. The weather is pristine.”

She kissed her fingertips.

He glared.

“No.”

He turned to touch several ropes, changing the sails to better support the current. Based on the horizon, they approached the area the wyvern had been flying. He saw nothing of a ship, but eyed a distant and suspicious wisp of cloud in the west.

Didn’t like that.

“Fine,” she called to his back. “I’ll go without you.”

He scoffed without stress. How would she exit Rosenvatten aside from jumping out? It would waste time for her to throw herself overboard in a fit of madness. He’d fish her out of the water and it would all be for nothing.

Or would it?

A sudden stretch of quiet made his neck prickle. He half spun in time to see Britt march to a rowboat, reaching for the line that secured it. Pedr made it to her side in two seconds, fisting a hand over hers.

“No!”

She spun, shoving his chest so he stepped back.

“Why?”

The muscles in his jaw twitched, working hard. He attempted to say, They’re going to kill you, but the words wouldn’t release. The parameters of the curse continued to change. Worsened, in fact, preventing him saying anything associated with the Wyvern Kings or the Siren Queens.

Was it a sign of increasing power for the Wyvern Kings, thus greater challenge to the Siren Queens? Or something else entirely? A tremor ripped down his body, wavering his arms.

Britt calmed enough to whisper, “You can’t say?”

He swallowed hard and shook his head. Hesitation took flight through her eyes. “I’m sorry,” he rasped, amazed the words came through.

Britt softened. “Pedr, give me something to work with. We have to go after that wyvern. It’s too far west to be an accident, and if they’re taking another ship toward Kapurnick, we have to stop them. Or figure it out!”

Pedr warred with himself. His annoyance deepened. They needed to figure it out, but couldn’t while plagued by this curse at every step. Another half-hearted attempt to speak around it and say, I know, I’m trying, resulted in nothing but an uuung and a scowl.

“I know you can’t tell me, and I know that you want to help. But you’ll have to consider, at some point, to either trust me or dump me. I can’t do whatever you want without more information.”

Only when he turned his mind from fear of danger and the Wyvern Kings, latching it onto the arcane and what he could do, was he able to growl out a broken, “You can’t fly on wings.

It might be too conspicuous in the daylight, even when invisible.

” Before she could protest, he held up a hand. “But I can send you.”

The curse tightened, because his thoughts strayed to the ship with the wyvern.

“How?”

With a twirl of his finger, he said, “Arcanist, remember? I’ll borrow from Himmel. She lets me do it all the time.”

Denerfen peered out from her curtain of hair, saw him, and fluttered to Pedr’s shoulder.

The light weight compared to Drake was welcome.

The dragul’s tail slipped along his shoulder.

Soothing and enjoyable. Pedr could understand the draw of bonding with a dragul, but had no desire for the commitment.

Britt sighed with a smile. “He likes you better than me.”

“Because he has taste,” Pedr retorted.

“You really can send me over there?”

“It’s not that easy,” he muttered, grateful to speak at all.

“Even with Himmel’s help, it won’t let me send you wherever I want.

I have to be very thorough and focused. You don’t just show up.

A ride without wings. You’ll drift over the ocean, subject to all the wind and weather.

If something goes wrong, I won’t know you need help unless I ride close enough to see you, which will allow them to see us through a spyglass. ”

“Unless you’re invisible.”

“Yes, but that’s another layer I’d rather not add. It’s dangerous.”

“Sounds like it.”

He cocked an eyebrow at her. “If conditions deteriorate, it could almost be a death sentence.”

“ Almost, ” she quipped, “if my brother weren’t the Arcanist of the Sea, eh?”

Pedr rolled his eyes. As always, he didn’t confirm her praise. “Fine,” he muttered, teeth tight. “Based on what I can feel, there’s a chance they’re using land arcane to hide the wyvern. Which sounds like Jordaire.”

“The wyvern was flying.”

“But it’s not anymore, and there’s active arcane that’s not mine. It all means something.”

“That the wyvern is inside the ship?”

He snorted. “Fat chance. How would they get a wyvern inside a ship? They must be doing something else with it.”

The question brought the curse rising like a wash. He leaned his focus into the schematics of a wyvern attempting to fit into a ship of the line and it helped ease the pressure, which gave him something to work with.

“Give me a minute,” he said, and brooded at the sea.

While the Rosenvatten closed in, he cogitated over a plan. How could he keep Britt from falling into the hands of sailors, but still find answers about the wyverns?

Short of destroying the curse himself—which wasn’t possible, because he’d certainly tried for the last fifteen years—there was no other arcane possibility.

He already knew it. The arcane was too strange, warped, sometimes downright nonfunctional.

The option to walk away always existed, but .

. . no, they had to track this down. Not only for the good of Kapurnick’s safety, but for all The Isles.

The wrath of the Siren Queens bubbled eternally deep, beyond the Arcanists.

Beyond what he had ever known. They could destroy so much more.

They already had.

Below all that, though, lurked the greatest reason of all: understanding what happened to the wyverns could be his path to Mila.

His only path to Mila.

Was it worth risking Britt’s life? He cast his sister a surreptitious sidelong glance. Was there much choice? She’d swim over there just to prove a point. Their mother certainly lived on in her.

Pedr infused all the power of his wrath into the glare when he said, “I will send you over with the wind, and then have the wind pick you up, off their deck, exactly thirty minutes later.”

Britt pinched lips to hide a smile. Solemnly, she said, “Sounds fine.”

“You must be outside.”

“I will be.”

He lifted a finger. “If you die, Britt, I will personally go to the Arcanist of Souls, yank you from the depths of death itself, and destroy you. Do you understand me?”

“Yes, I understand you.”

Pedr stomped a foot, snapped his thumb, and whistled once. The summoning song conjured whatever item he focused on when he created the pattern. A bundle of clothes dropped into his hands, taken from where he stored them in his locker. Pedr shoved them into her arms.

“The ship we’re chasing isn’t a military vessel. It’s a private ship, owned by a wealthy mainlander who sails from the northern mainland to the southern. He owns a lot of merchant ships and his own armada. They’re sailing with his vessel.”

Britt studied the bundle in her arms. Her lips formed an oh of surprise. Like the rest of their plan, it was a detail that didn’t have much hope of making a big difference, but was better than nothing.

“So?”

“That means there will be maids on board that ship. Put this dress on. Once we send you over, if you’re in the right uniform, you’ll have a better chance of passing as anything other than a stowaway.”

“Should I take Denerfen for the venom?”

“I would.”

She nodded. “Then I will.”

“Might not matter.” He nodded to the west. “Because there’s a storm coming. We have to get you both over there and back before it lands.”

She recoiled, sweeping an arm over the bluest sky she’d seen. “It’s a lovely day!”

“That’s about to change. I can smell it. The farther west we sail, the more likely the Wyvern Kings will create their own current again. Trust me, Britt. It’s coming.”