Page 11 of Witchshadow

“How quickly until the crew can set sail?”

“Right away, Majesty.” His dark eyebrows lifted. His left hand—missing its pinkie—rapped against his knee. “I told them to be ready, just in case.”

Just in case.So even the boy had had little faith in their mission. Vivia hated how much her stomach dropped just thinking that. While she had hardly possessed Vaness’s certainty, she’d at least had some hope.

No regrets. Keep moving.

As the carriage rolled into the Southern Wharves, theIriscame into view. A two-masted half-galley with the sharp, beak-like bow of all Nubrevnan naval ships. A sleek creature with her oars stowed and sails furled, and just seeing her made the knots in Vivia’s chest—knots that never fully went away—loosen. TheIrishad served Vivia for years, first on the rivers of Nubrevna, then briefly at sea…

And now upon the Jadansi. The only home she and Vaness had. The extent of their holdings, the breadth of their empires.

The horses and carriage clopped to a halt, and Cam hastily helped his royal charges exit. Vivia didn’t need the aid, but she accepted it anyway. Vaness, she noted, did not. The Empress had retreated entirely behind her cold exterior, and if Vivia had to guess, she would speak little for the rest of the day. Perhaps even for the rest of their journey.

Vivia stalked across the gangway. Tar and salt mingled in her nose. The sea’s breeze fingered her hair, trailed across her skin. She inhaled deeply. Smiled at the nearest sailor and then the ship’s girl after that.

Cam and Vaness followed, but Vivia scarcely noticed. Her eyes were scanning the deck for her first mate…There.Broad-shouldered and broader-chested, he too wore the warm coral red of his family’s livery.

It had become the color of Vivia’s cause. The color of her small but loyal crew.

Vizer Erril Sotar hurried toward Vivia. He did not ask how the meeting had gone, and Vivia could see in his dark eyes that he too had not expected any progress. There came the knots again.

“Sotar,” she said, aiming for her main quarters. “I want to make way tonight. If we are lucky, we might escape this cursed place before the moon reaches her peak.”

“Where will we go?” His voice was a warm baritone. Familiar and kind.

“Away. Far away.” It was a nonanswer, but the best she could give. Nubrevna was not an option. Marstok even less so. The only harbor they might safely lay anchor in was the Pirate Republic of Saldonica, and though Vivia had been willing to dabble in piracy in the past—given the right target—she’d also seen Lovats almost destroyed by Red Sails and Baedyeds. Twice.

She had no interest in allying herself with true raiders.

“Then away it is, Captain.” Sotar pressed his fist to his chest before striding ahead to open her cabin door. Though Vivia had told him over and over andoveragain that he didn’t need to open doors, he still did it. Every time.

And every time, it made the little rip in Vivia’s heart stretch wider. It used to be Stix opening that door for her. And Stix taking her commands. But Stix had disappeared a month and a half ago, and though Cam had explained a hundred times—backward and forward and every direction Vivia had demanded—that her former first mate and Threadsister was inside a mountain in the Sirmayans… that she’d had memories that were not her own and was now with a Sightwitch named Ryber…

None of it had ever made any sense.

Then again, nothing ever made sense anymore. Vivia’s brother, Merik, had been declared dead, but then he’d appeared in Lovats quite alive. Her father, whom she’d spent her entire life trying to appease and prove herself to, had betrayed her and claimed the throne she had worked so hard for. And then magic doors had mysteriously opened inside the under-city of Lovats, and raiders had poured through, followed by the Empress of Marstok, dethroned but not broken.

No. Nothing in this world made sense, and come floods or hell-waters, Vivia had to make peace with that. Stix wasn’t coming back. Merik wasn’t coming back. Her title was gone. This was her life, salmon-suited and rejected at every turn.

She reached the central table of her quarters. Charts were stretched and weighted, while miniature ships had gathered against the table’s raised rim. Unmagicked. The expensive Aetherwitched miniatures she’d wasted a tiny fortune on had been lost or destroyed or Noden only knew by Merik.

Vivia waited until Sotar had closed the door into her cabin. Vaness would likely sequester in her quarters belowdecks, where she often hid, and Cam would be organizing the crew to set sail.

“Has the blockade cleared your departure?” Sotar asked. He joined Vivia at the table, watching as she lined up ships outside the Veñaza City harbor upon a chart. Thirty-four warships, letting no one in and no one out without approval from the Doge.

“No,” Vivia said. “But our names got us through the blockade. They will get us out.”

“Are you certain?” Sotar lifted cool eyebrows, and once more, the similarities to Stix…

Vivia’s throat clenched tight. She chewed her lip several beats before nodding briskly. “They cannot stop us. We are a queen and an empress, even if they refuse to help us reclaim our thrones.”

She grabbed a second set of miniatures, painted rich, iris blue. One she placed in the harbor, west of the blockade.

“Us,” she said. Then she plopped down the remaining two. “Our ships.”

One she placed in Lovats, useless and destroyed. The other she set near Lejna. “I sent out three ships two months ago under the Fox banner. One was captured in Saldonica.”And sent back to Lovats filled with seafire.She did not say that part aloud. Sotar knew; Sotar had been there. “One we now sail, and the third…” She glanced at Sotar. “I ordered them to hide in the Hundred Isles, and they have been awaiting orders ever since.”

Sotar’s lips pursed. Contemplative, perhaps. More likely disapproving. He had known of Vivia’s attempts at piracy and he had looked the other way. When he spoke again, it was to say simply, “I see, Captain. Shall I tell Cam to fetch the banner then?”