Merik merely smiled at that. Of course he knew where the Grieg holdings were, but let the dom think him ignorant to Cartorran specifics.
“I have three sons in the Hell-Bard Brigade,” the dom continued, his thick, sausage-like fingers reaching for a goblet of wine. “The Emperor has promised them each a holding of their own in the near future.”
“You don’t say.” Merik was careful to keep his face impassive but, in his head, he was roaring his fury. The Hell-Bard Brigade—that elite contingent of ruthless fighters tasked with “cleansing” Cartorra of elemental witches and heretics—they were one of the primary reasons that Merik hated Cartorrans.
After all, Merik was an elemental witch, as was almost every person in the Witchlands that he cared about.
As Dom fon Grieg sipped from his goblet, a stream of expensive Dalmotti wine dribbled out the sides of his mouth. It was wasteful. Disgusting. Merik’s fury grew … and grew … and grew.
Until it was the final grain of salt, and Merik succumbed to the flood.
With a sharp, rasping inhale, he drew the air in the room to himself. Then he huffed it out.
Wind blasted at the dom. The man’s goblet tipped up; wine splattered his face, his hair, his clothes. It even flew to the window—splattering red droplets across the glass.
Silence descended. For half a second, Merik considered what he ought to do now. An apology was clearly out of the question, and a threat seemed too dramatic. Then Merik’s eyes caught on Guildmaster Alix’s uncleared plate. Without a second thought, Merik shoved to his feet and swept a stormy glare over the noble faces now gawking at him. At the wide-eyed servants hovering in the doorways and shadows.
Then, Merik snatched the napkin from the Guildmaster’s lap. “You’re not going to eat that, are you?” Merik didn’t wait for an answer. He merely murmured, “Good, good—because my crew most certainly will,” and set to gathering up the bones, the green beans, and even the final bits of stewed cabbage. After wrapping the silk napkin tight, he thrust it into his waistcoat pocket along with his own saved bones.
Then he turned to the blinking Dalmotti Doge, and declared, “Thank you for your hospitality, my lord.”
And with nothing more than a mocking salute, Merik Nihar, prince of Nubrevna and admiral to the Nubrevnan navy, marched from the Doge’s luncheon, the Doge’s dining room, and finally the Doge’s palace.
And as he walked, he began to plan.
* * *
By the time Merik reached the southernmost point of the Southern Wharf District, distant chimes were ringing in the fifteenth hour and the tide was out. The heat of the day had sunk into the cobblestones, leaving a miserable warmth to curl up from the streets.
When Merik attempted to hop a puddle of only Noden knew what, he failed and his new boots caught the edge of it. Blackened water splashed up, carrying with it the heavy stench of old fish—and Merik fought the urge to punch in the nearest shop window. It wasn’t the city’s fault that its Guildmasters were buffoons.
In the nineteen years and four months since the Twenty Year Truce had stopped all war in the Witchlands, the three empires—Cartorra, Marstok, and Dalmotti—had successfully crushed Merik’s home through diplomacy. Each year, one less trade caravan had passed through his country and one less Nubrevnan export had found a buyer.
Nubrevna wasn’t the only small nation to have suffered. Supposedly, the Great War had started, all those centuries ago, as a dispute over who owned the Five Origin Wells. In those days, it was the Wells that chose the rulers—something to do with the Twelve Paladins … Although how twelve knights or an inanimate spring could choose a king, Merik had never quite understood.
It was all the stuff of legends now anyway, and over the decades and eventually the centuries, three empires grew from the Great War’s mayhem—and each empire wanted the same thing: more. More witcheries, more crops, more ports.
So then it was three massive empires against a handful of tiny, fierce nations—tiny fierce nations who slowly got the upper hand, for wars cost money, and even empires can run out.
Peace, the Cartorran emperor had proclaimed. Peace for twenty years, and then a renegotiation. It had sounded perfect.
Too perfect.
What people like Merik’s mother hadn’t realized when they’d penned their names on the Twenty Year Truce was that when Emperor Henrick said Peace!, he really meant Pause. And when he said Renegotiation, he meant Ensuring these other nations fall beneath us when our armies resume their march.
So now, as Merik watched the Dalmotti armies roll in from the west, the Marstoki Firewitches gather in the east, and three imperial navies slowly float toward his homeland’s coast, it felt like Merik—and all of Nubrevna—were drowning. They were sinking beneath the waves, watching the sunlight vanish, until there would be nothing left but Noden’s Hagfishes and a final lungful of water.
But the Nubrevnans weren’t crippled yet.
Merik had one more meeting—this one with the Gold Guild. If Merik could just open one line of trade, then he felt certain other Guilds would follow.
When at last Merik reached his warship, a three-masted frigate with the sharp, beak-like bow distinctive to Nubrevnan naval ships, he found her calm upon the low tide. Her sails were furled, her oars stowed, and the Nubrevnan flag, with its black background and bearded iris—a vivid flash of blue at the flag’s center—flew languidly on the afternoon breeze.
As Merik marched up the gangway onto the Jana, his temper settled slightly—only to be replaced by shoulder-tensing anxiety and the sudden need to check if his shirt was properly tucked in.
This was Merik’s father’s ship; half the men were King Serafin’s crew; and despite three months with Merik in charge, these men weren’t keen on having Merik around.
A towering, ash-haired figure loped over the main deck toward Merik. He dodged several swabbing sailors, stretched his long legs over a crate, and then swept a stiff bow before his prince. It was Merik’s Threadbrother, Kullen Ikray—who was also first mate on the Jana.
“You’re back early,” Kullen said. When he rose, Merik didn’t miss the red spots on Kullen’s pale cheeks, or the slight hitch in his breath. It meant the possibility of a breathing attack.
“Are you ill?” Merik asked, careful to keep his voice low.
Kullen pretended not to hear—though the air around them chilled. A sure sign Kullen wanted to drop the subject.
At first glance, nothing about Merik’s Threadbrother seemed particularly fit for life at sea: he was too tall to fit comfortably belowdecks, his fair skin burned with shameful ease, and he wasn’t fond of swordplay. Not to mention, his thick white eyebrows showed far too much expression for any respectable seaman.
But, by Noden, if Kullen couldn’t control a wind.
Unlike Merik, Kullen’s elemental magic wasn’t exclusive to air currents—he was a full Airwitch, able to control a man’s lungs, able to dominate the heat and the storms, and once, he’d even stopped a full-blown hurricane. Witches like Merik were common enough and with varying degrees of mastery over the wind, but as far as Merik knew, Kullen was the only living person with complete control over all aspects of the air.
Yet it wasn’t Kullen’s magic that Merik most valued. It was his mind, sharp as nails, and his steadiness, constant as the tide to the sea.
“How was the lunch?” Kullen asked, the air around him warming as he bared his usual terrifying smile. He wasn’t very good at smiling.
“It was a waste of time,” Merik replied. He marched over the deck, his boot heels clacking on the oak. Sailors paused to salute, their fists pounding their hearts. Merik nodded absently at each.
Then he remembered something in his pocket. He withdrew the napkins and handed them off to Kullen.
Several breaths passed. Then, “Leftovers?”
“I was making a point,” Merik muttered, and his footsteps clipped out harder. “A stupid point that missed its mark. Is there any word from Lovats?”
&nb
sp; “Yes—but,” Kullen hastened to add, hands lifting, “it had nothing to do with the King’s health. All I heard was that he’s still confined to bed.”
Frustration towed at Merik’s shoulders. He hadn’t heard any specifics about his father’s disease in weeks. “And my aunt? Is she back from the healer’s?”
“Hye.”
“Good.” Merik nodded—at least satisfied with that. “Send Aunt Evrane to my cabin. I want to ask her about the Gold Guild…” He trailed off, feet grinding to a halt. “What is it? You only squint at me like that when something’s wrong.”
“Hye,” Kullen acknowledged, scratching at the back of his neck. His eyes flicked toward the massive wind-drum on the quarterdeck. A new recruit—whose name Merik could never remember—was cleaning the drum’s two mallets. The magicked mallet, for producing cannon-like bursts of wind. The standard mallet, for messages and shanty-beats.
“We should discuss it in private,” Kullen finally finished. “It’s about your sister. Something … arrived for her.”
Merik smothered an oath, and his shoulders rose higher. Ever since Serafin had named Merik as the Truce Summit’s Nubrevnan envoy—meaning he was also temporarily Admiral of the Royal Navy—Vivia had tried a thousand different ways to seize control from afar.
Merik stomped into his cabin, footsteps echoing off the whitewashed ceiling beams as he aimed for the screwed-down bed in the right corner.
Kullen, meanwhile, moved to the long table for charts and bookkeeping at the center of the room. It was also bolted down, and a three-inch rim kept papers from flying during rough seas.
Sunlight cut through windows all around, reflecting on King Serafin’s sword collection, meticulously displayed on the back wall—the perfect place for Merik to accidentally touch one in his sleep and leave permanent fingerprints.
At the moment, this ship might have been Merik’s, but Merik had no illusions that it would stay that way. During times of war, the Queen ruled the land and the King ruled the seas. Thus, the Jana was Merik’s father’s ship, named after the dead Queen, and it would be Serafin’s ship once more when he healed.
If he healed—and he had to. Otherwise, Vivia was next in line for the throne … and that wasn’t something Merik wanted to imagine yet. Or deal with. Vivia was not the sort of person content with only ruling land or sea. She wanted control of both—and beyond—and she made no effort to pretend otherwise.
Merik knelt beside his only personal item on the ship: a trunk, roped tightly to the wall. After a quick rummage, he found a clean shirt and his storm-blue admiral’s uniform. He wanted to get out of his dress suit as quickly as possible, for there was nothing to deflate a man’s ego like a bit of frill around the collar.
As Merik’s fingers undid the ten million buttons on his dress shirt, he joined Kullen at the table.
Kullen had opened a map of the Jadansi Sea—the slip of ocean that bisected the Dalmotti Empire. “This is what came for Vivia.” He plunked down a miniature ship that looked identical to the Dalmotti Guild ships listing outside. It slid across the map, locking in place over Veñaza City. “Obviously, it’s Aetherwitched and will move wherever its corresponding ship sails.” Kullen’s eyes flicked up to Merik’s. “According to the scumbag who delivered it, the corresponding ship is from the Wheat Guild.”
“And why,” Merik began, giving up on his buttons and just yanking the shirt over his head, “does Vivia care about a trade ship?” He tossed it at his trunk and planted his hands on the table. His faded Witchmark stretched into an unbalanced diamond. “What does she expect us to do with it?”
“Foxes,” Kullen said, and the room turned icy.
“Foxes,” Merik repeated, the word knocking around without meaning in his skull. Then suddenly, it sifted into place—and he burst into action, spinning for his trunk. “That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard from her—and she’s said plenty of stupid things in her life. Tell Hermin to contact Vivia’s Voicewitch. Now. I want to talk with her at the next ring of the chime.”
“Hye.” Kullen’s boot steps rang out as Merik yanked out the first shirt his fingers touched. He tugged it on as the cabin door swung wide … and then clicked shut.
At that sound, Merik gritted his teeth and fought to keep his temper. Locked up tight.
This was so typically Vivia, so why the Hell should Merik be surprised or angry?
Once upon a time, the Foxes had been Nubrevnan pirates. Their tactics had relied on small half-galleys. They were shallower than the Jana, with two masts and oars that allowed them to slip between sand bars and barrier islands with ease—and allowed them to ambush larger ships.
But the Fox standard—a serpentine sea fox coiling around the bearded iris—hadn’t flown the masts in centuries. It hadn’t needed to once Nubrevna had possessed a true navy of its own.
As Merik stood there trying to imagine any sort of argument his sister might listen to, something flickered outside the nearest window. Yet other than waves piling against the high-water mark and a merchant ship rocking next door, there was nothing unusual.
Except … it wasn’t high tide.
Merik darted for the window. This was Veñaza City—a city of marshes—and there were only two things that would bring in an unnatural tide: an earthquake.
Or magic.
And there was only one reason a witch would summon waves to a wharf.
Cleaving.
Merik sprinted for the door. “Kullen!” he roared as his feet hit the main deck. The waves were already licking higher, and the Jana had begun to list.
Two ships north, a hulking sailor staggered down a trade ship’s gangplank toward the cobblestoned street. He scratched furiously at his forearms, at his neck—and even at this distance, Merik could see the black pustules bubbling on the man’s skin. Soon his magic would reach its breaking point, and he would feast on the nearest human life.
The waves swept in higher, rougher—summoned by the cleaving witch. Though several people noticed the man and screeched their terror, most couldn’t see the waves, couldn’t hear the screams. They were unaware and unprotected.
So Merik did the only thing he could think of. He shouted once more for Kullen, and then he gathered in his magic, so it would lift him high and carry him far.
Moments later, in a gust of air, Merik took flight.
FIVE
Safi’s temper was on the verge of exploding, what with the gull crap on her shoulder, the oppressive afternoon heat, and the fact that not one of the six ships on this dock needed new workers (especially not ones dressed as Guild apprentices).
Iseult glided ahead, already at the end of the dock and joining the wharfside throngs. Even from this distance, Safi could see Iseult fidgeting with her scarf and gloves as she scrutinized something in the murky water.
Eyebrows high, Safi directed her own gaze to the brackish waves. There was a charge in the air. It pricked at the hair on her arms and sent a chill fingering down her spine …
Then her Truthwitchery exploded—a coating, scraping sensation against her neck that heralded wrongness. Huge, vast wrongness.
Someone’s magic was cleaving.
Safi had felt it once before—felt her power swell as if it might cleave too. Anyone with a witchery could sense it coming. Could feel the world falling out of its magical order. Of course, if you didn’t have magic, like most of these people streaming down the dock, then you might as well be dead already.
A shout split Safi’s ears like thunder. Iseult. Midstride and with a roar for people to “Stand aside!,” Safi dove forward, curled her chin to her chest, and rolled. As her body tumbled over the wood, she grabbed for the parrying dagger in her boot. It was for defense against a sword, but it was still sharp.
And it could still gut a man if needed.
As the momentum of the roll drove Safi back to her feet, she dragged the knife down, and in a quick slash, she shredded her skirts. Then she was sprinting once more, her legs free to pump as high as she need
ed—and her knife in hand.
The waves curled higher. Harder. Gusts of power that grated against Safi’s skin like a thousand lies told at once.
The cleaved man’s magic must be connected to water, and now the trade ships were heaving, heaving … creaking, creaking … and then crashing against the pier.
Safi reached the stone quay. In half a breath, she took in the scene: a cleaved Tidewitch, his skin rippling with the oil of festered magic and blood black as pitch dribbling from a cut on his chest.
Only paces away, Iseult was low in her stance—her skirts ripped through as well. That’s my girl, Safi thought.
And to the left, flying through the air with all the grace of an untested, broken-winged bat, was some sort of Airwitch. His hands were out as he called the wind to carry him.
Safi had only two thoughts: Who the rut is that Nubrevnan Windwitch? And: He should really learn how to button a shirt.
Then the shirtless man touched down directly in her path.
She shrieked as loud as she could, but all she got was an alarmed glance before she flung her knife aside and slammed into his body. They crashed to the ground—and the young man shoved her off, shouting, “Stay back! I’ll handle this!”
Safi ignored him—he was clearly an idiot—and in more time than it ought to take, she disentangled herself from the Nubrevnan and snatched up her dagger.
She spun toward the cleaving Tidewitch—just as Iseult closed in, a swirl of steel meant to attract the eye. But it was having no effect. The Tidewitch didn’t lurch out of the way. Iseult’s scythes beat into his stomach, and more black blood sprayed.
Blackened organs toppled out too.
Then water erupted onto the street. Ships rammed against the stones in a deafening crunch of wood. A second wave charged in, and right behind it, a third.
“Kullen!” the Nubrevnan bellowed from behind Safi. “Hold back the water!”
In an explosion of magic that rushed across Safi’s body, air funneled toward the encroaching waves.