And more fire ignited on the trebuchet. The ferry was closer to the Monastery now; an easier target getting easier by the second.

“Why are they attacking us?” Iseult had to shout over Owl’s howls and the ferry’s shrieking wood.

“No idea!” Leopold shouted back. His Threads were as pale with fear as Owl’s, but green determination latticed around the edges. He had not given up yet. “Surely there is some way to turn this thing around!”

While the ferry rocked to a gentler sway, he searched the pulley mechanism, and Iseult followed his lead. Neither loosened their grip on Owl. They simply scoured and examined—and Iseult also prayed. Please, Moon Mother. Help us survive this, please.

“What would a switch look like?” Iseult asked.

“I don’t know!”

“I thought you had been here more times than you can count!”

“But only four times on the ferry—” He broke off as the next trebuchet launched.

Fire rocketed toward them. Leopold stared. Iseult stared. Owl screamed, a sound to split mountains. A sound to summon stone.

Or a mountain bat. In a streak of fur and speed, Blueberry dropped from the sky. With his wings folded in, he dove faster than the flames.

He crashed into the fire. The ball flew off course. His flight turned to a spinning topple. No space between fire and beast. A blur of smoking flesh plummeted toward the earth.

Now Owl really screamed, but Iseult was ready this time. “He’s all right.” She grabbed Owl’s face. Forced the girl to look at her. Iseult knew from experience with sea foxes that creatures like Blueberry were almost impossible to kill.

“Owl!” she pleaded. “We need your magic! You have to control this metal. Make the pulley stop—can you do that?”

Owl did nothing of the sort. She was crying now, a weak whimper while her Threads shriveled inward like they had the night before.

“Feel my hand,” Iseult ordered, squeezing Owl’s fingers. “Do you feel that? Feel the skin, feel how hot it is and how strong the muscles underneath.”

Nothing. No response, no reaction, no awareness.

“And do you feel your own hand, Owl? Do you feel the way the skin and bone crush together the tighter I hold on?”

Still, Owl’s Threads shrank. Breaking, breaking, breaking.

It was then that another trebuchet snapped, close enough to hear the wood punching. Close enough to hear the fire’s thunderous ignition take flight.

Iseult dared not look. “The sky!” She had to howl now, to be heard over the winds and flames and wood. “Do you see how blue it is? Look up, Owl, look up!”

To her shock, Owl looked up. So Iseult looked up too.

And at that moment, Blueberry streaked across the blue. Smoke chased behind, his tail ablaze. But he lived. He lived.

Color plowed through Owl’s Threads. Brilliant as the mountain bat’s, but with a thousand shades twirling and chasing. Too fast to read—too fast to matter.

“The chain!” Iseult screamed, seizing the moment. “Owl, please—stop the chain!”

The chain stopped. The pulley froze. The ferry lurched, a snapping lunge that sent Leopold sprawling toward the rail.

“Reverse it!” Iseult screamed. “Reverse it, Owl! Reverse it, reverse it!”

The ferry reversed.

“Faster!” Leopold now shouted, crawling back to the pulley. “Faster, faster, faster—”

They were not fast enough. The flames shattered against the ferry, blinding and deafening. Heat to boil the flesh off bones. The last thing Iseult saw before her world blazed to ash was Blueberry’s fierce, silver Threads diving their way.

Then everything vanished beneath the pyre.

THIRTY-FOUR

There is an army headed your way.

I know.

What do you intend to do?

Stay alive. What else?

Then I should inform you that I have moved ten thousand soldiers to my borders, and I intend to move five thousand more, once they are mobilized. They will have a full Firewitched arsenal at their disposal, and we are building blockades at every road and bridge into Marstok.

Raiders will not enter my empire. However, the officers are under strict orders to allow refugees through.

Why are you telling me this?

Why are you helping my refugees?

Because if Nubrevna falls, then Marstok will be next.

* * *

The Battle Room shook with the voices of the High Council. Urgent, panicked, uncoordinated, and uncooperative. And also, all male. The women who had visited for Merik’s funeral had not remained in Lovats after—for until Vivia wore the crown, there was nothing to compel them to. Their fathers and brothers did not give up power so easily.

Which explained, of course, why Serafin Nihar was also not in the room.

Five of the twelve vizers wanted to face the Raider King and his armies head-on. Some variation of “We outnumber them!” hit Vivia’s ears every few seconds.

Three vizers wanted to fortify the northern estates and holdings—because, of course, said northern estates and holdings belonged to their families. And three vizers wanted to attempt treating with the Raider King directly. “Surely something can be negotiated,” several kept murmuring to themselves, as if by saying these words they would somehow become true.

The Raider King treated with no one, though. Vivia had tried; Vaness had tried; others had tried before them. No messengers ever returned.

Of course, for each strategic faction in the Battle Room, no one within the groups could agree on specific tactics or technique. Some wanted more soldiers, others fewer. Some wanted to attack from land, others by river.

The only point upon which all could agree was that death marched this way.

And that Nubrevna was not ready.

Vivia’s own plan had earned support from only one person: Stix’s father, Vizer Sotar. He approved her approach of sending a portion of the troops north, to escort refugees to safety and slow the Raider King’s advance, while maintaining the bulk of the Nubrevnan forces in and around Lovats.

“What does the king say?” Vizer Quihar demanded. His words boomed out, loud enough to fill the room, loud enough to shatter arguments midsentence.

Silence abruptly ruled the space. All eyes cut to Vivia.

And with those stares—with that blighted question, What does the king say?—Vivia felt her shoulders rise straight to her ears. Her father was no longer King, she wanted to point out. Nor was he Admiral.

And her father, she wanted to then add, had refused to attend this High Council meeting. She had gone to his room earlier that afternoon, to pay her respects—not to grovel, as she knew he expected her to do, but simply to reiterate that his wisdom was welcome. In falsely light tones, he had insisted he harbored no anger. “You are Queen-in-Waiting,” he’d said. “I only act for your sake. I know you are strong, but the Council does not.”

Then he had claimed he was too tired to join the meeting, and Vivia had recognized it all for the lie it was. Withholding, withholding, withholding. That was her father’s favorite means of punishment, be it information he knew she wanted or his own presence when it was required. He knew exactly what Vivia needed most, and then he refused to let her have it.

And the truth of the matter was that she did need him here. The High Council still respected him, still trusted him. His word carried weight.

There was nothing she could do about it now, though. No more time to be wasted on begging, on waiting. If he would not help her because he was angry, then Vivia would simply have to help herself.

“My father,” Vivia clipped out at last, all eyes still pinned on her, “is currently busy. As your Queen-in-Waiting and Admiral, the final decision falls to me. Not my father.”

As soon as Vivia uttered those words, she regretted them. Vizer Quihar’s nostrils fluttered and Vizer Eltar’s eyes bulged. The room erupted once more: “You are not ruler until you wear the crown!”, “Your father has fought in more battles than you have years!”, “He protected this city under siege!”, and “The people of Nubrevna trust their King more than some untested Queen!”

Each passive—and sometimes direct—insult Vivia bore with nothing more than a slight twitch to her eyelids and tight smile upon her lips. Hye, her teeth were grinding, her fingers rubbing at her thighs, but none of the High Council seemed to notice. Or care.

Until Vizer Quintay piped up with, “The King will speak to the Raider King! He negotiated the Twenty Year Truce. He will negotiate something again!”

And it was the final grain of sand to flood the sea. Like her father claiming he had fought with a knife in his thigh, this was too far.

“No.” Vivia’s voice cracked through the room, and with that single word—with that single truth—came six jets of water. One from each cup clutched by vizers fool enough to drink near a Tidewitch.