“It takes more than know-how. It takes a lot of strength to run a ship.” Her mother gnawed at her lower lips as she levered another load of sodden fabric from the tub into the wringer.
Her father had been silent, but now he spoke. “Look at yourself, Corine. You work harder than any man every day of your life. And you hauled nets alongside my crew when you were fat as a porpoise with that one. Worked right up until the hour Maggie was born. No reason the rest of these women can’t do the same.”
Her mother gave a deep sigh. “I know it. I don’t mean to be discouraging. Maggie will make be a fine captain. But I’m allowed to worry over the ones I love, Lenn. I married a boneheaded mule of a man who insists on worrying me night and day, didn’t I? And then I gave birth to an even more boneheaded daughter who’d swim across the sea if someone told her she couldn’t do it.”
“She got that ass and brass from you,” her father jabbed back.
As they continued their loving bickering, Maggie’s hand slipped reflexively to her lower belly. She could be growing a boneheaded child of her own, but the worst she might show for it this season would be some extra seasickness. By next year’s run, she’d either have Evrard’s babe in her arms or she wouldn’t. She could captain both seasons without any hindrance.
She could do this.
Shewoulddo this.
Chapter 10
A Faint Hope
Evrard
Solvantis sprawled out beneath him just as dawn leaked into the edges of the sky. He only had time to check in at the tower and find his roost in the watchcote before the sun rose and turned his hide to stone.
He had all day to observe the humans crawling about in the streets of the great walled city. They rarely lifted their faces to acknowledge the frozen figures looking down at them.
For so long, he’d assumed that the lack of recognition was due to his station. He was no one special. Cliffborn. Barely worthy of the village post. Maggie was one of the few who ever glanced up in Brinehelm. The rest ignored him like he was a mere fixture.Gate, pillar, gargoyle, wall.
But even here, where the most elite towerborn made their eyries and the Zenith ruled alongside the human king, the gargoyles might as well have been gutter spouts as far as the humans were concerned.
Gutter spouts who battled goblins for them.
Maggie wasn’t like that. She understood his devotion. Shesawhim. He hoped she wouldn’t forget him while he was gone, but it was a faint hope. She said she wouldn’t, but humans weren’t as patient as his kind. She might remember him for six moons, but ten? Twenty? It was asking a lot of her to wait for him so long. And she said she’d soon be married.
That’s why he’d seized her womb-charm, for the chance that his seed would take. Then she’d have a part of him with her, always. It wouldn’t be possible for her to forget him if he sired her child. It was selfish, and he didn’t care. That’s how much he wanted to keep her. That’s how much he wanted her to wait for him.
Even if she had a human mate when he returned, she’d be his.
As the day progressed to afternoon, his dread rose in anticipation of the reprimand he was sure to receive from his watch leader for being so late. He would be disciplined. But there was no point in putting off the inevitable, so when his skin finally cracked enough to allow movement, he shook off the fine layer of grit that had formed and grimly reported for duty.
“You’re the last to arrive. Slow flyer?” The watchminder, a female gargoyle with delicate, pointed horns and a beak that betrayed some dragon ancestry, eyed him with skepticism, but he didn’t stretch his wings for her. She looked faintlydisappointed as she checked her scroll. “They’ve put the Sixth Watch under Brandt, winds aid you.”
That was bait, but he took it. “What’s wrong with Brandt?”
She clicked her beak, tail flicking. “Rough. Cliffborn. But I guess that might suit you.”
“It does.” He shrugged off her intended barb. An unmannered, low leader was fine with him. Cliffborn knew how to survive, and that was Evrard’s primary aim now, to survive.
It should have been to gain the satisfaction of fighting well if he lived—or the glory of devoted death if he didn’t. But now he didn’t care about any of that, only returning to Maggie. And for that, he had to make it through the war, not just fight it.
He followed the watchminder’s instructions to locate his assigned perch on one of the lower-level trusses that crisscrossed the hollow center of the tower. To his relief—and contrary to his expectations—his watchmates seemed strong, serious, and well-armored. They would fight well if they worked together.
The perch to his left was occupied by an obvious towerborn, who wore finely engraved pauldrons and gold caps on his horns, inexperienced enough that he didn’t have a single scar.
Evrard was suddenly self-conscious. His plain leather bracers and eroded hide looked shabby in comparison. Even his broad back stood out among the leaner, younger gargoyles. He felt his chewed-up ears heat with shame.
They muttered terse greetings to one another, then crouched to wait for their leader.
They didn’t have to wait long. Brandt must have been watching from above, because as soon as Evrard settled, he swooped down from an upper level, passing their ranks twice before settling on a perch that faced them.
The watchminder hadn’t lied. Though his armor looked new and he was young enough that the moss hadn’t eaten hishair, Brandt himself was rough—horns chipped and his body covered in dozens of deep, deliberate grooves to mark his lost watchmates. He’d seen plenty of battles and he hadn’t won all of them.
