“Where the fuck did they come from?” Kerym hissed as he reached one of their friendly ships. He shoved Pellie first and Soria second up the ladder that two of Loche’s soldiers threw their way, before scurrying up as quickly as he could with his hands slipping over the wet rope.
“We don’t know. Out of fucking nowhere!” Loche’s masked man didn’t stay after shooting back the answer, instead sprinting to the stern, where another ship was mooring alongside their vessel. Tanned Fae with glittering dark eyes and hair in shades of light brown, golden, and raven—like his own—spilled onto the brow they’d just connected to.
“Weapons?” Kerym demanded when another group of soldiers sprinted past them, and as a man pointed to the middle of the ship, where they’d thankfully secured the weapons under a black tarp, he didn’t hesitate, sprinting up there.
“Pellie!” Kerym’s pulse thundered in his ears as an arrow flew by, whistling far too close to his head for his liking, and he nearly fumbled as he filled his arms with daggers and took a long curved sword for himself.
The beautiful but infuriating witch was right behind him, and Kerym pressed a few daggers into her hands, then ran up and pulled Soria to Pellie’s side, forcing blades into her palms also.
“Stay here,” Kerym snarled as he allowed himself a few precious seconds to look around.
It was chaos. Loche’s soldiers in the stern were going to be overwhelmed soon, facing hundreds of men and women to their dozen. The same scene was unfolding all around them—every vessel scrambling as people tried to keep the Oakgards’ Fae off.
Fuck…
There were so many ships, those dark green sails haunting the sea everywhere Kerym looked.
Havlands’ burning vessels floated or sank all around, and somehow the ships with the dark sails—with crests of gilded trees and bushes and flowersdecorating their green flags mocking the wind—came from every fucking direction, surrounding their fleet in what seemed like moments.
Almost as if…
“Someone on the inside must have helped them,” Kerym mumbled to himself, but he saw the same realization dawn in Pellie’s and Soria’s light eyes as the women dipped their chins.
He felt like screaming.
Kerym didn’t see any of their friends anywhere. He spun around one more time, the heat of the fire zinging across his skin as he blinked against the smoke traveling on the wind, watching Fae, humans, and shifters alike fall into the depths of the Eiatis Sea—their screams cut off as…
Fuck, the Oakgards’ were somehow breaking the ships with their bare hands, seemingly not caring that their own people tumbled into the dark water with those of Havlands. Kerym just stared as yet another brow connected with a ship, and as soon as those Oakgards’ got their hands on the wood… the air was pierced with the sharp snapping of planks, and yet another warship, one of those Rioner had taken great care in creating, shattered, sending every person aboard into the sea.
“We need to get them off the ship!” Kerym turned his head over his shoulder toward Pellie as he started sprinting to the soldiers bravely fighting a losing battle ahead. “Stay the fuck alive! I’ll keep them away, but you don’t hesitate if someone slips through.”
The sisters’ faces were solemn when they nodded, but it wasn’t just the fires burning around them that made their eyes flame as they listened to the death anddestruction.
They were angry. Furious. Their rage brimmed to the surface every time they watched an Oakgards’ Fae set their hand on a railing or a mast and bring it down.
Kerym knew his brothers would have scolded him for the grin that pulled at his lips. But he couldn’t fucking help it. He could almost see it. See how these witches—if they had their magic—would take down every last fucking Fae for abusing their powers to kill and maim and ruin.
Damn, Pellie needed to come to her senses soon, because her eyes drove Kerym wild as she let a dagger fly across the sea, driving into the chest of an Oakgards’ Fae who had jumped onto the ship, preparing to take it down.
He had almost reached the stern when a roar of wrath reached his ears. His stomach flipped when their ship heeled for a second, but he didn’t waste any time as it slammed into the sea again—he joined Loche’s soldiers as they cut down Fae after Fae, growling at them not to allow them aboard.
It was impossible to miss Lessia atop Ydren, her silver dress ripped to pieces, a few of the flowers from the crown Merrick had made her still holding on to her golden strands as she directed the wyverns. She screamed out her anger and pain as the wyverns ripped through enemy ships, and the fucking serpents followed her—slithering through the water, closing their maws around any survivors.
As he blocked a Fae trying to get under his arm, Kerym had time to think that they were damned lucky the terrifying creatures had decided to trust her.
Taking hold of the Fae’s hair, Kerym ignored his widening eyes as he snapped the male’s neck, sendinghim down to the waters now filled with hissing snakes, causing bubbles to rage all over the surface.
The Oakgards’ Fae had noticed the dangers in the waters by now, and Kerym could tell they had been warned about the wyverns—about Lessia—but those snakes? It wasn’t only one Oakgards’ Fae that backed away from the creaking brow, or from the railing they seemed to have been so attached to before, but nearly everyone who’d set out to pass over onto their vessel.
This was the best moment they’d get.
“Push them back,” Kerym screamed at Loche’s soldiers.
He was impressed with how quickly the humans reacted, roaring as they formed a wall of people, as Kerym had intended, and started driving the Oakgards’ Fae toward their own ship. Kerym didn’t look as a few of their own and the Oakgards’ Fae fell into the water as they reached the brow.
The sounds of bones crushing and spine-rattling screams mingling with sharp hisses were enough to understand why the water around them boiled with red.
The smell of death filling his nostrils was so familiar he almost turned to check on Thissian. Kerym screamed as he shoved a Fae trying to stick his jagged blade into his gut over the wooden ledge—but it wasn’t scream of fear or even exhaustion, which he did feel right now, as he couldn’t pull from any of the panicked energy around them. His cry was filled with the uselessness of this war. The worry for his friends. The fear that none of them would get out of this alive.
