“Get me a ball and chain!” Jameston ordered.
“Wait, what are you doing?” Norah demanded, but Jameston ignored her as he stomped over to where another man held out a metal ball and chain.
“In case you get any ideas of healing your beloved,” he hissed, beginning to wrap the chain around Phillip’s neck. Once he was done, he turned and leered at her, his face transforming from the handsome man he might have been into something entirely different. “The Bianne line can heal. But they can’t bring men back from the dead!” Then he snapped his fingers, and his men tossed Phillip’s bodyoverboard.
Norah tried to scream, but her voice seemed to have fled her. She ran to the handrail and stared down in horror as Phillip’s body sank deeper and deeper. Without thinking, she grabbed her skirts and hoisted one leg over the railing, but a hand reached out and yanked her back onto the deck, nearly pulling her shoulder out of its socket.
“I already told you,” Jameston said, “even if you choose not to love me, you’re not going anywhere!” He jerked her around to face the shrinking shore. “Are you sure you want to be so rash?” Then he flipped her around again to face the dozens of men who looked at her with hungry eyes.
Norah closed her eyes.I’m sorry,she prayed silently.I’m sorry I couldn’t see what I had when it was there.
“She can’t choose you, Jameston,” said a deep, unfamiliar voice.
Norah opened her eyes to see a tall man with long blond hair balancing on the rail by holding onto a rope with one hand. His clothes and hair were dripping, as was the sword grasped tightly in his other hand.
“She can’t choose you,” Phillip said, his voice reverberating through Norah’s chest as he brandished his sword at the pirates, “because she’s already mine.”
Norah gasped as Phillip and the pirates warily eyed one another… again. Then, as though a signal had been given, the four pirates nearest him rushed forward in attack. Phillip swung hard and fast. And now that he had room to properly swing with all his might, he immediately pushed his attackers back.
Wait. Norah blinked. Where had Phillip gotten a sword? Norah remembered stepping over his sword where it had fallenwhen he was stabbed. Surely, the pirates hadn’t dropped it over the edge of the boat with him.
Her question was answered almost immediately as men–these in green uniforms–leaped over the ship’s rails, shouting and wielding their own weapons. One of them, who looked oddly familiar, even had a merman’s tail that transformed into legs mid-leap!
When Prince Lucas joined the fray, however, Norah recognized the green Maricantan uniform for what it was. And if that wasn’t enough of a sign that the tides were turning, the sound of cannons rang through the air, and Norah looked up to find what looked like Ashlandian ships firing on the five ships sailing alongside them.
“Jameston!” shouted an angry woman’s voice. “Get her out of here!” It was Willamina, who had also appeared with a sword in hand at the top of the stairs.
Norah’s arm was grasped and yanked back once again. But this time, Jameston was dragging her toward the edge of the ship.
“I’ve waited my whole life to find you!” he said, his voice full of both panic and fury. “You loved me then, and I know you can love me again!”
Norah struggled to get away, but he was too strong. Even as he cut the rope holding a small wooden raft against the outside of the boat, his grip didn’t loosen. When the raft was free, it fell into the water with a splash, and Jameston gave her another violent tug toward the edge of the ship. And he would have succeeded in shoving her over the side of the ship if a blade hadn’t cut in front of him, blocking his path.
“Phillip!” Norah screamed. But Phillip’s brown eyes didn’t move to her. They stayed on Jameston, hard and cold as he lifted his blade and crouched down.
“Let go of my wife, Jameston,” he said, his deep voice hard. His hair had fallen out of its usual tie behind his neck, and hisclothes were torn and bloody. But he didn’t even flinch when Jameston took a wild swing at him with his sword.
“She was mine first!” Jameston snapped, though his words, like his movements, were getting jerkier and less controlled as they came out.
“You wouldn’t have needed her at all if your father hadn’t introduced the plague to the world,” Phillip said.
Norah sucked in a sharp breath. “Yourfatherdid this?” She turned to Jameston in horror.
“It wassupposedto infect the crown prince alone!” Jameston growled. “It was never supposed to spread, let alone to me and my brother!” Only then did he seem to remember who he was talking to. He pleaded with her with his eyes as though he hadn’t just stabbed her husband and abducted her. “We never meant for it to infect the entire kingdom.” His voice shook this time. “The sorcerer my father purchased the potion from promised it would only touch one person–”
Phillip took advantage of Jameston’s distraction to use his longsword to pin Jameston’s blade against the side of the ship just long enough to lean forward and snatch Norah from the pirate’s grasp. “Lucas!” he shouted.
Before Norah could even turn, Phillip pushed her into the arms of the younger Maricantan prince, who caught her and gently pushed her to the side, away from the melee that was now covering the entire deck of the ship.
“Wait here, Your Highness,” he said, raising his own sword, though no one was approaching.
But he needn’t have worried. Norah couldn’t breathe as Phillip and Jameston, unburdened by her, truly began to battle.
“Should you help him?” Norah asked the Maricantan prince. Surely two would be better odds against the pirate than one.
But Prince Lucas only gave her a wry smile. “Your husband might not have been able to communicate for a long time, but that man needs no help when it comes to the sword.”
Sure enough, though Jameston was ruthless and quick, Phillip was steady and strong. And despite Jameston’s relentless attacks, Phillip drove him back into a corner, where he was pinned between the railing and Phillip’s sword.
