“Spread out.” Otekah barked orders to their few remaining warriors. “No one rests until the matriarchs are safe.”
On the other side of the chamber, Drakaa echoed the command, and her Unseen militia answered with a single, unified stomp. The sound struck the floor like a war drum.
Kai added one final command. “Leave no enemy breathing. Their lives are forfeit.”
They’d had their chance.
Warriors set off in several directions, boots thundering into the passageways.
Sword already in hand, Kai led the charge toward the mines, rage and grief hardening every step. Usti would be where he thought himself safest. She was certain of it.
He hadn’t killed Sitsi by his own hand, but he would answer for her death.
The gods owed her that much.
Two corridors in, the injured began to appear.
Healers supported coughing females, some bloodied, some burned. One limped with her arm wrapped in a hastily tied cloth. Another carried a child whose legs didn’t move. All were dust-covered, their faces pale, their eyes bright and wide in shock.
Kai grabbed a passing healer by the arm. “What’s happened?”
The female shook her head, eyes dazed. “The mines. There was some kind of blast. Supports gave way.”
Kai’s stomach twisted. The blast.
She’d done this.
More injured streamed down the corridor—so many. Too many.
Drakaa settled at Kai’s side. “Are there more down there?”
The healer nodded. “Yes. We’re trying to get them out before the tunnels collapse completely.”
We.
Healers.
Kai’s heart slammed against her ribs as she scanned the faces rushing past. “Where’s Fala?”
“She’s still down there.”
A groan echoed through the stone, followed by a long, low rumble from deep within the mountain’s belly.
The ground convulsed from sea to shore. Cannon fire cracked across the waves, one, two, three?—
Thorne’s ships exploded in splintered plumes of hull and fire. Black smoke swallowed the blue horizon. They weren’t under enemy fire… They were turning on themselves. It was Castona Bay all over again, only worse. Bigger.
Bloodier.
Cannonballs shot through the hulls of their neighbors as well as up into their own decks. Mainsails cracked. Men jumped overboard.
Then, as if from a glittering dream, six familiar ships cut through the sea like arrows.
A laugh tore from Augustus’s chest.
The fleet.
His family.
