Summer couldn’t see very well from this angle, but the book appeared to be extremely old, the parchment pages curling at the edges. Balat turned to a page near the back of the book, placed a rune-etched gemstone atop in the center of an intricate drawing sketched on that page, and murmured a few words. The book glowed violet, and for an instant Gabriella could have sworn she saw a gleaming silver fountain rise up from what had appeared to be old but perfectly normal parchment pages. The image—and the violet glow—were gone in an instant, and Balat looked triumphant.
“I have been seeking this particular tome for a very long time,” he murmured. “We do, indeed, have a deal. The Season known as Summer is yours.” He snapped his fingers, and the servant holding Gabriella’s collar handed her leash to Balat’s client. “And may I say, Your Excellency, as always, it’s been a pleasure doing business with you.”
A few minutes later, Gabriella was aboard the small skiff, being rowed through the fog towards her buyer’s ship. Her last sight of Mur Balat was of him striding towards the sterncastle, calling out for the crew to make sail. Then the ship that had been her prison—the ship still carrying her sisters—disappeared into the fog and was gone.
TheReaperhad disappeared into a fog bank near the Vargan Banks, a series of wide underwater plateaus some two hundred miles off the easternmost coast of Frasia. But though the fog blinded the above-water eyes of the dolphins and whales, Dilys was still able to track their progress via his undersea spies.
When those eyes reported that theReaperhad weighed anchor in the fog bank, unease crawled up Dilys’s spine. Fearing the reason for the strange behavior, he poured more magic into the sea, boosting theKracken’s speed. Sure enough, less than three hours later, his eyes in the sea reported several other craft making their way towards theReaper’s location, and he didn’t need those eyes to tell him what was happening.
The meetings at sea were quick, taking less than half a day. When they were done, the fog finally began to dissipate. Five new ships were sailing in five different directions and theReaperwas speeding towards Frasia’s port of Sau Lauro. There was no telling which of the five ships now carried Summer and her sisters. TheReaperhad suspected they would be followed and had arranged countermeasures to protect against it.
Dilys sent Ari, Ryll, and the rest of his fleet after four of the fleeing ships, blasted a call along the seaways ordering the Calbernan navy to intercept the southern-bound fifth vessel, while he and his crew pursued theReaper.
They were close enough now to use their seagifts against their quarry, pulling strong currents into the paths of the fleeing ships to slow them down. None of the five new ships had magic on their side, so by the end of the day, Ari, Ryll, and the rest of the fleet had captured their prey, all of which turned out to be decoys. There was no sign of the Seasons on any vessel, and even when Commanded withsusirenato answer his questions truthfully, none of their crews knew anything about kidnapped princesses. They were merely local Frasian fishermen, making a little profit on the side by meeting theReaperby the Vargan Banks to trade a few barrels of Allodyne brandy for several crates of lace and fine fabrics from the silk mills of Sheen.
That left theReaper,whose magic-born speed was no match for the full force of Dilys’s seagifts.
Dilys and his men boarded the pirate ship on a cresting wave, leaping from the foaming froth onto the deck, swords and tridents in hand, ready to rend. Their claws were out, their battle fangs down as they roared and attacked.
The fight was short, bloody, and merciless. No quarter given to the scum who had invaded Konumarr and stolen away Gabriella Coruscate and her two sisters.
The pirate’s captain was still alive at the end of it. Pierced by Dilys’s trident, sword hand hacked off at the wrist, and passed out from the pain, but still clinging to life.
“Bind that wrist,” Dilys ordered one of his men. “I don’t want him dying yet. The rest of you, get down below and start searching. Tear this ship apart if you must, but find them. I’ll search the cabin of our fine captain here, myself.” He lifted the corner of his lip, baring his fangs in a savage sneer.
Leaving the White Guards and his own men to search belowdecks, he leapt up the quarterdeck stairs and threw open the door to the captain’s quarters. None of the Seasons were within, but as he ransacked the place, looking for clues, he discovered a strand of long, curling red hair and flecks of dried blood on the corner of a hanging lantern. His blood ran cold, then colder still when he found another hair of the same length and shade on the sheets of the captain’s bunk.
Boiling with fear and fury, Dilys slammed out of the cabin and crossed the deck in long, ground-eating strides. The pirates had strewn sand across the planking to keep it from getting too slippery, and the grit clung to the bottoms of his feet, making raw, scraping sounds with each step.
He slapped the pinioned captain back to consciousness, then grabbed him by the throat, battle claws digging into the flesh on either side of the man’s windpipe.
“Where are they?” he demanded, filling his voice with Command. “Where are the Seasons of Summerlea? Where is myliana,the princess Summer? ”
The pirate, pale and clammy and dazed from his wounds, stared up at Dilys with dull eyes. Before he could answer, one of the Calbernans who’d gone to search belowdecks poked his head up through the hatch and waved.
“Myerielua! Down here!”
With a snarl, Dilys released the pirate captain and went below. The warrior who’d summoned him led him through the artillery deck, past the rows of ballistas tied into place, loaded and ready to fire. They hadn’t gotten a single shot off. Dilys had battered the already wounded pirate vessel with a barrage of furious waves—several of which had carried he and his men aboard the Reaper. TheKrackenhad moved in for boarding after that, and Wynter Atrialan’s White Guards had finished off any pirates that had escaped Dilys’s men.
At the far end of the artillery deck were the officers’ quarters. Small, private compartments built into the stern of the ship.
One of the rooms held a cloth-covered cage. Commander Friis was there, his golden skin and white hair spattered with blood, his pale blue eyes icy cold.
“There’s another cage like this one the starboard side,” Friis said. “One of my men is Snow Wolf clan. The scent is weak, but his nose tells him they were definitely here. Princess Summer in this one”—he gestured to the cage—“Princess Spring in the other. No sign of Princess Autumn.”
“The captain of this floatingshotohole keptMyerialannaAutumn in his cabin,” Dilys said in a low voice.
A growl rumbled in the chests of the two Wintermen standing beside Friis.
“There’s a bigger problem,” the Wintercraig White Guard captain continued grimly. “My man says the Seasons haven’t been on this ship in a while. Possibly not since a few days after they were taken. We’ve been tracking the wrong ship.”
“What?” Dilys could feel himself shaking. He wanted to rip this ship to splinters. He wanted to slice its captain to ribbons, one tiny piece at a time, and drink the man’s scream for days.
But first, he was going to get answers.
He returned to the main deck and hunkered down before the ship’s wounded captain.
“We all came from the sea,” Dilys told him in a pleasant voice. “Did you know that? And in us all, the sea remains. It’s the water and salt in our flesh. It’s the blood in our veins. And I am a prince of the sea. Of all seas.” His eyes went cold and he seized the man’s head in both hands. “Your blood answers to me.”
