“I always thought I was killer, a monster, a threat to everyone I love and all the innocent people around me. But I’m not. I can kill, yes, but I’m not a killer. I’m a protector. I was born to defend good people against the real monsters. That’s why the gods gave me the gifts to do it.”
He pulled her close and kissed her thoroughly. When they pulled apart, they were both breathless, their hearts pounding.
“Was that my reward for being such a good little force of nature?”
He laughed. “Just a small taste of your reward,moa haleah.The rest will come later.” His eyes glowed brighter as he reached out with his magic to connect to his network of ocean spies. “Uh-oh. I think you, my secret weapon, aren’t such a secret anymore. Looks like Nemuan was monitoring his fleet. He’s starting to run scared.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s broken off from the rest of his armada and is heading fast for Trinipor. Mur Balat has a fortress there. If Nemuan reaches it, Ari’s as good as dead. The place is impregnable. We have to stop him before he gets there, but he’s got a very substantial lead on us.”
“Understood.” Her voice was low and throaty, resonating with power. She closed her eyes and lifted her hands. Her hurricane strengthened. She poured more and more power into the storm, sending clouds boiling across the sky until they covered the sky from horizon to horizon. And still Gabriella poured her magic into the storm, forcing an explosion of rapidly increasing intensity. The whirling mass of stormclouds stretched out to cover the entire southern half of the Olemas Ocean and most of northern Ardul. The winds whipped to speeds exceeding one hundred miles an hour, one hundred forty, then faster still. The massive waves churning across the ocean’s surface swelled to ninety- and hundred-foot monstrosities. Black clouds blotted out the sun. Lightning crashed and crackled across the crisply delineated edges of the storm’s monstrous eyewall. And there, in the center of the ferocious, killer storm, Dilys’s fleet sailed on smooth seas beneath sunny blue skies, chasing down Nemuan’s ship faster than he could flee across what even to his princely sea gifts had become dangerous, unfriendly seas.
Closing the distance took a full day. Gabriella maintained the control and intensity of her monstrous storm the entire way, managing the upper levels winds to keep the tops of her storm’s thunderclouds from shearing off and robbing the hurricane of its power, while steering the entire storm on a resolute, unwavering path towards the fleeing Nemuan. She didn’t sleep except for a few brief five- and ten-minute naps snatched here and there in Dilys’s arms, because unlike her initial storm, this great beast of a hurricane wanted its freedom. It bucked against her control constantly, requiring her complete concentration. But not once did Gabriella fear losing the upper hand, in large part because Dilys remained by her side, anchoring her in a way no else ever had—or could.
Not a single pirate Nemuan left behind to defend his flank survived the devastation of Gabriella’s hurricane. As the Calbernan fleet closed the gap between themselves and the fleeing Nemuan, Gabriella began to disperse her storm, shrinking the feeder bands, breaking up the enormous clouds forming the center. She spun off a smaller low-pressure center and kept it focused over Nemuan’s ship, harrying him with gusting winds and waterspouts to keep him from escaping. Dilys remained by her side, bleeding off any spikes of excess power and using it to fuel his own efforts against Nemuan, slamming the traitor’s ship with wave after merciless wave. One of Summer’s waterspouts got a little too close, striking the ship a glancing blow that ripped off the top of the foremast and the bowsprit.
The ship slowed, then limped to a halt.
As Dilys’s fleet drew closer, Ryll and a small team hitched a ride with a pod of swift dolphins and headed for Nemuan’s ship.
“Why dolphins?” Gabriella asked. “Can’t Ryll and his team swim faster using their seagifts?”
“Tey,but Nemuan and his men will be looking for our magic in the water. By using the dolphin’s natural speed to transport them, Ryll and his team are essentially invisible. Once they’re close enough, I’ll start slamming waves into the ship. That’ll keep the crew busy and give ourCalbernaria way to get aboard without being detected.”
“Then I do my thing?”
“Then you do your thing.”
“What if it doesn’t work? What if Nemuan is expecting it and took steps to protect against it?”
“Then Ryll and his men with have to go with plan B.”
“I hope he’s not expecting it then.”
Dilys grinned and dropped a quick kiss on her lips. “Me, too. But I wouldn’t worry. You’ve been wiping the floor with thesekrillossince we started.”
Twenty minutes later, Ryll and his team washed aboard Nemuan’s ship on a massive wave.
Gabriella walked to the railing of theKracken,looking out across the storm-tossed waters to the Shark’s pirate ship, and began to sing.
It was a song like the one from her dream. A melody without words, but rich with emotion. Each tone carried intense longing coupled with achingly seductive promises of dreams fulfilled.
Come to me,the melody seemed to say.I am all you’ve ever dreamed of, all you could ever wish for. Come to me and find the peace and paradise you’ve been searching for. I am love and family and prosperity and joy. I am the Halla you have always longed for. Come to me. Come.
It wasn’t Persuasion but pure Siren’s Song that poured out of her on the wordless notes, soaring across the distance between the two ships. Despite their natural resistance to mind control, Nemuan’s Calbernan crew fell under the spell of her Siren’s Song and abandoned their posts to stumble blindly towards the railing of the ship.
Aboard the enemy vessel, Ryll and his men crept belowdecks and began searching for Ari. They, too, felt the pull of Gabriella’s Song, but with wax plugs in their ears muffling the sound, they were able to resist the need to follow that song to its source.
They found Ari, tortured and unconscious, chained in the bowels of the ship. With the help of his men, Ryll loaded his cousin into a makeshift litter and carried him back above decks, where they slipped over the side to the waiting dolphin pod and hitched a ride back towards the Calbernan fleet, sending the all clear to Dilys once they were out of immediate danger.
“We’ve got him,” Dilys said to the still singing Gabriella. “Ari’s safe. They’re bringing him back now.”
Gabriella turned to him, her eyes still glowing gold, her voice still rich with the Siren’s irresistible allure. “Then put an end to the Shark once and for all.”
Dilys bared his battle fangs. “As mySirenacommands,” he said, and he leapt into the sea.
Filling his sea voice with power, Dilys called out, “It’s over, Nemuan. The shame you have heaped upon your House, the ruin you have made of your mother’s name: it’s all over. You can choose one of two ways to meet your death. Mylianacan obliterate you and your entire ship with one Shout, or you can meet me in the sea, and you can accept your death at my hands.” He pulsed a location a few miles from where the Ardullan continental shelf dropped off into deeper ocean. “Just you and I,krillo. No weapons but fang and claw. And our ships weigh anchor where they are.”
