“This close to the Hidden Isle?” He laughed bitterly as he hoisted me out of my blankets and furs, pulling me to my feet. “That would be too generous of the Bride. It’s a cruel little trick. And it doesn’t keep our ships afloat, neither. We’ll all be shark food if Blackbeard keeps this up.”
My eyes widened with understanding. I was suddenly, fully awake. “You’re no longer invincible.”
“No, and Blackbeard knows it.”
“But how?”
“Never trust a pirate,” he said with a grimace, holding open the door for me. “Go show yourself, Sorceress Dar’Vester. You’re too good a prize to risk losing to the small gods of Prevaria, especially if he believes you’ll break the curse. Maybe he’ll call for a parlay.”
A volley of arrows and the twang of unseen crossbow bolts greeted me as I stepped onto the deck. My breath caught as I calculated the distance between my foot and one of the still-quivering arrow shafts. Not even three feet. I poured a little extra magic into my usual protection spells, changing them into a hardened shell.
The second sight that greeted me as I stepped out of the cabin was Jax hauling Marigold toward the ship’s rail by the back of her shirt. Before I had opened my mouth to scream “stop,” he threw her overboard.
Another volley of bolts launched from Blackbeard’s fleet, thrumming into the hull ofBlue Moonor cracking throughboards. The ship lurched horribly, taking my stomach with it. I staggered a few paces to the starboard side.
When I glanced around, looking for signs of injuries, I realized Aoki was nowhere to be seen. But the cabin door—why was it shut?
A shield in her hand, the Lady de Gorm strafed towards me.
“I picked a ship,” she said, her teeth gritted. “That one.”
At first, I grappled for what she meant. Then I remembered the morning we’d reached the pirate stronghold of Starfall, when I’d wanted to show them I was no “beachmaid” and could be just as ruthless as any of them.
Now it was time to prove it.
My limbs were like swaying willows in the wind as I climbed to my feet, trying to focus on the ship she pointed at. “Too close,” I said.
“Pick another one, curse you!” de Gorm shouted.
And so I did.
While fragments of spellwork tumbled through my mind, I snatched bits and pieces of past spells, melding them with the active strands of chaos magic in the air.
Slowly—too slowly—the elemental magic began to form, a wild, shifting thing usually only possible with the aid of a spellbook. Not for me. The sea began to churn against itself, waves shifting and colliding, forming an impossible new pattern. One woven out of chaos itself.
I asked, and chaos obeyed.
The whirlpool was small at first, pulling the ship out of its lane as it chased us. Then I heard the groaning of its sides as it began to bob, then turn. The churning waves increased in size, pulling at the ship and its brethren.
Just as a second ship was caught in the swirling waters, there was a sharpcrackthat made my ears ring, followed by screams.
The ship broke in half. As the fore sank quickly, taking the crew with it, the aft tipped into the sea, the whipstick spearing the sky. Then it, too, went under, pulled into the abyss my curse had made.
I wanted to clap my hands over my ears, to drown out what I had done. But that was not how I was raised, on Aegle or by Dewspell Academy.
A fairy godmother of the realm always took responsibility for what she had done. And that went double for balancers.
So I watched, and silently commended their souls to whatever gods were left and would take them.
Another volley of crossbow bolts flew towardsBlue Moon,but this time, they mostly fell short, slipping into the water with barely a splash. The three ships ofCarabossewere nearly out of range.
With a hint of a satisfied smile, I turned toward the Lady de Gorm…
…and found her slumped backward at an unnatural angle, a crossbow bolt protruding from her side.
“Healer!” I called, my voice breaking, for even as I said it, I knew no healer would come. I knelt beside her, avoiding meeting her eye. “I can help. I can…”
She tried to speak, but no words would come. Blood trickled from her mouth. At last, I dragged my eyes towards hers, fumbling for one of my horrid healing spells. But I was a mage of chaos—the opposite of the order that healing required.
