Lochlan’s mouth drops open. “Youcan’tbe serious.”
“As you said, you’ve faced an army before. This probably won’t bemuchworse.”
“We have everything the guards brought on the ship, so there’s armor and supplies, too,” Tessa announces. “Come on. We have to hurry.”
I move to follow her, but Lochlan is staring at me as we pass.
I look right back at him. “You don’t owe him anything. You don’t have to fightthisbattle.”
“You’re right,” he says. “I don’t owehimanything at all.”
Then he falls in step beside me.
Tessa talks while I drive the wagon. The horses run hard, the wood rattling and bouncing over cobblestones. Lochlan clings to the railings in the back. I learn everything that’s happened while she’s been on Fairde, from their walk to Rian’s palace to the poison that she assumes is spreading through the water. I don’t haveallthe pieces of what happened in Kandala yet, but I have a lot of them. I learn about Olive and her son, Ellmo, and the medicines they’ve been distributing, and the way everyone here reveres Rian.
In turn, we tell her about Oren Crane, about Lina and Mouse and the rest of his henchmen, about the way he seems to have a stranglehold on Silvesse that he maintains through fear. She hears about how Lochlan and I have been forced to work together, but he doesn’t mention the reading lessons, so I don’t either.
“Why was Olive so panicked?” says Lochlan. “You said she and Rian don’t get along.”
“They don’t,” Tessa says. “But the children were in the palace.” She pauses. “To keep them safe while Oren was ‘rescuing’ me.”
I glance at her. “The children?”
“Little Anya, too,” she says.
I remember the little girl from Rian’s ship who played jacks—well,knucklebones—with me. She had bright eyes and a lively laugh and scarred arms from whatever Oren Crane did toher.
I grit my teeth. As much as I hate Rian, Anya is a child. I think about Lina and Mouse and what I’ve seen them do, and I crack the whip, driving the horses faster.
The glow of fire lights the sky before long, and Tessa gasps.Smoke begins to obscure the moon. We hear the sounds of battle before we see it, because the boom and roar of cannon fire followed by screams are unmistakable.
“We’re close,” Tessa says, and there’s horror in her voice. “The palace is just over this hill.”
Then we crest another hill. Tessa gasps again.
“The palace,” she says.
“What palace?” says Lochlan, and he’s right.
There’s no palace at all. There’s nothing but fire.
We tether the horses and take a spot at high ground to try to assess the situation. We’re armed and ready for battle from what we gathered from the guards’ trunks, but I know Tessa isn’t a soldier—and from the look of things down below, the three of us aren’t going to make much of a difference.
Oren Crane’s ship has pulled into the harbor, and he appears to be firing on what’s left of the palace. Without Rian and his best peoplehere, there was no one left to defend anything. It seems that a lot of Oren’s men have already claimed the ground below. What’s left of it, anyway.
Tessa pulls a spyglass from our supplies and peers down at the harbor. “This is horrific. I don’t see Olive or Erik. Not Rian either. I don’t know Oren’s people, though.” She hands the spyglass to me. “What do you see?”
I look through the lens. “Oren is still on his ship.” I frown. “With Lina and Mouse.”
Lochlan swears. “They’re horrible.”
“She is,” I agree. “Mouse wouldn’t be.” I shift the spyglass and find a crumpled body leaning against the railing. Ford Cheeke.He’s bleeding from his temple, and there’s more blood in a pool under his body. I don’t know if he’s dead or not, but it doesn’t look good.
I swallow heavily. I didn’t do it, but I feel as though I was a part of the cause.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper.
Another cannon fires. The sound cracks through the night, and we all jump. Fewer screams erupt down below.
