My eyes burned into hers. “Below deck. Now.”
“Don’t,” she snapped. “Don’t useherto scare me into obedience.”
“Why can’t you just listen to me for once?” The words came out harsher than I meant, my frustration fraying into something close to pleading. “Why can’t you do what I say?”
“Because I’m not yours to command,” she said, every word like a knife between us. “You don’t get to lock me away and pretend it’s for my own good.”
This morning's memory burned in my gut. The look on her face when I pushed her away, the way her voice had broken… itwas still there between us, raw and festering. Saints, she never listened. Not when I warned her about the crew, not when I told her to stay out of danger. I hated that about her—hated how she ignored every damn order I gave. But I loved it, too. Loved that wild, stubborn fire that burned hotter than my temper ever could. It was the same fire that would get her killed if she stayed. Exactly the kind of shit that will get me killed.
“Hold or fight,” I said, my jaw locking, “but if you stay onmydeck, you followmyorders.”
She nodded.
The Covenant’s lead ship fired a flare—green fire arcing into the night sky. The light painted her face in ghostly color, turning her silver hair to molten metal.
I turned toward the oncoming fleet, blood pounding. “Positions!”
The first volley screamed through the air, the sound high and slicing, followed by the gut-punch crack of iron slamming into wood. The deck lurched under my boots, the jolt running up my legs. Splinters flew like shrapnel, stinging my face. Somewhere behind me, a man cried out—a sound cut short by the next booming cannon blast.
The air thickened instantly with the stench of burnt powder, acrid and bitter, mixing with the salt of the sea and the rising copper tang of fresh blood. Smoke curled through the rigging, making the moon look fractured.
The Covenant ships closed in, their blue-and-gold sails blotting out the stars. Grappling hooks flew across the gap, the wetthunkof steel biting into wood followed by the groan of the Marrow under the sudden strain. The lines pulled taut, dragging the two ships closer until the boards beneath my feet trembled.
“Boarders!” Garen’s voice thundered, ragged with urgency.
They came fast—boots hammering on the deck, heavy armor clanging, the hiss of blades cutting through air. Wolf-head crests gleamed on breastplates slick with spray and blood, and their eyes burned with the fever of the kill.
The first came at me with a curved blade, the edge catching the light just before I knocked it aside. My cutlass punched into the soft place under his jaw, the steel meeting almost no resistance before it burst out the back of his neck. Hot blood hit my cheek in a fine mist, salty and metallic on my tongue.
Another soldier’s shadow loomed to my left—he reeked of rot and old mead as he swung. I ducked, my dagger driving up into his ribs until I felt the grating slide against bone. His groan was wet, bubbling, and I shoved him back hard enough that he toppled over the rail into the dark water.
The deck was chaos—steel on steel ringing, bodies slamming into the boards, the sickening crack of bone under boots.
Flashes of silver drew my eye—Nerina, her hair whipping around her face as she buried a blade in the gut of a man twice her size. The sight sent a surge of conflicting heat through me—pride tangled with fury. She’d never listen. She’d die before she hid.
A roar split the din.
A hulking figure barreled toward me, axe raised, its blade already dark with old blood. I barely cleared his swing—the impact cracked the deck where I’d stood a heartbeat before, planks splintering under the force. My cutlass took his knee. He howled, collapsing, and I drove my dagger up beneath his jaw.
Warm blood flooded my wrist.
He spasmed once, then went slack.
A spear lunged for my gut. I caught the shaft under my arm, twisted, and yanked hard. The man stumbled forward into my reach. One clean cut—my blade opened the back of his neck—and he folded without a sound.
The deck was already slick. Seawater and blood pooled together, boots skidding, bodies tangling at the ankles. The air reeked of salt, iron, and wet leather.
To my left, Marisol took a spear through the shoulder and kept fighting anyway, head butting her attacker before splitting his skull with a boarding axe. Near the rail, two of my crew dragged a Covenant climber back over the side, his scream cut short by the sea.
Another axeman charged me, beard matted with blood, weapon raised high. Moonlight flashed along the curve of the blade. Iducked under the swing, felt the wind of it brush my hair, and drove my stiletto up beneath his ribs.
His breath left him in a wet gasp.
They came in waves—shields slamming together, spears stabbing from behind the line. A round shield smashed into my side, hard enough to crack something. White pain flared. I staggered.
I grinned through blood in my teeth, caught the rim of the shield, and wrenched it aside. My cutlass punched through the man’s throat. He fell at my feet, gurgling.
Somewhere behind me, Nerina shouted through the chaos.
