“Can’t stay out of range if they want to take the island.” James muttered, going back to where Ahnna stood as he considered how he’d attack if he were in command. Sea battles weren’t his expertise, given most of his time had been spent in the Lowlands, but he knew enough to say with certainty that taking this island quickly would cost a lot of lives.
Ahnna was sitting at the edge of the cliff, bare legs hanging off while she chewed on the jerky. James sat next to her, ignoring the lurch of vertigo inspired by the long drop below.
“The one we hit with shipbreakers sank.”
He handed her the waterskin.
Ahnna drank, then wiped her mouth on the back of her arm. “When darkness comes, we’ll sneak out small vessels with good crews to use explosives to sink the ships.”
“Those on the ships will be watching for them.” He drank some water. “We know too many of your tricks.”
“We?”
James didn’t answer, his eyes on the banners flapping in the riggings of the ships, distance and fading light making it impossible to see them clearly, but every time he blinked, he could see it in his mind’s eye. Harendell’s colors, which he had fought beneath all his life.
They sat in silence, the sun turning the sea red as blood. Shadows stretched long, and the humid air clung to him like a second skin, the churning water below seeming alluringly cool.
Ahnna’s hand found his. She didn’t look at him, just laced their fingers together and stared hard at the horizon. “Will you be able to do it?” she asked quietly. “Fight them?”
His countrymen. His comrades in arms.
James considered lying. Saying yes without hesitation. But that wasn’t what she needed from him. And she’d see through it anyway.
“I’ll fight.” The words stuck in his throat, and he coughed to clear it. “But it will be one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to do. The men on those ships are fighting for false justice. Fighting because they were ordered to, and to throw down their arms is treason. Fighting because it’s how they earn the wage that pays for their families to live back home. I wish there was a way to spare them as much as I wish there was a way to spare us.”
Her hand tightened in his, and this time, Ahnna looked at him. “They brought the fight to us.”
“You know that’s not how they see it.” He watched the sun slip below the horizon. “People died on Ithicanian blades in Verwyrd, all down the river, and again in Elmsworth. It will make the task of manipulating them to support the cause easier.” James couldn’t keep the bitterness from his voice. “It doesn’t help that they’ll see this as an easy victory.”
“It won’t be.” As the last rays of the sun faded, leaving the sea black as ink, all the lights on the distant ships began to wink out. Ahnna swore softly, shaking her head in frustration, and then said, “You’re right about them knowing too many of our methods. We can’t findthem on the open sea with no light, and if we can’t find them, we can’t sink them.”
James wrapped an arm around her, disliking how, in the absence of the sun, it seemed their legs hung into a void.
“Don’t suggest trying to escape.” She rested her cheek against his shoulder. “Anywhere we go, they’ll follow. Not just you and me, but Aren and Lara. We can flee south from island to island, but unless we abandon Ithicana entirely, at some point we have to make a stand. Everyone on this island knows it, and those who don’t wish to fight to the end will be gone by morning.”
“I think they’ll be here when the sun rises and the horns call to battle,” James replied. “As will I.”
His wife let out a shuddering breath.
“I’ve made my choice, and that choice is you. Blade, body, and soul, I am yours, Ahnna.” He swallowed hard. “To not fight tomorrow would be the same as bending the knee to my enemies, and I refuse to do that.”
“Can we win?”
James shook his head. “No, but we can spill their blood across the history books.”
A north wind blew against them, carrying with it a chill, and Ahnna shivered.
“Let’s go inside. They won’t do anything until the rest of the fleet arrives, and we’ll fight harder with rest.”
James helped her to her feet, his arm slipping around her waist to support her weight. She didn’t protest this time. The limp had worsened, and even her stubbornness had limits.
Back at the barracks, most of the soldiers had disappeared into rooms or bedrolls, the low murmur of voices dimming to an exhausted quiet. Lara sat at the table, and she silently gestured to one of the doors. Inside was a single cot, a rough blanket folded at the end. Bare stone walls. No window. Just the steady drip of water somewhere in the distance and the muffled thrum of insects in the dark.
James sat on the cot and began removing his boots. Ahnna stripped off the remains of the execution dress and pulled on the shirt and trousers she’d been given earlier, though the latter fit too loosely around her waist, barely clinging to her hips. She rinsed her hair using a small amount of water, fighting with the tangles until he took it from her. Carefully, he unraveled the knots and tangles until it hung in a curtain of loose curls down her back, gleaming in the lamplight.
Reaching, he turned down the lamp until it winked out. “Sleep.”
“I don’t want to. I don’t want to waste what might be our last moments.”
