Page 46 of The Isles of the Gods
“Do it,” she says quietly.
As she walks toward the gangplank, her sailors lift their weapons.
BANG!
Abri falls.
BANG!
Conor slumps over his brother’s body.
The girl runs back along the gangplank, light as a cat, and her crew carries barrels of oil over to soak the deck.
They retreat, and I stare as burning torches come arcing through the air to land around us, the oil igniting with a softwoof.
A cannonball hits theLizabetta’s hull, and another—thewood splinters and the ship lurches as she burns, the flames leaping up the mast to catch the canvas sails. My home is alight.
She’s already listing toward the steamer, and I brace myself against theLittle Lizabettato stop myself from sliding across the deck, holding tight to Leander, who’s barely conscious, his exhaustion overtaking him now.
They don’t stay to watch us burn—the steamer is already turning away toward the southwest, to begin the long haul home to Mellacea.
I can’t wait much longer to risk it—I fumble with the ties lashing the shore boat to the deck, then realize I’m never going to need them again, so I pull the knife from my belt and slice through them instead. A sailor never cuts a rope—that lesson’s always been drummed into me. Not unless it’s life or death.
Almost immediately theLittle Lizabettastarts to slide to starboard, downhill to where the edge of the deck is very nearly meeting the water. I grab at Leander, hauling him with me as I scramble after her in my own barely controlled slide.
The railing is broken and splintered, and I kick at it with one foot until it gives. Then I grab the gunwale of the shore boat, and with some last store of strength I didn’t know I had left, I flip her right way up as I shove her through the gap in the railing and down into the water.
Keeping low, keeping tight hold of the prince, I jump into the water. And there I hide, one arm slung over the gunwale of theLittle Lizabettato keep us afloat, one arm around the semiconscious boy beside me. The shore boat’s bigger than the rest of the debris in the water, but there’s plenty of it, and if nobodylooks closely, we’ll be able to hide among it as theLizabettagoes down.
For a moment I think I see a figure on the steamer looking back at us—a single person, outlined by the sunset. But if they’re there at all, they don’t see us.
The sun continues her journey toward the horizon, slowly bathing the water around me as golden as the flames above us, as everything I’ve ever loved is turned to ash.
PART TWO
THE CITY OF INVENTION
KEEGAN
TheLittle Lizabetta
The Crescent Sea
I’m treading water with my eyes closed, trying to keep my back to the waves. I’ve discovered if I don’t, each new one smacks me in the face, forcing salt water down my throat and up my nose.
“That way,” calls the prince’s voice suddenly, coming out of nowhere, rough with exhaustion.
My eyes snap open, and I nearly go under as I flail, twisting around to try and catch sight of him.
“I don’t see anything,” Selly’s voice says, as I blink my salt-stung eyes to bring a small boat into focus. “Wait—I do, yes! Sit, before you fall overboard, you idiot.”
The tiny ember of hope that lived inside me flickers, growing to a small but steady flame.
After I hit the water, it seemed as though it warmed around me, as though the current tugged me along after theLizabetta.I truly couldn’t decide whether it was wishful thinking or a signthat Alinor’s most powerful magician was still alive aboard the ship, pulling off an outrageous feat of magic to keep me alivetoo.
The rowboat that was lashed to theLizabetta’s deck is closing in on me, and Selly pulls the oars in as I give a few tired kicks to bring myself alongside. “Get over on the other side to counterweight him,” she says, presumably to the prince, and in a tone he’s surely unaccustomed to. The boat rocks, though I can’t see him when he obeys.
I reach up to grab the little boat’s edge, then Selly takes hold of my shirt and heaves, and I pull, give a kick, and somehow slither up and in, landing on the floor in a soaking pile and coughing up a lungful of seawater.
