the cables and down into the tidal pool below with a splash.
The Dweymeri sailor bellowed in triumph. The Liisian man in the water surfaced in a panic, swimming toward the edge. Mia saw Valdyr move for the first time, rising up from his throne and stepping to the balcony’s edge so he could better see. And beneath the water, Mia’s belly churned as she saw the motion of a long, dark shadow.
The Liisian had made the pool’s edge, but the water was low, the walls too high for him to reach the lip. He lunged upward, and Mia caught a glimpse of his face—blanched and terrified. His fingers scrabbled at the stone as the crowd stomped their feet. And as Mia watched, a long tentacle, hooked and black and glistening, rose up from the water, wrapped itself around the man’s throat, and dragged him under.
Black Mother, it’s a leviathan.*
Thrashing sounds. Garbled cries. The water flushed red as the crowd howled. Up on the balcony, Valdyr clapped, throwing back his head and laughing. The faces on his coat reminded Mia of those faces beneath Godsgrave, screaming all in time. She saw his eyes were alight, that his teeth had been filed back to points.
Aye, all right. I could believe a jackal birthed this bastard.
“The Daughters have spoken!” he roared.
Quiet dropped upon the room like a hammer, and every man and woman in it fell utterly still. Valdyr stood with arms spread wide, his voice deep and booming.
“My Lady Indomitable, be you satisfied?”
A woman in her early thirties stepped forward on the second level. She had blond hair drawn back in a braid, no kohl around her eyes, no paint on her lips.
“Indomitable is satisfied, my king,” she bowed, smiling.
“My Lord Red Liberty, be you satisfied?” Valdyr demanded.
A bearded Itreyan with a vicious scar and a red greatcoat with brass buttons bowed low, his face as sour as if he’d eaten a bowl of fresh dogshit.
“Red Liberty is satisfied,” he said. “My king.”
“Well, that is a fucking relief,” Valdyr said, returning to his throne. The man propped his boots up on the slaveboy again, leaned back, and stroked his plaited beard. “Now, who else brings quarrel? Or can I return to my wine?”
“Majesty!” A snaggletoothed Liisian with thinning red hair and a poisonous-looking cat curled around his shoulder stepped forward with a bow. He had a noose tied about his neck like a cravat, just like the lads Mia and Ash had thrashed yestereve.
“My Lord Hangman,” Valdyr replied without looking at him. “Speak.”
“The matter I mentioned earlier, Majesty,” the man said, glancing at Mia with an expression she could only think of as “covetous.” “Your wulfguard have returned.”
“Aye, aye, what news, Sigursson?” Valdyr asked.
“Six in hand, Cap’n,” the man beside Mia called. “Caught them at Maria’s.”
“And the seventh?”
As if on cue, the doors crashed open, and a half-dozen battered and bloodied wulfguard shuffled into the hall, dragging a struggling figure. Mia’s heart surged and she took half a step forward, but Ashlinn placed a hand on her arm to still her.
“Tric…”
He was wrapped in chains, writhing like a serpent. They’d stripped off his black, tattered robe, left him with only his leather britches beneath, the rusted iron links cutting deep into his skin. The wulfguard threw him to the floor and he snarled, his saltlocks writhing across the stone. A faint flush of rage kissed his cheeks, a spatter of blood smudged on his skin.
“Bastard killed Pando, Trim, and Maxinius,” one of the wulfguard declared, his nose smashed to pulp. “Broke Donateo’s legs like they were fucking kindling. I stabbed the fucker three times in the chest and he didn’t fall. Barely even bled.”
“Tric, lie still,” Mia called.
“MIA…”
One of the wulfguard stepped forward and kicked him in the head. “Shut the fuck up, you unholy cocksucker!”
Valdyr looked down on the struggling Dweymeri boy, knife-green eyes narrowed.
“Cap’n?” Sigursson held aloft Mia’s gravebone blade. “May I approach?”
Valdyr grunted assent, kicked a rope ladder over the edge of his balcony. It was then Mia realized the man’s position was unassailable by anyone in the room. The only paths to his perch were a bolted door behind the Scoundrel’s Throne or the ladder he’d just tossed to his first mate. Glancing around the hall, she saw at least fifty men who looked like they’d cut their own children’s throats for a ha’-beggar. She could feel that undercurrent of violence again. Peering into the eyes of the folks around the room as they looked up at their