Stormbreak (Seafire #3) - Natalie C. Parker Page 0,41

Gloriana’s aft deck.

“Warm enough,” Gloriana answered with a shrug. “No one was hurt, and we found the crew we were searching for. Seems like a good day. Or, good enough. We saw what happened to Cloudbreak.”

“I’m glad to see you safe.” Reluctantly, Caledonia started a new fleet tally in her mind. She’d had fifty-four, but as of right now, she had two. “Did you find any others?”

Gloriana gave a regretful shake of her head. “Just us, I’m afraid. We were on our way back in to report when we came upon twenty of Lir’s fleet holding position south of Cloudbreak. We had to sail east to avoid them, and by the time we were making our approach, well, we could see the smoke from miles away.”

Twenty ships.

“They were waiting to pick off the survivors.” The bombs had only been part of the plan.

“How’d you find us?” Pine loomed close, stance rigid. “How’d you get past Lir’s fleet if you were out east?”

Gloriana shifted her eyes to Pine. “That’s the interesting part—we didn’t have to avoid them. Almost as soon as we’d spotted them, they sailed south, straight out of our path. All we had to do was wait them out. Probably helped that we looked like one of them.”

That was enough to rekindle a small flame of hope in Caledonia. If the larger Bullet fleet had moved off so soon, maybe more of her people had made it out of Cloudbreak; maybe they’d survived. And if they’d survived, they would find their way to the rendezvous.

“What happened to the Arrow Sweet?” Caledonia asked.

“We ran into trouble in the southern seas,” Gloriana said with a shrug. “Had to make do with what we could hunt.”

“But why pull his ships away?” Pisces asked, still chewing on Gloriana’s report. “He had us. Why sail before finishing the job?”

“To respond to a bigger threat?” Caledonia said, though she couldn’t fathom what that might be.

“It’s what we were returning to report when we encountered the fleet.” Gloriana gave a tight smile, then tipped her head forward. “Fivesons Venn and Decker are dead as rumored, but turns out Tassos is alive and well, and he still controls the Net.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

For the remainder of the short trip to the Bone Mouth, Caledonia settled into a strange kind of peace. Knowing that Tassos had survived Lir’s assassination attempt meant little to her on the surface. She didn’t know Tassos, but she did know that in failing to kill him, Lir had created another enemy. One who was situated between Lir and Caledonia.

It was a strange kind of comfort, but for the moment, it was all she had.

The Bone Mouth came into view at dusk. The archipelago didn’t surge out of the water so much as it appeared to be slowly melting into it. The islands crumbled toward the horizon, making smaller and smaller splotches against the dimming sky, and to Caledonia and Pisces, they looked a little like home.

The two girls stood together, their arms linked and their eyes reaching for the islands that had sheltered and fed them while they rebuilt the Mors Navis five turns ago. It had been more than a ten-moon since they’d sailed into these warm waters. The last time they’d been close, it was to say farewell to Lace and leave Oran in the shallows, where the sea would decide his fate. Instead, Oran had recognized the family sigil tattooed against Caledonia’s temple, a blunted arrowhead half-filled with black ink, and set them on a course that carried them far from these cradling islands and into cold northern waters in pursuit of Donnally and Ares. They hadn’t set foot on the Gem since.

When they’d settled on this place as their meeting point, neither of them had expected to need it. At least, not so soon. And not like this. On the run because they’d been stymied before they’d ever really begun.

With Gloriana sailing just a few lengths behind, the Luminous Wake slowed to quarter speed and approached the islands on a course that would mark them as friendly to any members of the fleet that had beat them here. This had been Oran’s suggestion, and was perhaps the only time Pine had agreed with him without fighting about it first.

The course took them through a treacherous channel between two islands. Steep walls gave the appearance of deep waters when that was only partly true. Rocks tall enough to gouge the hull of a ship littered the sea floor, while swift waters made