and a hot bath while we put some distance between us and our enemies?”
“I am hungry, but I still don’t understand what’s going on.” Lacy said.
“I could eat,” Drogan said.
“It’s settled then,” Commander Arnd said. “These men will show you to your quarters.”
“But …” Lacy said.
“Princess,” Drogan said. “Please just let it go for now. We’ll have plenty of time to wonder about the events of this morning after we eat. I would also like the ship’s healer to look at your hand.”
Lacy nodded reluctantly.
***
“There’s another,” shouted a deckhand.
Wyatt and his crew had been fishing men out of the ocean for the better part of an hour. Most were dead, but there were a few survivors. Three of the four ships he’d commandeered were burned and already claimed by the ocean. The other two enemy ships had abruptly stopped fighting and fled once the princess had boarded the Regency ship. Wyatt had the sinking feeling that he’d just made matters worse.
He’d lost most of his company of Rangers, as well as most of Captain Riggs’s sailors. Knight Kinley had reported clear skies, but now he was dead too, along with his wyvern. Wyatt had always been impressed by the capabilities of the Sky Knights, but the dragon that had come out of nowhere had bested Knight Kinley with virtually no effort.
Alexander appeared on the deck of the ship and sighed. “I’m sorry, Captain Wyatt,” he said. “I should have seen this coming.”
“You can’t see everything, Lord Reishi,” Wyatt said. “I just don’t understand where the dragon came from.”
“He was aboard the ship in human form,” Alexander said. “If I had just looked closer, I would have seen it.”
“Captain,” called out a deckhand, “this one’s a woman.”
Alexander flickered out of sight, appearing next to the woman they’d just pulled from the water. She was wounded and unconscious.
“Her name is Tasia and she’s a dragon,” he said, as Wyatt approached.
The deckhand backed away, his colors flaring with fear.
“She won’t hurt you,” Alexander said. “Do everything in your power to care for her. I’ll let Bragador know.”
“But she just burned my flotilla,” Captain Riggs said, his face smeared with soot and grime.
“No, she didn’t,” Alexander said. “She’s the silver dragon who stopped the green dragon from finishing you off.”
Riggs frowned skeptically. “I didn’t see that happen, what with so much going on at the time, but I did wonder where that fiery beast went all of a sudden.”
“I saw her, Captain,” a deckhand said, “bright and silver, shining in the sun she was, just before she crashed into that terrible green dragon and drove it under the waves. They was both gone after that.”
“Care for her,” Alexander said.
“What about the princess?” Wyatt asked.
“Follow at a safe distance,” Alexander said. “I’ll scout the enemy ships and determine if you have any chance against them.”
“Where are they headed?” Captain Riggs asked.
“Karth.”
Chapter 24
Isabel stopped pacing and listened. She thought she heard the sounds of battle, muffled by stone and distance. Then she heard footsteps coming toward her cell door. As the footsteps grew near, the secret passage opened behind her.
Ayela peered through from the shadows.
“We have to go, right now,” she said, motioning for Isabel to hurry.
She hoisted her pack and headed for the passage without a word. Though they’d removed all of her weapons, she’d been permitted to keep the rest of her belongings and she was glad for that. Simple things like a bedroll and a cloak might make all the difference on the run in the jungle.
She slipped into the passage, and Ayela quickly closed the hidden panel just before the soldiers reached the cell door. Isabel and Ayela froze, barely daring to breathe when Trajan and one of the Sin’Rath entered—he had a sword in hand and she was sniffing about suspiciously.
“I don’t understand, where could she have gone?” Trajan asked.
The witch began casting a spell. Isabel drank the potion Ayela had given her, the one that would nullify the effects of the malaise weed she’d been forced to consume every day since Trajan had captured her.
The witch released her spell, a cloud of darkness forming before her, then taking the shape of a disembodied dog’s head, it began sniffing around the edge of the room.
“Your sister has betrayed you,” the witch said in a raspy voice. “But we will find her.”
Isabel motioned for Ayela to lead the way down the hidden passage. It was narrow, only four feet wide and barely six feet tall. Roots hung from the ceiling at uneven