Page 120 of Seaborn and the Seven Seas

Calroy banked wide, giving us height enough to see the battlefield.

The shoreline was in chaos.

Winged soldiers fought in the air and on the ground—clashing steel overhead, the crack of wings against the wind, arrows cutting upward from below from the Seelie queen’s soldiers. Those who flew made harder targets but not impossible ones.

One dropped as I watched, a shaft through the wing, spinning sideways before hitting the wet sand. Another folded midair and fell without a sound.

Calroy’s arm tightened around me. His jaw clenched. The energy coming off him crackled and I felt it to my bones.

I looked out toward the water as Calroy veered right, finding a safe place to land.

Ranis’s ships had come, twenty of them, broad-hulled and flying Varen blue, positioned off the coast with cannons already firing. The boom of them rolled across the shore, the sound arriving after the flash, smoke rising from the decks.

The queen’s ships outnumbering Ranis’s by double, returned fire and some of them were damaged, taking on water at the bow as few burned.

Ranis stood at the prow of the lead ship, unmistakable even from this height. He wore a long coat with gold buttons, his dark curly hair pushed back from his face, his posture different from the boy who’d left us not too long ago. He stood like someone who had remembered who he was.

Good, I thought. He found his footing.

I thought of the boy who held Jina on Theron’s ship so she wouldn’t fall, who had slept on a barn floor to keep two women safe, who had poured ale into our cups and toasted a name I’d only just chosen. That boy had always been courageous and honorable. He’d just needed a reminder.

The queen stood between the shoreline and the line of trees behind her, protected by the ring of soldiers. She raised her arms toward the shore, and from her fingertips poured some dark colored energy, crackling, moving like lightning made of shadow. It struck a winged soldier thirty feet in the air and he dropped like a stone. She struck another and he spun sideways, his wing folding wrong, and hit the sand.

More winged soldiers crashed, some dragging themselves up, some not moving at all. Blood darkened the waterline, spreading where the waves pulled back and the tide pushed in.

Nam stood in the middle of the queen’s circle, Sohee behind her, and several of the girls from the cavern, all of them standing in front of three large blocks of onyx stones as tall as houses mounted on wagons.

Nam’s eyes swept the sky. Found mine. Just for a moment. Then her chin lifted slightly, and she looked away, and I understood exactly what that meant. Don’t do anything foolish on my account.

Too late for that. Nam, who had survived decades in that cavern with her spine straight and her dignity intact, the sight of her used as bait sent fury through my chest.

Calroy brought us down about a hundred feet from the queen, landing hard and fast, his wings snapping back the moment our feet hit the sand. The onyx barrier hit us immediately. Calroy’s jaw tightened. I still didn’t have my power back, but I felt the pressure building against my chest, like claws reaching in to steal my breath.

Around us the battle continued, the clash of swords, the blast from the cannon resonating, but no soldiers came for us. The queen hadn’t seen us yet.

Rowhan landed beside us, Palto a step behind, my friends coming up fast from the tree line where Oscan and the other spirits had delivered them.

“We have to get through that barrier,” Calroy said through his teeth.

“We can’t.” Rowhan winced from the pressure. “The onyx feeds off whatever we push against it. The harder we press, the stronger it gets.”

Minha scanned the queen’s position, jaw tight, dagger at the ready, calculating. “There has to be a gap. A weak point somewhere.”

“There isn’t.” Rowhan said. “I’ve already felt for it. The onyx runs the full perimeter.”

“So we just stand here and watch?” Fraya arched an eyebrow.

“We have to get her to release it.” Palto rubbed his temple, groaning. “But know that the barrier won’t hold forever. Power like this has a cost. Even for her.”

Jina’s eyes were fixed on the circle of prisoners—Nam in the center—and her lips moved as she pointed from the shore. “Soldiers are coming.”

Minha ran to me, her shell dagger drawn, and another dagger in the other hand. Fraya rushed beside her, sword out, scanning the battlefield. Jina went last, but she had changed—shoulders back, chin up, the hesitation was simply gone.

The battle swallowed them.

I almost went after them, every instinct pulling me toward the fight, but I couldn’t leave Nam and the others in the queen’s hands.

Palto directed Oscan and the other spirits toward the battlefield. They couldn’t strike, but they didn’t need to.