Page 75 of Rise of the Vicious Princess

He grasped her shoulders gently and turned her to face the sea. “What are those lights?”

On the edge of the horizon, just past the mouth of the bay, a trio of ghostly green lights bobbed gently on the water.

Charis frowned. “I’ve never seen that color before, but . . . do you see that? Just past the middle light. Is that a shadow or . . .”

“A mast,” Tal said grimly. “Those are ships.”

Twenty-Eight

“CAPTAIN, WE GO out with a quiet boat right from the start. Agreed?”

“Agreed. Give the orders.”

It had been just over two hours since she and Tal had seen the green lights and the vague, smudged shadow of a ship at the mouth of the bay. They’d sprinted back to the palace, climbed the thesserin tree, and scrambled to change into their sailing clothes and grab their weapons as fast as possible. Then they’d snuck back down the thesserin tree. On their usual seafaring nights, Charis entered a fake social engagement in the guards’ schedule book but declined their escort. There was no time to make up a story tonight. Not if they wanted to catch the ships they’d seen.

They were running with a skeleton crew. Just Orayn and the few deckhands that he’d roused from the boardinghouse where he lived. If they got into battle, they were going to be easy prey, but Charis was betting they wouldn’t be attacked. They looked like smugglers traveling at the time that smugglers traveled. For extra insurance, they were going to take a known smugglers’ route to a small port about seventy furlongs away.

Orayn gave the order to be quiet and then they sailed out of the harbor and into the open sea. Charis turned in a slow circle, her eyes scraping the horizon. There was no sign of the green-lit ships. Orayn looked to her for permission to begin the smugglers’ route, and Charis nodded.

It made the most sense for the ships to have gone north. That’s where all the attacks but one had happened. She was banking on probabilities and praying she was right.

Tal stood at the railing beside her, his hand brushing against hers as they both hung on to the balustrade. They said nothing, but every now and then he bumped his shoulder against hers or pressed his arm close, and she smiled.

They’d traveled forty-six furlongs when Tal said softly, “Maybe they didn’t go this way.”

“Maybe, but if we—”

A haunting cry rose from somewhere just beyond the ship. It sounded like a woman singing, screaming, and laughing all at once. The noise rose, so high-pitched that Charis’s teeth ached, and she lifted her hands to cover her ears.

“What is—”

The noise reached its crescendo and then dropped swiftly into a series of rapid clicks, like a handful of brittle twigs rattling together. From the water to their left, something clicked in response. Then another. And another.

“All hands on deck!” Orayn roared. “Tack those sails! Grab the lines! We are hard to port in thirty seconds!”

Charis ran for the helm as activity exploded around her. Sailors grabbed ropes, tacking to port and securing the lines around the metal handles embedded in the deck.

“What is that?” she asked breathlessly as she reached Orayn, who was straining to haul the ship hard to port.

“Don’t know, Your High—Captain, but I’m not taking any chances. They’re talking to each other, and we look to be the only topic of conversation available.” The helm fought him, and she grabbed it with him to hold it steady.

“You’ve never heard those creatures before?”

“Never.” Orayn completed the turn and set a course back to Calera. Behind them, another cry shivered through the air, followed by a series of rattling clicks.

“What do you see from the crow’s nest?” Orayn hollered to the whip-thin boy around Charis’s age whose job it was to climb the rigging and keep watch from the tiny wooden deck near the top of the main mast.

“Nothing, sir!”

“Considering how dark it is tonight, that’s not very reassuring,” Charis said as another haunting cry rose and fell, chasing a shiver down her spine.

The rapid clicking filled the air, swelling from behind them until it flanked the ship.

“They’re on either side of us.” Tal loped up the steps to the helm. “We need a battle strategy.”

“Strategy against what?” Orayn said, his massive hands wrapped firmly around the ship’s wheel. “We don’t know what’s out there.”

“You’ve had years on the water, Orayn.” Charis kept her voice calm, though her stomach was queasy and her knees felt weak. “Think. What could this be?”

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