Page 1 of Return of the Vengeful Quee

One

DAWN BROKE IN shreds of crimson gold, spilling across the dark expanse of the Draiel Sea like liquid fire as Charis Willowthorn, exiled princess of Calera, readjusted her compass and drew an invisible line across the ship’s map with her finger.

The upper corner of the map was anchored in place by the captain’s log, the leather volume opened to a page of fresh notations in Orayn’s looping scrawl. To Charis’s left sat the tide chart, its edges smudged from use by the smugglers who’d once owned this vessel. She double-checked the chart, her throat tightening.

They’d make port in Solvang today.

Three weeks on the open seas, constantly scanning the waters for signs of pursuit by the monstrous Rakuuna who’d invaded Calera. Three weeks of sleepless nights and endless scheming to find a way to kill the enemy and rescue her people—and it all came down to this.

Somehow she had to convince the rulers of Solvang to stand with her against powerful creatures who moved faster than humans, could sink a ship with the brute strength of their hands, and whose reach was so long, swords were all but useless against them. Worry squirmed in her belly.

No ruler in their right mind would join her cause.

The blue lines of the map wavered before her, and she rubbed at the gritty exhaustion in her eyes. This was no time to lose focus.

“Good morning, Your Highness.”

Charis jumped, sending the tide chart fluttering to the floor, and whirled to find Orayn in the doorway of the tiny room.

“I apologize for startling you.” The big man ducked his shiny brown head beneath the doorjamb as he stepped inside and bent to retrieve the chart. He looked closely at her as he set it on the navigation table.

“Is something amiss?” Orayn’s deep voice reminded Charis of King Edias’s, and for an instant, she was back in Father’s sun-warmed quarters, her head resting against him as he told her everything would be all right. A lance of pain pierced her heart, and she abruptly set the compass on the table and turned for the door.

“All is well,” she said in a voice so hollow, she barely recognized it as her own.

“It’s a fine day for a coronation. Everyone on board is looking forward to it.” He bowed as she backed out of the little room, her heart knocking against her chest like a frantic bird in a cage.

Before the Rakuuna invasion, back when Charis was leading a secret group of loyalists to search the sea for the unseen enemy who was sinking Calera’s ships, everyone aboard their boat had worn masks so that she could protect her identity from all but the few she trusted.

The memory of including her former bodyguard Tal on that list was a constant ache—a wound she didn’t know how to close.

There was no point hiding her identity now. Still, revealing her true self and claiming her mother’s title were very different things.

Charis hadn’t wanted a coronation, but Holland, as next in line to the throne, had insisted. He’d argued that their people needed a queen, and that entering Solvang as Calera’s sovereign ruler gave Charis far more leverage than entering as an exiled princess.

He’d been right, but Charis had fought him on it until the very last moment.

It was taking everything she had to move forward, to shove aside the grief when she thought of Mother, fierce and indominable, falling to the ballroom floor beneath an onslaught of Rakuuna. And of Father, crumpled and lifeless in his bedroom. She was breathing by sheer force of will. Standing because she refused to let her knees give out.

How could she possibly do all that if she had to participate in a coronation?

Accepting the crown, the title, was real. It was final.

Charis couldn’t bear for this ruin to be final.

Turning away from the navigation room, she climbed past the cannons resting in their metal rings along the edges of the ship. Past the hammocks hastily strung between the masts for the people who hadn’t fit in the ship’s eight cabins. A few children still slept, clinging to their mothers’ arms, their dirty faces streaked with the remnants of tears.

Charis’s own cheeks were dry. Everything soft within her had been burned to ash when she’d found her father’s lifeless body and then learned that the boy she loved—the boy she’d trusted—was the son of her enemy, sent to spy on her.

A chilly breeze danced along the water and swept over the deck, prying at Charis’s cloak. She tugged the garment close, stepped past the last of the hammocks, and then stopped.

Grim, the palace groom who’d been Tal’s contact with Montevallo, and Dec, a sailor who’d turned out to be another Montevallian sent to look after their spy of a prince, were huddled in conversation at the bow.

Something cold and vicious unfurled in Charis’s chest as she stalked toward them.

“You.” She pointed at Grim. “You should be down in the brig taking care of the horses.”

He held her gaze, and she ignored the worried grief in his eyes. Let him be terrified as he imagined Tal’s fate at the hands of the Rakuuna who’d kidnapped him. Let it keep him up at night, eating at him until peace was nothing but a distant memory.

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