Page 88 of Her Cruel Redemption

‘I’d have you consider what his motive for being here is. What he wants.’ I wasn’t looking at Esario anymore. I was staring at one of the wooden beams supporting the tent, mind ticking over. Draven was in Port Howl, the city that had imprisoned him. What if it had nothing to do with Port Howl being a strategic location? Was it about dismantling the research program? Freeing the fall spawn trapped there? But he’d surely already achieved that now. What was keeping him here? ‘If he’s here for revenge, then there’s no negotiating with him. He wants to fight. There’s nothing you can offer to avoid one.’

‘Nothing?’ Dovegni sneered, giving me a slimy, unpleasant look. ‘I’m not convinced that’s true.’

‘We aren’t negotiating with him,’ Gwin cut in before I could reply with the venom I wanted to spew. ‘We’ll offer him nothing. Andno one.’ At this, she shot Dovegni a pointed look. ‘We lost too many lives yesterday for that.’

‘If his reason for being here is personal, then I’m not convinced his forces will continue to support holding the city. Not if their means for returning home is threatened,’ I said, an idea spawning, churning, feeding on that shadowy half-conversation in the trees, when I’d suggested his forces were divided.

‘What do you mean? Threatened how?’ Gwin asked.

‘They’re deep in enemy territory. They have no reinforcements that can reach them quickly and no territory to retreat into. Their only way out of Port Howl is floating in that harbor.’

Esario stroked his chin as he considered me. ‘You suggest we attack their ships.’

‘And attack the gate at the same time. If it looks like they’re about to lose their only way home, their forces will be forced to split between defending the gate and the harbor. If we made a big enough problem on the water, I’d be willing to bet a number might even abandon orders to defend those ships.’ And if Draven did anything other than let them, he might lose his tenuous hold on his army.

‘It doesn’t solve the problem of the wall,’ Dovegni drawled. ‘Even with fewer soldiers, Port Howl’s gate will never fall. There’s too much magic embedded in its foundations.’

No, it didn’t. But I had an idea that was a damn sight better than infiltration using smuggler’s tunnels. Though, I wasn’t ready to voice it yet. Not until I’d spoken to Gwinellyn. ‘We’ll need some sort of stealth operation as well, but setting fire to those ships will give any strategy a higher likelihood of succeeding.’

Dovegni sneered, his lip curling. ‘Oh, so neatly wrapped up. You’ve thought of everything, haven’t you? And I suppose you’ll want to be involved somehow? It’s a pity that any strategy including you has an inherent likelihood of failure, since you’ll start throwing magic about like you’re the only one on the field and rendering any plan null and void.’

‘We were losing!’ I snarled. ‘Soldiers were turning tail and running into the night. At least I preserved some of our dignity.’

‘And what price did we pay? The entire region gripped by wild lightning storms and soldiers more scared of a woman within their own ranks than the enemy,’ he spat.

‘I’m surprised you know that, Dovegni. I didn’t seeyoudown—’

‘Enough!’ Esario boomed, his robust voice filling the tent and effectively silencing us. ‘We have enough enemies to fight outside of this tent! We will not begin to fight each other as well.’

‘But, Your Majesty,’ Dovegni simpered, all oozing deference, the violence gone from his attitude. ‘This woman is a danger—’

‘Exactly,’ Esario cut in again. ‘She is a danger that we’d be fools not to wield. And if our aim is to attack a fleet of ships, then a lightning storm would work in our favour.’

‘It won’t matter if the forces are split if Soveraux looms over that gate and wields the men’s own fear against them again. The number of defenders at the gate wouldn’t have made a difference when our entire front line turned and ran for their lives.’

‘But he won’t be at the gate. He’ll be at the docks,’ I said bluntly.

‘So you’re a seer now too, are you?’ Dovegni scoffed. ‘Why would he be at the docks?’

‘He’ll be there—,’ Gwin interrupted, her voice quiet but firm, her gaze fixed squarely on me, ‘—because that’s where Rhiandra will be.’

Chapter Forty-Two

The sight of the wounded laid out in rows weighed heavily on me. Every time I stepped through the entrance of the medical tent, I had to pause and catch my breath.

I had thought fighting for my crown would be righteous, that my drive to end the blood trade would make the suffering worth it. But when I was confronted with the bandages and burns and the tossing bodies of the wounded, it was hard to remember that.

It was worse because I hadn’t been down there with them. I’d stood far above the battlefield and watched as the injured and dying were carried back to camp, watched flaming arrows fly, watched men doused in oil and set alight. Some of them were refugees from Brimordia, men who had lined up to fight alongside the Oceatold army because I had asked it of them.

And then I’d watched lightning tear through the sky, spearing down into fighters below without prejudice. I’d watched the storm gather and spin, watched the echoing flashes spread all the way to the horizon.

That was the moment I truly questioned whether coming to Oceatold had been a mistake.

‘There you are.’

I was drawn back out of my grave reflections by the sound of Elias’s voice, and I turned to find him approaching with a smile creasing amber eyes that were shadowed with exhaustion. He had a cloth slung over his shoulder and was carrying a basin under one arm, and the scent of crushed herbs and something faintly metallic clung to him as he came to stand beside me.

‘I’ve been worried about you,’ he said. His voice was lighter than the weight pressing on my chest, but there was something careful about it. Like he knew I was standing at the edge of something dangerous.

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