Page 77 of Suffer No Fools
"If you don't return, we'll execute your crews and consider Glamiere just as much our enemy as General Coryn." Hugo leaned heavily against the table. "This kidnapping was an act of war. We need to stop Coryn. I thought Sovereign Oton agreed."
"I'll deliver the message," the woman said. "I'm so sorry. I never agreed to this plot, and you have to believe me, our sovereign didn't know."
Hugo nodded. "I hope for all our sakes that's true. When will you be ready to sail?" He asked Efren.
"Within the hour."
"Will you need my guards?"
"No." Efren smirked at Stan, and then at Tovey. "Four air weavers is more than enough to get us there and back within a day. The only delay will be if the sovereign makes us wait."
"Elder Beatrice?"
"Your Majesty?" She stood, and everyone else at the table followed her lead, sensing the meeting's end.
"Please take the rest to the dungeon."
There was no actual dungeon on Aquarion, but there were many twisting caves beneath the sentinel tree that could be hollowed out by their earth weavers to create cells. Beatriceled the way,Wildfire'screw managed the prisoners, and Stan followed behind them.
Tovey stayed with Hugo.
"The bird didn't need to confess," Hannah said, coming up to pet her head again.
"She's going with you," Hugo said. "She's agreed to stay close to the first mate. She'll even go with you to see the sovereign. Will you accompany her?"
"Aye!" Hannah's gaze filled with glee. "Thank you. I've always wanted to meet our sovereign."
"From what you know of them, do you think they want any part of this plot?"
Hannah shrugged. "They've let all manner of weavers flee Embertide for sanctuary on their shores. I have a hard time believing they would do this, all for a trade agreement. Surely, they know Coryn's a threat to weavers of all nationalities."
Hugo nodded. "We can hope."
Tovey added his own hope to Hugo's. If Glamiere refused to help, he worried Coryn had become too large a problem for Embertide to handle alone.
Chapter 12
Hugo
Hugo spent the afternoon at the top of the sentinel oak. He sat on the railing with his feet dangling. He was in such a foul mood, he wanted someone to push him off the ledge. They'd discover he could fly about the same time they found a fireball in their gut.
Stan had taken one look at him hovering precariously on the ledge and went home. Tovey didn't mind the height, though he insisted he couldn't fly the way Hugo could. "I can't balance with earth the way you do," he said. "I can fall like a feather, and I can hover, but I'm no bird."
Hugo wasn't a bird, but he was grateful for the ability to communicate with Breezy, the parrot. He couldn't communicate with speechless birds, but she had a knack for language and repeated words back to him through their link, a link he had forged without thinking about it. He'd always wanted his own pet, he supposed, though he wasn't ready to claim Breezy as his own. Hannah loved her already, and he wouldn't stand in their way if they wanted to claim the bird as their own, or at least as a ship's bird forStarlight Specter.
Stan didn't like birds, and he didn't like heights. Hugo had already asked so much of the earth weaver. Could he take him away from his ship and the sea when the war was over?Hugo wanted nothing more than to live in his palace with both Stan and Tovey by his side.
The Glamierians had accused him of being selfish for desiring his guards and refusing any marriage pact between their countries. Well, the Glamierian captain had said that. He had yet to hear what their sovereign would say.
Thankfully, he didn't have long to wait. Captain Efren, Hannah, and Olivia would accompany the Glamierian captain to the country estate outside Luminest, near where Jermain had established his shipbuilding workshop. They would check on Jermain's progress and meet with the sovereign. They would kill two birds with one stone, though Hugo hoped no one killed Breezy. She was his spy at both meetings from her perch on Hannah's shoulder.
The wait was long and the conversation tedious, but Hugo finally had his answer hours after sunset. He hadn't felt the temperature drop, but someone had draped a blanket over his shoulders and had left a fleece-lined jacket for him on the railing.
He exchanged the blanket for the jacket, and a new idea formed in his head. He could use the blanket as a glider to take him home. He gripped it tightly in both hands, noticing his fingers hurt from the cold. It was probably foolhardy, but he gave his fingers a pep talk and embraced the pain as he lofted himself into the air outside the tower.
He hadn't expected the down force of the crosswind, and he almost crashed into a tree. He buoyed himself with a gust of his own air and heard the telltale sound of a rip in the blanket. It wasn't a sail, after all. It wasn't meant to hold him aloft like this.
It wasn't a large tear, but it was enough for Hugo to pull the blanket back and wrap it around his body while he balanced above the earth, the same way he'd balanced himself above the water by instinct when he'd escaped from the ship. The onlyelement missing was the warmth of his fire, but he liked these clothes and the blanket. He dropped to the ground outside the pool in a tremendous splash of sand. He would work on landings later. Now, he needed to see Stan and Tovey, to share with them what he'd learned.
