The Midnight Star (8 page)

“What did I do to end up with a daughter like you?” My father shakes his head. We round the corner and enter the cavernous space of our old family home's kitchen. Here, my father seizes a butcher knife from the counter.
No, don't, please.
“You open your mouth, and out spill lies. Who did you learn that from, hmm, Adelina? Was it from one of our stable boys? Or were you born this way?”

“I'm sorry.” Tears spill down my cheek. “I'm so sorry. I'm not lying. I don't know where Violetta is—”
I know I am not a child trapped in my old home. I am in the Estenzian palace, and I am the queen. I want to return to the festivities. Why can't I wake up?

My father glances down at me. He yanks my arm straight and slams my hand down on the floor. I'm crying so hard
that I nearly choke. He positions the butcher knife over my wrist, then brings it back high over his head. I squeeze my eye shut and wait for the blow.

Please let me wake up now,
I beg.

The whispers chuckle at my plea.
As you wish, Your Majesty.

“Your Majesty?
Adelina.
”

The hand clutching my arm suddenly loosens its grip. I look up to see that it belongs to Magiano. The kitchen is gone, and I am lying on the floor of the palace's hall again. Magiano pulls me to him as I continue to sob—even though his expression is concerned, he seems relieved to finally make eye contact with me. I hug him close and cling tightly. My body trembles against him.

“How do you always manage to find the worst hallway to lie down in?” Magiano says, his teasing only halfhearted. He brings his face down to my ear and murmurs something I can barely understand, over and over, until the whispers in my head fade into the shadows.

“I'm fine,” I finally say, nodding against his shoulder.

He pulls away far enough to give me a skeptical look. “You weren't fine just a few moments ago.”

I take a shuddering breath and wipe my hand across my face. “Why did you come up here, anyway? Did you hear me calling for you? Was it because of what happened outside?”

Magiano blinks. “You were calling for me?” he says, and then shakes his head. His mouth tightens into a thin line. “I'd hoped you would come looking for me.” I search his face, wondering if he is still mocking me, but he seems serious
now. For the first time, I realize that there are Inquisitors behind him. There is an entire patrol with him, looking for me.

All of a sudden, I feel tired to my bones. Magiano sees me sag, and he ropes an arm behind me as I do, lifting me effortlessly. I let him. He mutters something to the Inquisitors, and they start to file out. I close my eye after that, content to let Magiano carry me back to my chambers.

Stock—

2 days' worth black bread

2 days' worth dried meat

6 days' worth water

Waste—

12 days' worth bread, infested

12 days' worth water, unfit to drink

—
From the journal of an unknown soldier during the Battle for Cordonna Isle

I
t is for the best that we set sail for Tamoura the next day, under a brilliant blue sky.

The weeks at sea will force me to concentrate on our new mission, to forget about my loss of control over my illusions in the hallway last night. Magiano doesn't mention it again, either. We go about our business on the ship acting like all is fine; we have strategy meetings with Sergio as if no one remembers my incident. But I know that word of it has spread among my Inquisitors. Now and then, I see them murmuring in the shadows, eyeing me with wariness.

Our queen is going mad,
they must be saying.

Sometimes I can't tell if my madness is what's conjuring these images, twisting my confidence. So I try to ignore them, as always. What does it matter if I'm mad? I have a
hundred ships. Twenty thousand soldiers. My Roses at my side. I am
queen
.

My new flag is silver and white, of course. In its center is a black, stylized symbol of a wolf, surrounded by flames. I am a creature who was meant to die in fire—but I didn't, and I want to be reminded of that every time I look at this image. With each passing day at sea, the silver-white flags seem to stand out more and more against the deep, strange gray of the ocean, like a flock of birds heading toward new nesting grounds. One week blends into the next, and then into a third, with stale winds slowing us down and the Falls of Laetes to maneuver around.

At the end of the third week, I stand on the deck of my ship and look back at the sea of ships behind us. Every single one of them flies my pennants. I smile at the sight. The nightmare within nightmares had visited me again last night, this time shifting so that I would wake over and over in my bed on board my ship. It is a relief that my army distracts me from the memory.

“We are nearing Tamouran shores,” Sergio says as he comes to stand beside me. He is dressed in full armor this morning, with knives strapped to his chest and daggers crossed on his back, hilts poking out from the tops of both his boots. His hair is slicked back out of the way, and he looks restless, eager for action. “Do you want me to give the order to change pennants?”

I nod. “Do it.” I, too, am dressed for war. My robes have been replaced with armor, and my hair is tied back in a tight
series of braids, a Kenettran hairstyle. I've left my Tamouran head wraps behind. It was a tempting thought, flying over Alamour looking like a Tamouran girl—but I want them to know what nation is coming for them.

“As you say, Your Majesty,” Sergio replies.

I glance at him. A deep crease has formed between his brows.
Is he thinking about Violetta too?
“This time, we will succeed,” I say.
At conquering Tamoura. At finding my sister.

“We will,” he echoes. He offers me a terse nod, his face expressionless.

The sky above us, startlingly blue when we first left Kenettra, is now a threatening gray. Black clouds streak the horizon in front of us. Sergio gathers his cloak more tightly about him, his eyes trained in concentration on the approaching storm. He has been working on this tempest ever since we set sail, and now it is strong enough that I can sense the sparks in the air, the prickle along my arms.

“Black seas,” Sergio mutters, gesturing down at the dark waters. “A bad omen.”

“Your Majesty!” Magiano's voice shouts at us from the crow's nest. We both look skyward. “We've sighted land!” His arm emerges from the side of the nest to point toward the horizon, and when I follow it, I see a sliver of gray land emerging underneath a dark sky. Even from this distance, the vague silhouette of a high wall can be seen, fortified by one side that is nothing more than a steep cliff.

An instant later, Magiano drops down next to us. I didn't even notice him making his way down the main masthead.
“That is Alamour, my love,” he says, gesturing toward the cliff and wall.

The last time my forces set our sights on Tamoura, it was to conquer their northwestern territories. Now I am going to set foot in their capital. Thunder rolls across the ocean, and flashes of lightning make the clouds glow. I wrap my arms around myself and shudder. My mother told me stories of this place, from where my ancestors came, and how many times armies had failed to penetrate its walls.

But I will be different.

If Violetta were here, she would be trembling at the thunder. Is she doing so right now, somewhere in Tamoura?

Sergio rests his hand on the hilt of his sword. “I haven't heard their bugles sound. But if they haven't seen us yet, they will soon. Half of our fleet is going to sail into their western bay.” He draws an invisible image in the air, gesturing at the city's two bays and the cliffs running along its northern border. “The west is their main harbor, difficult to enter because of the narrow passage in. The east is an easier bay to access, but full of sharp rocks. This is where the other half of our fleet—where
we
ourselves—will enter. We can sail in, but we can't dock. So we'll call our baliras instead.” Sergio pauses to look at me. “I hope you feel rested, because we're going to need you to conjure one vast illusion of invisibility for us.”

I nod. Even if the Tamourans can see a glimpse of our ships right now, they will not be expecting them to all vanish into thin air. Invisibility, despite all my mastery, is still the most difficult of my illusions—making myself invisible in a
city usually requires a great deal of concentration, painting over my appearance with whatever is around me, constantly, as I move. But out here in the open ocean, all I need to do is weave an illusion of repeating waves and sky over our ships. Even if I make a few mistakes, the Tamourans will be watching from far away. It should be easy to fool them. If I can weave invisibility across the entire fleet, they won't know where we are until we are upon them.

“And are the baliras ready?” I ask, stepping closer to the railing to look down at the ocean.

Sergio nods. “They're ready.” But I sense an immediate unease in him and look up. When he sees my expression, he sighs and shakes his head. “The baliras have been restless all night. I'm not an expert in their behavior, but some of the other crew members tell me that they seem like they're ill. Something in the water, perhaps.”

“Always knew the fish from this strait tasted funny,” Magiano quips, but he barely says it like a joke. I study the baliras that skim the surface of the water as they swim. I can't tell how healthy they are, but Sergio's words frighten me.

“Will they be strong enough to carry us across the eastern bay?” I ask as one of them bursts through the waves with a haunting call.

Sergio crosses his arms. “They say the baliras will fly long enough to get us over the wall. I don't know if they'll survive a long battle, though.”

“So we need to make it quick and clean,” Magiano says.

“Essentially, yes.”

Magiano raises an eyebrow at me. He doesn't say it, but I know he's wishing that we had someone like Gemma with us. Maybe we would have, once upon a time. But Gemma is dead.
She hated you, anyway,
add the whispers, and I harden my heart before I let myself think about her for much longer. The Daggers will be waiting for us, along with the Tamouran army. The thought of forcing them to their knees gives me some sense of satisfaction.
Finally,
the whispers sigh.

In unison, our silver-white pennants turn into black ones that blend with the darkening sky. Our war drums echo deep and rhythmic across the sea. The shores of Tamoura are growing closer, and I can see the towers of the capital. Ships have gathered in the harbor, some clustered at the narrow entrance, ready to stop us. But Sergio's storm is already doing its work. The ocean crashes hard against the harbor's rocks, sending white spray high in the air and rocking the Tamouran fleet.

The waves hit our own ships hard too, and as one smashes into our side, I careen toward the railing. My hands find it and latch on for safety. Behind me, Magiano makes a flying leap at the edge of the sail and lifts himself onto it in the blink of an eye. He pirouettes to the ladder steps, which lead up along the mainmast. “You're going to need a better view,” he shouts. “Care to join me?”

He's right. I take his hand, and he pulls me to the first step. Slowly, I make my way up as the ship tosses. Blackness has nearly covered the entire sky, leaving only a sliver of blue over the capital, surrounded by churning storm clouds.
Fat drops of rain have started to pelt down on us. A roll of thunder shakes us. From here, I can see the entire expanse of the Tamouran coastline—the smaller bay off to one side of the city, and the wider bay that we are now sailing dangerously close to. The bay's mouth gapes before us, and the rocks lining it are sharp and jagged, like the jaws of a monster rising out of the ocean. Directly beyond it is a line of Tamouran warships, all facing our fleet and ready for battle. As we look on, a burst of cannon fire sparks from one of the ships. A warning shot.

I take in the ocean behind us. My Kenettran warships wait for our command.

Magiano gives me his perfect, sidelong smile. “Shall we, White Wolf?”

I turn back to the vast bay and the Tamouran ships, raise my hands, and draw on my energy. The whispers in my head awaken, thrilled with their freedom—and the energy all around me shimmers in a web of threads. I am darkness within, and my darkness reaches out, seeking the fear in the hearts of our enemy soldiers, the anxiety in the hearts of those in my own fleet. It grows in my chest until I can't hold it in anymore.

So I let it out—and weave.

The clouds over our fleet glow a faint blue. Then, a phantom creature bursts from the water, a figure of black smoke that morphs into the ghost of a white wolf, each of its fangs as large as one of our ships, its eyes glowing red against the storm. It hovers over our fleet with its glare trained on the
Tamouran ships. It lets out a roar right as another clap of thunder shatters the sky.

The Tamouran fleet fires a full volley of cannons at us—but I grin, because I can feel the sudden spike of terror in the hearts of their soldiers. To them, they are staring into the face of a demon.

I glance at Magiano. “Ready?” I ask.

He winks. Rain soaks us both now, coming down in sheets, and water drips from his high knot of braids. “Always ready for you, my love.”

I blush a little, in spite of myself, and turn quickly away before he can see it. Then I shift my concentration away from my illusion. Magiano reaches out with his energy this time—he takes over the illusion of the white wolf, and as he holds it in place, I weave an enormous blanket of invisibility over all of our ships, morphing them into the image of black ocean and stormy skies. We vanish from sight in the churning waves.

The Tamouran ships continue firing, but now I can tell that they are aiming blindly, trained only in the direction of their last attack. We are close enough now to the bay's entrance that I can see the Tamouran soldiers running back and forth on the decks of the ships, their head wraps soaked in the rain. My heartbeat quickens in excitement at the sight of them.
I am coming for you all.

I am coming for my sister.

Down below, Sergio's voice rings out, “
Fire!
”

Our cannons erupt in unison. They rip into the sides of the Tamouran ships, and distant smoke and screams fill the air.
They fire back, but they still cannot see us. Our ship reaches the bay's mouth, still shielded behind invisibility, and Sergio guides us in, narrowly avoiding the jagged rocks on either side.

Magiano suddenly seizes my wrist and yanks me down lower in the crow's nest. I duck instinctively with him. An instant later, I see what has caught his attention—baliras, dressed in silver armor, flying in our direction. It takes me a moment to recognize one of their riders. And the recognition only comes because of the flames that shoot out toward us.

Enzo.

The Daggers are here.

Our pennant catches fire for an instant, before the huge spray of waves crashes over us again and puts it out. But the glimpse of flames temporarily exposed where our ship is, and the Tamourans' cannons point in our direction. They explode, hurling cannonballs toward us.

I'm thrown against Magiano as one of their cannons rips into the side of our vessel. My concentration flickers, and my illusion wavers long enough to reveal our ships again, ghosts moving against the storm, before I quickly cover them up. Overhead, Enzo rains down another burst of fire. This time, it hits one of the ships behind us, and its forward sails erupt in flames.

Other enemy baliras start firing arrows at us. I grit my teeth and huddle against Magiano for warmth in the crow's nest, listening to the sound as they slice through the air. Our ship, as well as two others, has managed to make it inside
the bay, but we are not moving fast enough to repel the Tamouran fleet waiting for us. Enzo's bond tugs hard at my heart, and I can feel him reaching out for me as I call to him instinctively. He knows exactly where I am. Even now, I can see him circling back around, a rider separated from the others, hunting me down.

Bastard prince.

“I need to fly,” I mutter to Magiano as I stagger to my feet. “We need to be airborne.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, a blast of wind hits us. His answer is lost as he grabs my waist and presses us both against the crow's nest, shielding our faces from the impact. It is such a strong gale that it threatens to lift us off our feet. Only Magiano's clinging to the crow's nest keeps us from being blown straight into the ocean. At the same time, a wave smashes against the ship behind us with a force far greater than the storm's waves.